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!

Thing 4 online tools

Most of the time I feel like I can barely keep my head above water, especially when it comes to technology. Just recently I set my home page to i-google and set up my reader and I love it! When I say I love it I mean, wow, this is fantastic and I can use it easily and I dont have to log in somewhere and remember my password and take that extra step. When I turn on my computer it's right there waiting for me with all of the stuff that I want to look at and check on. When I was going out to look at the tools that were on the wiki it appeared that some of them would be helpful but if I was going to use one of them I would need to attach them to my i-google page to eliminate that dreaded log in thing again. I am old school and still carry around my calendar with a pencil in my purse. I want to get into the new age on keeping my calendar on line but need to find a way to keep it handy and user friendly. I've tried using my phone too but always get one or two things input before I give it up. I'll keep plugging away at this see if I can establish a routine and make it easier for myself. Google calendar on my i-google page is one possibility...but what if I'm not logged in for a day or two...then what?

Thing 2 blogging and Rss feeds

In year two of this MILI journey I finally have my RSS reader up and running. I still only use it for MILI and one other feed but look forward to adding to it now that I am more comfortable using it. I guess I'm one who is better at trying this tech stuff in baby steps, a little here and a little there. I even had big plans of having my 6th graders blog once a week this year so they would have a running record of the year. I am now comfortble using blogger and thought it would be fun to have the students set up accounts...oh the drama...not all students have e-mail accounts and as a district we can't be responsible for setting up e-mails here at school...so...we were invited to use moodle as a mode for our blogs. It is a good system with opportunities to have forums where students can work together and respond to questions that I post and they can comment on what others have written. I sometimes feel like we learn about all of these great tools that we can use and then the district dictates which tools fit within the "laws" of school use...it can be very frusterating. My blogs are not what I had envisioned, however, I learned about a new tool that I can use with my students. The glass half full or half empty, I guess it's all in how you look at it.

When going deeper and looking at the videos they had on youtube (I made it around that nasty filter, yippee) I think there were a couple that would work well to show students about why blogging is something they will want to get proficient at. I liked the term hyper reading in reference to starting in one place and hyperlinking to new and better information. This is something I do all the time as a means of finding exactly the information that I am looking for bt never thought about it in terms of an actual research process. I think this is something that should be addressed with students as many of them do this already but they are not careful about noting the specific site that the information they took came from. I could see this being a problem when they go to cite their sources.

Changing times

Welocme to the information age where we are creating a culture of information junkies. I do not say this in a bad way, it can just be overwhelming at times. I was talking with some of my volleyball friends about how different our tv watching habits are today vs. the 1980's. This came about as we were watching a replay of an 80's Packers/Bears game. Can you believe that you had to wait forever for the score to pop up and the announcers had to tell you what down it was and how many yards were needed for a first down, and forget about the scores of the other games...Now you can see everything you need to know right up on the screen all at once and you wouldn't even need to have the sound on. If you're a junkie like me you're also watching on the couch with your laptop tuned into nfl.com so you can see all the other scores and highlights as they are happening...almost. Can you remember back to the days when there was no infomation tag sliding across the bottom of your screen giving you all the days news highlights while the anchor man is talking about other things. It was interesting to reflect on the way this one "normal" aspect of most people's day has changed over time.