Blogger Guidelines

Blogs can be great educational tools if you know how to use them correctly. Here are some tips and guidelines for making blogging as effective as possible!

Short Story WebQuest

I made a short little WebQuest to introduce students to short stories!

Using New Media to Teach

I think that the edutopia (witty name by the way) offers some great tips for using new media in the classroom! I certainly think some tips are more easily utilized than others. But there's no reason to not take at least some of these tips and put them to use. Even if a teacher uses 2 of the 10 ideas provided, his/her classroom will benefit! I also think that for the tools to be used successfully, you would definitely have to gauge the class of students; for example, while one group of students may be capable of using twitter in the classroom, another group may be too immature to benefit from the method.

I am obsessed with organization and spend more time than I'd like to admit trying to think of better ways to organize my life. TCPCG has certainly put my organizational skills to the test and, to be honest, I'm still working on the best way to put everything for this program together! So, I explored some of the websites that were suggested for organization/projects and really like iGoogle. I think that many students struggle to organize themselves and iGoogle could serve as the answer. My issue is that I would be forcing students to have some kind of online account and I'm not necessarily comfortable making a high school student sign up for a google account without his/her parents or guardians permission. With all of the various issues surrounding proper web etiquette and all of the ways parents try to control the web use of their teens, I would have to find a way to ensure that parents knew about the google account. This same issue extends to some of the other sites that edutopia suggested. For that reason alone, I may be more comfortable using something like thinkquest.org (which has nothing else attached to it). I had never heard of it before, but ThinkQuest looks like it would be a fun way to help kids get organized and stay on top of their work. Perhaps it would even encourage them to do work since being on a computer tends to be more attractive to students than putting pen to paper in a planner.

I also can't end this post without saying that I LOVE the idea of using virtual classrooms to get in touch with a class in a different part of the world. It's so easy for teachers to simply talk about culture, but what about literally inviting a different culture in through teaming with a class from a different part of the world?

This article goes in the "keep" pile!

Video Embedding- An Oldie, but a Goodie!

Schoolhouse Rock: Educational and Catchy.

They'll never forget adverbs again!

screencast-o-matic

Can we do it?

Yes we can! (Assuming it plays when someone hits "play")

3-minute-later-update: I just hit "play" and "an error occurred", so I would like to take this moment to temporarily retract my "Yes we can!" statement.

5-minute-later-update: I published my post and hit "play" and it worked. Temporary retraction lifted...YES WE CAN!!!

Alan November...I Agree.

The Hate Directory? I have never heard of that in my life but I like it. When I first read about it, I thought of Banned Books for some reason. I love that the internet has been, in some way, "organized." I'm sure we're heading in a direction that will mean even more organization on the internet and I can't wait to see how someone manages to make even larger virtual file cabinets than what already exists.

I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of live video cameras in the classroom- geez, talk about being constantly watched. Maybe we should all look into the cameras, shake our fists and read excerpts from Brave New World. Big Brother much? While I understand the idea of the book reports and the student/parent interaction, I don't think I agree with it. Yes, parents need to be involved in the learning process and parent and family involvement is, I think, integral to student success, but there are definitely moments when a parent needs to back off and let their kid learn on their own. This idea is like giving an "all aboard" cheer to "helicopter parents" and encouraging bad habits.

As for me? I'll definitely keep November's article in mind as I start to think about how to use technology. I will try to informate instead of automate as often as possible.

Saturday Morning Cartoons? No, but Now I Know!

So, I woke up a little mad at the world that my Saturday morning sleeping or cartoon watching would have to be put on permanent hold until the end of this program (okay, not true, I actually never watch cartoons on Saturday...okay, rarely). I figured I'd start with the closest thing possible...a youtube video!

I didn't know most of those facts; while I had an idea of them and knew that the digital shift was insane, I hadn't really thought about the millions of televisions sitting in peoples' bathrooms or the sheer amount of content that is on youtube or the amount that one teenager can text in an instant- much less in a month. I'm also totally one of those people that is referenced that is afraid to use my cell phone to purchase anything! C'mon- the security on those things cant be that good! When I first watched, one of the more surprising facts, which I suppose if I think about it more isn't terrible surprising, is that 90% of emails sent are spam. Maybe it's the magic of gmail filters that has kept me innocent and naive. But I do remember those days of AOL and the amount of spam I got was impressive- I just thought it had gotten better since then!

The Major Lesson: Keep Up or Get Out. These numbers and facts are sometimes hilarious and sometimes downright scary; but perhaps the most dangerous part of this is what's happening to the need for people and the need for physical jobs. Teachers have to keep up and make use of the technology while still managing to stress the importance of social interaction; it's as if our future jobs (fingers and toes crossed) now demand of us a whole new area- making sure kids can talk and interact with one another when they're cell phones are turned off and their computers aren't in front of their faces.

Also, my first lesson to my class may be about why it's not necessary to text the entire book of world records...really?!?

Day 1: Full Speed Ahead

Week 1...what a start. Four days and my brain is exploding with ed. psych, lesson plans and the daunting task of a professional portfolio.

I'm ready for this technology course and think that it will help a lot in creating creative and interactive lessons plans. As exciting and energetic as I can be, having technology in the classroom and knowing how to properly integrate it will definitely add an extra (and more than welcome) element to the classroom. I'm comfortable on a mac, but by no means am any type of computer wizard. I'm ready to have a few more tricks up my sleeve!

So the goal you ask? Learn as much as possible...and not hit a wall going 100mph.