Social Networking

As I have tried to be more tech savvy I have registered for myspace and facebook accounts. I registered for myspace over a year ago and have never gone back. I don't think I was comfortable with it so I didn't use it. I registered for facebook last summer when I was taking a class that required it. I did the minimum for the assignment and didn't go back until recently. Now I check it weekly to see who has been out there and what is going on. I like the idea of knowing what people are up to however, I loathe the sending of eggs and gifts and blah blah blah...please don't make me choose friends to send this stuff to. I don't like those emails that want you to forward them on to fifteen of your closest friends or you'll have bad luck forever...I don't mind getting the emails just dont pressure me to send it on. With fb I want to be able to keep up with friends and not do the frilly little things that go with it...it's just too much pressure for me!!

Toons

Thanks to my collaboration with my media specialist Jeanne I will be using toondoo.com to have my students create avatars and short cartoon strips. We decided to offer this as an option this year for those students who want to use technology to complete their book project. I have been playing around with it and have found a lot of "cool" things that I think will attract kids. But...just like all things using technology we'll have to wait and see! During this unit on Graphic novels students will also be sharing their thoughts and ideas on a wiki. This is something that we did last year and worked out a lot of the kinks...I'm sure we'll find some new kinks this year...so onward with the battle!

Creating videos

As part of our school district's technology crew this year we were required to make a video of our teaching and then we used the videos as a tool for creating how to videos for new teachers with voice overs etc. As the district looks at ways to cut spending one of the items on the chopping block is the induction program for new teachers. The district is hoping that these videos can be used to help with some of the training for new teachers. We each received a Tablet PC to use with students as part of tech crew. Making this video has been a valuable experience and I can see how I could create great videos for use with students in my classroom. However, time involved in creating a video is a big concern.

Here is my video (it's only 2 minutes)...

Web pages

Sometimes technology can be so frustrating!! Last year I created a project with my reading classes where they read a historical fiction novel and then used the Big 6 research process (a great way to create plagerism proof assignments) to have them research the historical time period and then create a web page to share that information. Well...last year we created our web pages in word and then saved them as a web page and we found that when we did that the different elements of the web pages were moved around and some of the information was missing. So to avoid such troubles this year we created our webpages in publisher. The students loved the assignment and had a great time creating their web pages...however we have been unable to save them as web pages to be viewed on the internet through my school web page. I don't have the kmowledge to do this on my own so I have been working with our technology guru and we're still struggling...ugh! I enjoy trying new things with my students and they love the projects but I sometimes feel like it's more trouble than it's worth...and yet I will be collaborating with Jeanne to work on creating cartoons for our graphic novels. Wish me luck!