The biggest thing I learned from this class is how to find resources. I always new they were out there but never knew how to go about finding them. I would attend tech conferences and hear others talk and just wonder, "how do they find this stuff?" and I'm happy to report I now can too! The Twitter Lab was the best thing ever! I had started a Twitter account after MACUL in March this year as a means of communication with my classroom families. I never gained any followers so I'm not sure if they followed on my website where it was embedded or not. I forgot to do an end-of-year tech survey like I do at the beginning of the year. At any rate, following the edtech people on there has provided a wealth of resources. I've saved so many to my sqworl account but have not yet had the time to actually see if the sites are useful as tweets roll in so fast and the links link to more things! Ahh! I might also add that this has become my girlfriends least favorite assignment as I now spend too much time on Twitter.
The resources I find can open up so many opportunities to differentiate instruction. I've always wanted more project-based learning for my students as that seems to be what interests them; projects where I've provided direction and an end-goal and they just get independent work time. Using our mobile lab or computer lab we'll be able to do more of this. I sent the article about Evernote as student assessment portfolios to my principal and tech director. I want to explore LiveBinders more to see if as a second grade teaching team we can put resources together to access with our IWBs. My first inclination was for students to use LiveBinders but I don't know how user-friendly it is for 2nd graders.
I'm excited to use the webquest I created and have already posted it to my website. While I won't pay for any webquesting site the process is there in what to consider when creating a webquest and I could use GoogleDocs to lay out a webquest. I can use podcasting and Jing to narrate some of our more difficult math lessons to post online. I'm just so excited!
I'm kind of wrestling with the idea of asking for student volunteers to go paperless this year. They won't be able to in the classroom so much but outside with homework; just as my own experiment to explore the possibilities.
Twitter! Twitter is how I will mostly keep up with new tech information because it is always available. Our school will provide PD, I hope to continue attending MACUL (especially when it's in GR and I can stay with friends for free!), and I will continue to provide PD to my staff in matters of technology. I'm excited for the rest of my staff to join me in having IWB and other technology so that we can begin sharing and collaborating.
The biggest question I have is how to EASILY share and collaborate with staff and students. In regards to students I see so many applications for upper elementary and up but struggle with some application possibilities for lower el. For staff, myself and our tech director have been searching for a way to share resources with ease. As an example, do we create a Delicious account where all elem. staff have access and have a bookmarklet on their browser to add resources? We just haven't thought of an easy way. So those are my two big questions, how do we collaborate with little face-to-face time to do so. Maybe we all start Twitters! As much as I want technology integrated into my own curriculum I also know how much many of my fellow staffers still struggle and fear technology and I just want to find a way to make it seem "easy" for them so that it works for them. The district tech committee's biggest fear is that our IWBs become fancy regular whiteboards.
So, how does technology fit into my professional life? It makes me a life-long learner of new technology, an innovative teacher with differentiated resources, a provider of information to my tech director and administration, and a leader in my building/district in the use of technology in curriculum. All hail Twitter!
Monday, June 20, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Blog Entry #2 - CIP
PLANS
I have to be honest. I have been swamped with school activities and keeping pace with this class as well as extracurriculars and have not thought about the CIP in great detail. What I have thought about is that I would like to incorporate a few of the resources I gave in my resource summary, tools I've used in the past and some we've learned about during this class. So, I know the different applications I or my students may use but I have not decided what medium exactly these will be presented; i.e.: webquest.
NEEDS
What I'll need? Well, that's a funny story because I spent about an hour searching for a free, simple, podcast hosting site without ads and didn't find one I liked. Then it hit me that I could upload mp3 files created in Audacity onto my class webpage in Weebly! Oh well. I like the idea of a webquest which incorporates listening to a podcast, creating a voicethread, creating a blabber, loading something into slideshare, creating a Glog, etc. I'm sure I won't be able to do all of those, especially for 2nd graders, and we'll have to do some of these things online together, so as the lesson comes together I'll see where it takes me.
LEARN
I really want to find a simple way to incorporate the technology in a way the students can use it freely without my constant leadership. With frequent use I know that second graders can use some of these online tools themselves as long as items are laid out for them in an order and procedure they can follow. Most technology tools I've found I use for me or involves a lot of work for me. I want to find something that allows second graders to do a majority of the work. Perhaps through creation of this webquest more of the experience is put on them with me as their guide and mentor, not so much their instructor.
