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!
Well, judging by the fact that you just emailed me, I know you're using Twitter. Twitter is one of those labs where I know it can end up helping folks if they truly want to learn, but you have to dive in and make it work and see results to get it integrated into your daily (or even weekly, perhaps) workflow. I have a lot of faith in you to become a technology leader in your building (if you're not already). :~)
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