One of the tools that I found very beneficial to my students' age group was the collaborating drawing tools. I found that my students were able to easily maneuver through and thoroughly enjoyed the program. I also found that there was a lot less fighting when working on a project together as they all had their own workstations and could make changes as they saw fit.
My school is also introducing Moodle to the district. I do know much about the program, but we are actually having an inservice about it this week. I look forward to learning about the program and implementing it into my classroom, with my students, and with my parents next year.
I also found that podcasting and digital story telling were very interesting to learn about. I think my students will have a great time using this tool, however I did not get the chance to try it with my students this year. For students, I think the more technology that you have in your classroom, the more the majority of them are interested and motivated to complete their work.
I know we did not talk about SMART board technology at all in class, but I am hopefully going to get one in my classroom next year and I believe many of these programs will be taught with much greater ease and efficiency while being implemented with the advantage of the SMART board in my room. Students in the past have loved the board and I can't wait to show them these new programs in an easier fashion. This is how I will be implementing these programs in the future.
I do use FACEBOOK and Twitter for my personal/professional needs as I keep updated with friends and professionals in my field. I do not think that it would be appropriate for my students at this age, but I have to admit there are many of my students who have their own FACEBOOK page. I just do not feel it is appropriate to be socially "friends" with my students on these programs at their age.
The programs that I found were not beneficial for my students were blogging, twitter, del.icio.us, and wikis. I don't feel that these few programs were beneficial to my teaching style and with my age of students. I feel that the blogs and twitters were meant for students of older ages if not adults most of the time. I also thought about the wikis being used with my students, but I found it difficult to learn and maneuver myself, let alone a 7 year old child.
I have already started talking with not only my technology expert in my district about my PLN and the things I would like to have implemented at school, but also with my school principal and other colleagues. I figured that if I am finding the tools useful for my classroom, why wouldn't I share these tools with others who might find them useful as well. I think that I should also be showing them tools I am not planning to use, as they might be able to see it or use it in a different way then I am seeing it. They might even convince me to use one of the tools I don't see as useful at this time.
The value of my personal learning network is that this is what I will be taking back to my district and classroom as a new way of teaching. I am always looking for ways to better my teaching and technology is lacking in my classroom as of now. I am very excited to learn more about the programs in my PLN over the summer so that I can implement them successfully and comfortably next school year.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Following people on Twitter has been quite interesting for me. I did not think that I would get as much information as I would have.
I have been following some educational sites dealing with behavioral management skills and different ways to successfully handle behaviors in the classroom and I have found some very important and useful skills I have not heard about before. I found it most useful to follow these professional people to better myself and my teaching.
I also found Twitter a great way to catch up with and keep up to date with my friends. I also kept with with some educational news sites.
I have been following some educational sites dealing with behavioral management skills and different ways to successfully handle behaviors in the classroom and I have found some very important and useful skills I have not heard about before. I found it most useful to follow these professional people to better myself and my teaching.
I also found Twitter a great way to catch up with and keep up to date with my friends. I also kept with with some educational news sites.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
del.icio.us
Personally, I have not used delicious as much as I have wished. It seems quite tricky for me to navigate around, so I have not been as motivated to look through the site.
I did look through many of my other classmates links and found many of them that I added to my own list of links. I found that many people tagged links on technology which I didn't even think to tag before. I added some of them to my list as well. I also found the "free" links to be quite interesting so I plan to add those as well. It is great to be able to share with others so that as well all know, "two heads are better than one," and the things we don't even think about searching for come up in others' tags, then you think "why didn't I think of that."
Why I was looking for sites to tag, I chose to find a lot of links on behavior and behavior management because that is what my PDP research is about. I also plan to find and tag more links that relate directly to my curriculum so that they can be easily assessable to my teaching throughout the year. As I looked at others' tags, I did get many more ideas to tag. I haven't done any of that curriculum tagging yet, but plan to do more over the summer when I can sit down with my books and get information for each content area. If I was to teach children about tagging, I think I would go through the same steps we did in this class because it was a nice and easy pace that we learned at.
Tag bundles are very useful for because then you can get all your information in one place and makes your time spent getting information more efficient. If using tag clouds, like I stated before, I used mostly my behavioral management links because that is part of my PDP research. I added annotations to my links because it made them easier for me to remember what it was I had interest in at each site.
When trying to see who had a lot of the same links that I used I was quite surprised to find out that many of my classmates were on the same links.
I think that there were so many web 2.0 tools I have learned about this semester that I would like to use in my classroom and district. I have not yet talked to administration yet about these tools only because our school has been busy with many other changes that I did not want to interrupt. If I was to recommend some to my administration, I think that I would set up a lesson or how I am going to use it in a lesson so that they can see a visual of what I'm recommending. I would hope that this would convince them of the value by not only reading the information about the tool but also seeing an example of it.
I did look through many of my other classmates links and found many of them that I added to my own list of links. I found that many people tagged links on technology which I didn't even think to tag before. I added some of them to my list as well. I also found the "free" links to be quite interesting so I plan to add those as well. It is great to be able to share with others so that as well all know, "two heads are better than one," and the things we don't even think about searching for come up in others' tags, then you think "why didn't I think of that."
Why I was looking for sites to tag, I chose to find a lot of links on behavior and behavior management because that is what my PDP research is about. I also plan to find and tag more links that relate directly to my curriculum so that they can be easily assessable to my teaching throughout the year. As I looked at others' tags, I did get many more ideas to tag. I haven't done any of that curriculum tagging yet, but plan to do more over the summer when I can sit down with my books and get information for each content area. If I was to teach children about tagging, I think I would go through the same steps we did in this class because it was a nice and easy pace that we learned at.
Tag bundles are very useful for because then you can get all your information in one place and makes your time spent getting information more efficient. If using tag clouds, like I stated before, I used mostly my behavioral management links because that is part of my PDP research. I added annotations to my links because it made them easier for me to remember what it was I had interest in at each site.
When trying to see who had a lot of the same links that I used I was quite surprised to find out that many of my classmates were on the same links.
I think that there were so many web 2.0 tools I have learned about this semester that I would like to use in my classroom and district. I have not yet talked to administration yet about these tools only because our school has been busy with many other changes that I did not want to interrupt. If I was to recommend some to my administration, I think that I would set up a lesson or how I am going to use it in a lesson so that they can see a visual of what I'm recommending. I would hope that this would convince them of the value by not only reading the information about the tool but also seeing an example of it.
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