Thursday, June 25, 2015
How long has it been?
So, I have been trying to restart my social media presence and remembered "this ole blog". I've gleaned a lot of great ideas from reading other teachers' blogs, FB posts, tweets, etc. and am ready to jump back in!
Friday, June 25, 2010
New Web Excitement!
I attended a fantastic technology class, this week at the Genesee ISD! It was called integrating technology for grades 3-8. I found out about some fantastic new web tools and can't wait to use them with students. I appreciated how positive the instructor (Floyd Braid) was. He had lots of great ideas for how to use technology when you only have one computer in the classroom, etc. He was an excellent instructor who moved easily between teaching his lesson with us as students and analyzing techniques with us as teachers. This was a worthwhile investment of time to be sure!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Thing 23 Now What Do I Do?
This has been an amazing journey for me! I thought I had some technology skills (and I did) but I had no idea what was available to me both personally and professionally! The exercises I've completed and the applications I've used have truly been life-changing for me and for my students.
My thinking on teaching has been greatly influenced by Charlotte Danielson's [I put that link in, isn't that cool?] work on the four domains of teaching, so I'll sum up my learning using her basic framework. Just in case you aren't familiar, two of the domains are visible: classroom environment and instruction and two are invisible (but critical): planning/reflection and professional contributions.
The potential to contribute professionally is obviously all around me. I've been sharing what I've learned with staff and community members both in my program and out. I've offered to lead a portion of our first staff development session in the fall to share some of the tools I've found useful. The best sharing, though, comes from making time to sit alongside a teacher and help them get their own accounts, pages, blogs started. I hope to make time to do that, this summer with a couple of my colleagues. Having this blog to look back on and remind myself of potential uses for these tools will be extremely helpful.
Many of these tools will assist me in planning for the upcoming school year. Enhancing my website with links to relevant material for students, adding widgets that make my site interactive and putting enough of the right kind of information on it will make it a "must visit" for my students. This will enable me to put some of my long-term planning, which I've gotten good at in a shareable format and let the students take on more responsibility for managing their learning.
The other area of planning is for student use of the tools. I wrote an entry about www.kidblog.org and am piloting that with a class, now. I've discovered a lot, including that I will require correct spelling and grammar! I also assume that the young people intuitively know more about technology, but many of my students didn't understand title versus post versus comment boxes. Having a month or so to try this out has been invaluable and will improve the experience for next year's bloggers.
Students will benefit from being able to use the flashcard site. I'll benefit from being able to check some work on line. We've transitioned to teaching, so I'll continue in that vein. The Wiki presents obvious possibilities for student writing and collaboration. I like the idea of posting assignments, quizzes and tests for students. They have planners, but they only work when open :)! I think I will also make use of the calendar feature on my website for this.
With greater on line options for students, I see greater possibilities for individualizing instruction. Taking the example of the new student (from a previous post), I anticipate being able to direct him to materials that will be appropriate for him and help him to catch up. Some of my students blog posts indicate interests that I can perhaps link to materials that will interest them.
The classroom environment may change considerably. My schools have computer labs, but I've largely stayed out of them. Now I can anticipate scheduling 1-2 sessions per week in the lab so that all students have access to the tools we'll be using while at school. I've had one student respond to a blog question by doing his own research above and beyond what we've done in class. I'm hoping this kind of motivation will be contagious and Spanish will be a class they think of first rather than last when doing homework. Hey, a teacher can dream!
One of the biggest challenges is for me to keep practicing with these tools and adding others to my repertoire! I'd love to have a follow-up opportunity through Wayne RESA. I will certainly use these as much as I can on my own, but having a session and a deadline can be very motivating! My most regular source for what's new will most likely be Delicious [I couldn't help myself, before this I didn't know how easy it is!] Thanks for the opportunity to improve my teaching!
My thinking on teaching has been greatly influenced by Charlotte Danielson's [I put that link in, isn't that cool?] work on the four domains of teaching, so I'll sum up my learning using her basic framework. Just in case you aren't familiar, two of the domains are visible: classroom environment and instruction and two are invisible (but critical): planning/reflection and professional contributions.
