Friday, July 6

Lots of great presentations today! I learned a lot in this class and hope to maintain my enthusiasm for implementing in the classroom.

Thursday, July 5

I worked very hard today to complete my presentation for the major project. I almost freaked out yesterday and changed my topic, because a fellow student had presented the same topic and had done a fabulous job. However, after talking to Dr. L., I decided to stick with my project topic of wikis. Lots of great information learned today, as always.

Tuesday, July 3

Today I dedicate my blog entry to my loving grandma who passed away this morning. She was an amazingly smart lady who dedicated her life to the education of our youth for 28 years. I loved her like a mother, but like a mother there were times when she and I fought like crazy. For the past 10 years, she battled Alzheimer's disease, so she's really been "gone" for quite some time. However, the shock of her passing is still huge; for hours now I've been flashing back to the moments of our life together...some good, some not so good. Technologically speaking, Grandma wasn't too advanced in relation to our current world. However, for her time, she was a true innovator. She used active learning, with her kids constantly engaged. She employed multiple techniques for making sure that all who were under her care were learning. She empowered her learners to extend beyond the classroom setting and look to the future. She would have embraced all the opportunities that Web 2.0 offer AFTER having thought about the possible uses very carefully. She was a true professional and I will miss her forever. So, to conclude this entry it's not really about computer lab time today, but it is about how important it is that we as educators devote ourselves to our students. They are our precious future and the reason we signed on to this career.

Monday, July 2

Today we shared our lesson plans; I learned about a cool app. called Starwalk. I plan to share that with my own children as they like to look at the stars. I also learned that a Glogster is a graphic blog where you can mix web, images, text, music, and video.

We spent a lot of time discussing technology planning and the importance of having acceptable use plans. We also talked about professional development for technology and the online opportunities that exist (SmartEd Services, Smart Exchange, Blackboard, Learn Central.)

I intend to get busy working on my wiki for the major project. I attempted to log in today to get started but became a little overwhelmed, so I need to get back to it later.

Overall, good day!

Thursday, June 28

Wow, did I learn a lot today! I particularly enjoyed visiting the NASA center via videoconferencing. I can see the applicability for my seventh graders next year. We have a new science teacher on our team for next year, and I plan to see if we can utilize the NASA site for both science content and language arts written reflections. Another really exciting idea was that of the QR codes. I think I'll insert some into my back-to-school letter for the parents. After reading last night and listening today, I am full of resource information for assignment 3, so I plan to try to get a handle on that this weekend. Great class!

Wednesday, June 27

Great class today! Things were much clearer to me for some reason. Last night's reading produced some idea sparks. I plan to add animations to my product choice list, as well as add the note taking idea which has facts and notes on the left, nonlinguistic(representative symbols) on the right and a summary sentence or two on the bottom. I also decided to expand the choices for a student research project. Normally I have them research a famous composer, but now I plan to add researching a famous historical figure, mathematician, or scientist. In this way, I feel that I will be including the other core subjects from our team. Another idea is that I plan to have my kids access and write about their research within the Jason project. A former teammate had them accessing that site during Science class, but she is now gone and so I will pick it up in Language Arts class.

Tuesday, June 26

Today I am a bit overwhelmed with all of the different possibilities. I need to create a spreadsheet categorizing all the different options for blogging, wikis, webpages, etc. Yikes! This is usually the point at school when I turn it over to my students. They consistently amaze me with their technological skills. Ah well, I shall power on...

Voice Thread seems like an interesting option for my classroom; I shall investigate further later. I am now a user on wickispaces and intend to create a wicki for my students later this summer. I attempted to use Google Docs with my students one year, but it was not an especially effective tool at the time. I may revisit the option.