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.