The potential to contribute professionally is obviously all around me. I've been sharing what I've learned with staff and community members both in my program and out. I've offered to lead a portion of our first staff development session in the fall to share some of the tools I've found useful. The best sharing, though, comes from making time to sit alongside a teacher and help them get their own accounts, pages, blogs started. I hope to make time to do that, this summer with a couple of my colleagues. Having this blog to look back on and remind myself of potential uses for these tools will be extremely helpful.
Many of these tools will assist me in planning for the upcoming school year. Enhancing my website with links to relevant material for students, adding widgets that make my site interactive and putting enough of the right kind of information on it will make it a "must visit" for my students. This will enable me to put some of my long-term planning, which I've gotten good at in a shareable format and let the students take on more responsibility for managing their learning.
The other area of planning is for student use of the tools. I wrote an entry about www.kidblog.org and am piloting that with a class, now. I've discovered a lot, including that I will require correct spelling and grammar! I also assume that the young people intuitively know more about technology, but many of my students didn't understand title versus post versus comment boxes. Having a month or so to try this out has been invaluable and will improve the experience for next year's bloggers.
Students will benefit from being able to use the flashcard site. I'll benefit from being able to check some work on line. We've transitioned to teaching, so I'll continue in that vein. The Wiki presents obvious possibilities for student writing and collaboration. I like the idea of posting assignments, quizzes and tests for students. They have planners, but they only work when open :)! I think I will also make use of the calendar feature on my website for this.
With greater on line options for students, I see greater possibilities for individualizing instruction. Taking the example of the new student (from a previous post), I anticipate being able to direct him to materials that will be appropriate for him and help him to catch up. Some of my students blog posts indicate interests that I can perhaps link to materials that will interest them.
The classroom environment may change considerably. My schools have computer labs, but I've largely stayed out of them. Now I can anticipate scheduling 1-2 sessions per week in the lab so that all students have access to the tools we'll be using while at school. I've had one student respond to a blog question by doing his own research above and beyond what we've done in class. I'm hoping this kind of motivation will be contagious and Spanish will be a class they think of first rather than last when doing homework. Hey, a teacher can dream!
One of the biggest challenges is for me to keep practicing with these tools and adding others to my repertoire! I'd love to have a follow-up opportunity through Wayne RESA. I will certainly use these as much as I can on my own, but having a session and a deadline can be very motivating! My most regular source for what's new will most likely be Delicious [I couldn't help myself, before this I didn't know how easy it is!] Thanks for the opportunity to improve my teaching!
Thing 22-My Very Own Wiki
For all of the times I've sighed when my students didn't follow directions... I posted this without the link to my Wiki!
Senora Keith's Wiki
Setting up the Wiki was very easy and intuitive! I discovered that the inserting process was also easy. However, because I didn't click save, my objects didn't look like they inserted correctly and I took a couple out before I settled on one. This actually led to another problem. I left the slide show in because I liked it, but the phrase above it is misspelled, so it's going to have to come out. I can't have misspellings, typos, etc. in anything I publish. However, I do want to show this as a finished "thing" so I don't plan on changing it until next week. Creating a link was so easy! I linked to my school district web page. This made me think of another use for a wiki--job hunting! I'm in search of a full-time elementary position. I could use a wiki for my professional documents (on-line portfolio, anyone?) and link to my website or other supporting material on the web! This excites me!
Another great function of a wiki, in my opinion, is staff communication. In my program, Shared Time, we are a group of just over 30 teachers who drive all over teaching students all kinds of subjects on all different schedules. A wiki would be a great electronic bulletin board to reach us with info. We currently are encouraged to drive to the office 2 times a week to check for memos. I think I'll do my part for the environment and suggest this to my supervisor.
