So sad to see you go...

I know this class isn't "officially" over yet, but I'm a little sad that I won't be learning more with everyone. I've really learned a lot in six days and it's almost unreal. I have learned about so many tools and so many applications of those tools. I don't want to say I'm overwhelmed by the amount of information "thrown" at us in six days because I'm not; I'm more intrigued than ever. Quite a few of these tools are "game changers" and I'm excited to be at the forefront of it all. I'm excited to share these tools and the knowledge I gained with colleagues and friends (I know my mom is itching to see things I've learned). I just love the potential is is lying ahead of me. What an amazing teacher I can become if I stick with it. They always say that the possibilities are endless, well for once I can actually agree with that statement and truly mean it.

Your First Blog Reflection

I can see blog increasing students writing ability as well as a method to have review/reflect the day. I can see advantage to both private and public. Private blogs could be used when the student wants to keep a dairy-like blog just to promote writing. Public blogs allow the world to interact with students and, hopefully, in a positive fashion, which is why teachers have fears about using public blogs.

Students can blog about math problems, science experiements, compare and contrast writing styles or artwork and .... They can answer any type of question the teacher or another student asks.

My concern about blogging with students is that teachers need to be careful it does not become too personal or a counseling situation.

Tim's Day 5 Reflections

Although we again saw many tools, most of them were lower on Bloom's scale and not as relevant a tools for me in my job. I really enjoyed what we learned in Google earth which was more of a personal quest for me than a professional one as I am not sure what I could use it for professionally yet.

The videos for discussion tonight were a stark contrast to one another. On one hand, we had a video on 21st century skills which is one that I think a lot of teachers would agree with had they seen it alone. If they compared it to the balloon video, however, I think it would really help them to see what kinds of things they should be doing. Going from teacher centric, to student centric. Going from low level on Bloom's to high level. The 4th graders were doing things way more advanced than the middle school students.

I am hoping to use these videos together to create an "AHA!" moment for our staff so they can see what we need to move to.

Day 3 - Catch-up thoughts

By the end of Day 3 I was over-saturated and could barely remember what we had done on Days 1 and 2. So much info in such a short amount of time. Reading the book over that break was ideal as it helped reinforce what we had done in class by providing the "slow" explanations for everything. I went from never wanting to see another computer again to believing that I could integrate my lessons into the new applications and make things better for my students.

Day 4 Musings

What a great day! Time to tinker with the new toys, learn how to use them, and even brainstorm application ideas for the classroom. I was relieved to learn that others felt as overwhelmed as I was for the first three days and truly appreciated the slower pace.
GoogleEarth is fun, but I'm not sure what application I would have for that in an English composition classroom. Ideas anyone? The bookshelf was fabulous - what a great way to get book discussions going, both in and out of the classroom. Mixed Ink was also a nice little app, and the evaluation of apps portion of the day was extremely useful. It's nice to hear other's ideas on using things to improve student learning so that I can "steal" them or springboard from them. Thanks for sharing, everyone!

Day 5 Thoughts

The discussion on the apps today and how useful/useless they were in the classroom was helpful. Several years ago we had a tech teacher who sent us several emails a day with links to different sites and tools, but no application ideas. It's difficult to find time in the day to do all that is required and then spend several hours checking out websites and tools and trying to figure out how to use them. Discussions such as today's - what works, what doesn't - how others have used things to promote learning, was just what the doctor ordered.
I'm very excited about how I can use many of the apps in my new job without the same constraints of AUPs for 13 year old students! We're supposed to use WebCT, which is useful to a degree - but Google Docs and Mixed Ink have more possibilities. And the LiveBinderIt app was great - when my students work on a collaborative research project, they usually print out the web address to share with the other group members -- with this app they can just put it all in a binder and share it! How fabulous for them, but I want to do more than give them organization tools. At this point I'm anxious to just sit and play with everything, and figure out how to bring it into lessons so that it actually improves student learning.

Day 5 Reflection--More New Tools!

Google Earth is cool again. I'm so happy that I was able to create that tour! I think that will be interesting for my students to be able to create their own and include pictures and links for others to check out. I can't wait to see what everyone else created. Edmodo is excellent. I'm excited to set it up with my students and get them involved. I think it will make a great "historical" Facebook lesson not to mention all the other features.

The presentation didn't go so well. Actually, I was ready to nap. I know how important the legal issues are for all of us and our administration, but can't we sum it up in a way that is easy to understand and CLEAR? I'm going to check out the sites on the wiki and try to increase my understanding. I was looking forward to backchanneling. I hope we get to try that with something, I'm anxious to see that work.

As we were working this afternoon I found the StainedGlass site. That is so neat! I really liked Jim's idea of putting a collage of all the kids together and hanging it on the wall! I wasn't overly impressed with Animoto--I couldn't get it to work right, frustrating. Overall, it was another productive day!