I also would like to learn how many resources are really out there and how easy they are to use collectively. Going to MACUL is so fun for me and I love to attend the sessions that provide new tools for use. This year, I used Sqworl (www.sqworl.com) to bookmark all the neat sites and I've just about reached summertime when I finally have more time to explore these ideas. Through this class I've been able to use some but I need to explore them for use with my students.
CONNECT
What I hope to learn from this experience is pretty much what I said in the previous paragraph, a way to incorporate technology that allows the majority of the work to be done by students. I understand I need to do the setup and work with them throughout the project but a lot of projects we've started before have taken so long because there are middle steps that I need to do so that we can continue with the next step. Somehow, I want to avoid this. By using a webquest the students may take more ownership and pride in their learning. Students enjoy projects and get heavily involved in them but so much of it is still paper-pencil. While my students are young enough that I believe paper-pencil projects are still needed to develop gross and fine motor skills there are also technology skills that they can learn too. I am constantly trying to think of ways to use technology instead of scissors and glue for projects and I'm hoping to find a way, through this project, to easily incorporate technology. I would like to find a web-based tool they like and can use simply.
Another good thing about web-based, or even computer-based, projects is that they are there "forever." Once a lesson is created it can be saved and tweaked for later. I hope to explore more with LiveBinders this summer to create lessons that can be shared with my 2nd grade team. Creating these lessons in a kid-friendly format that can be edited quickly and shared with colleagues will better prepare teachers and students for our future teacher and learning environments.
I have to be honest. I have been swamped with school activities and keeping pace with this class as well as extracurriculars and have not thought about the CIP in great detail. What I have thought about is that I would like to incorporate a few of the resources I gave in my resource summary, tools I've used in the past and some we've learned about during this class. So, I know the different applications I or my students may use but I have not decided what medium exactly these will be presented; i.e.: webquest.
NEEDS
What I'll need? Well, that's a funny story because I spent about an hour searching for a free, simple, podcast hosting site without ads and didn't find one I liked. Then it hit me that I could upload mp3 files created in Audacity onto my class webpage in Weebly! Oh well. I like the idea of a webquest which incorporates listening to a podcast, creating a voicethread, creating a blabber, loading something into slideshare, creating a Glog, etc. I'm sure I won't be able to do all of those, especially for 2nd graders, and we'll have to do some of these things online together, so as the lesson comes together I'll see where it takes me.
LEARN
I really want to find a simple way to incorporate the technology in a way the students can use it freely without my constant leadership. With frequent use I know that second graders can use some of these online tools themselves as long as items are laid out for them in an order and procedure they can follow. Most technology tools I've found I use for me or involves a lot of work for me. I want to find something that allows second graders to do a majority of the work. Perhaps through creation of this webquest more of the experience is put on them with me as their guide and mentor, not so much their instructor.
I also would like to learn how many resources are really out there and how easy they are to use collectively. Going to MACUL is so fun for me and I love to attend the sessions that provide new tools for use. This year, I used Sqworl (www.sqworl.com) to bookmark all the neat sites and I've just about reached summertime when I finally have more time to explore these ideas. Through this class I've been able to use some but I need to explore them for use with my students.
CONNECT
What I hope to learn from this experience is pretty much what I said in the previous paragraph, a way to incorporate technology that allows the majority of the work to be done by students. I understand I need to do the setup and work with them throughout the project but a lot of projects we've started before have taken so long because there are middle steps that I need to do so that we can continue with the next step. Somehow, I want to avoid this. By using a webquest the students may take more ownership and pride in their learning. Students enjoy projects and get heavily involved in them but so much of it is still paper-pencil. While my students are young enough that I believe paper-pencil projects are still needed to develop gross and fine motor skills there are also technology skills that they can learn too. I am constantly trying to think of ways to use technology instead of scissors and glue for projects and I'm hoping to find a way, through this project, to easily incorporate technology. I would like to find a web-based tool they like and can use simply.
Another good thing about web-based, or even computer-based, projects is that they are there "forever." Once a lesson is created it can be saved and tweaked for later. I hope to explore more with LiveBinders this summer to create lessons that can be shared with my 2nd grade team. Creating these lessons in a kid-friendly format that can be edited quickly and shared with colleagues will better prepare teachers and students for our future teacher and learning environments.
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