Senora Keith's Wiki
Setting up the Wiki was very easy and intuitive! I discovered that the inserting process was also easy. However, because I didn't click save, my objects didn't look like they inserted correctly and I took a couple out before I settled on one. This actually led to another problem. I left the slide show in because I liked it, but the phrase above it is misspelled, so it's going to have to come out. I can't have misspellings, typos, etc. in anything I publish. However, I do want to show this as a finished "thing" so I don't plan on changing it until next week. Creating a link was so easy! I linked to my school district web page. This made me think of another use for a wiki--job hunting! I'm in search of a full-time elementary position. I could use a wiki for my professional documents (on-line portfolio, anyone?) and link to my website or other supporting material on the web! This excites me!
Another great function of a wiki, in my opinion, is staff communication. In my program, Shared Time, we are a group of just over 30 teachers who drive all over teaching students all kinds of subjects on all different schedules. A wiki would be a great electronic bulletin board to reach us with info. We currently are encouraged to drive to the office 2 times a week to check for memos. I think I'll do my part for the environment and suggest this to my supervisor.
Thing 21 Wikis
Again, I was excited to find something I already had experienced. It was especially funny to watch the video, because my Wiki experience was while planning a trip to Traverse City with several friends. We rented a house together and coordinated our menus, what we would bring as far as soap, toilet paper, etc., and what activities we might want to do while we were there. It turned out to be a great experience and we were definitely well-planned.
I was inspired by the classroom wikis about classwork. The Hanalee Book Wiki was great. I liked reading the chapter summaries. It made me want to read the book. My language students could create summaries of grammar rules, with examples that would be useful as they study for quizzes and tests. We just got a new student at the beginning of the 4th quarter. He has had no Spanish experience and the rest of the class is almost halfway through Spanish 1 (they finish next year as 8th graders). He's got a lot of catching up to do and a Wiki would be a great resource.
I think this would also be helpful as a planning tool for school open houses, staff meetings, and field trips. I especially like the ability to limit access to a group and being able to track old versions.
I was inspired by the classroom wikis about classwork. The Hanalee Book Wiki was great. I liked reading the chapter summaries. It made me want to read the book. My language students could create summaries of grammar rules, with examples that would be useful as they study for quizzes and tests. We just got a new student at the beginning of the 4th quarter. He has had no Spanish experience and the rest of the class is almost halfway through Spanish 1 (they finish next year as 8th graders). He's got a lot of catching up to do and a Wiki would be a great resource.
I think this would also be helpful as a planning tool for school open houses, staff meetings, and field trips. I especially like the ability to limit access to a group and being able to track old versions.
Thing 20 Podcast Subscriptions
This thing took a very long time! First of all, I had to download iTunes. I like the language programs I found on epnweb.org. I found ReVerb Spanish to be quite helpful and I would recommend it to students. I think I would use this resource in a lab setting where I could keep an eye on the students. I think once they found out how helpful the language pocasts were, I would trust them to use them on their own.
Personally, I subscribed to This American Life on iTunes. This is a program I have missed since WDET keeps changing its programming. I used to listen to it on Sunday mornings, before church. Now I don't know when they air it. I don't need to find out, though! I will now get each episode automatically.
I can see a staff development use for this tool. I think to hold the teachers' attention, a video or vodcast would be better, but recording and saving sessions for teachers who have to miss a session would be valuable. The other value to that would be relistening to a podcast of a session as a way of following up, checking my progress in implementing a new teaching technique. Further, teachers could share podcasts as part of material for a professional learning community.
I'm looking forward to continuing to enjoy podcasts, myself and sharing them with others, both in teaching and out.
Personally, I subscribed to This American Life on iTunes. This is a program I have missed since WDET keeps changing its programming. I used to listen to it on Sunday mornings, before church. Now I don't know when they air it. I don't need to find out, though! I will now get each episode automatically.
I can see a staff development use for this tool. I think to hold the teachers' attention, a video or vodcast would be better, but recording and saving sessions for teachers who have to miss a session would be valuable. The other value to that would be relistening to a podcast of a session as a way of following up, checking my progress in implementing a new teaching technique. Further, teachers could share podcasts as part of material for a professional learning community.
I'm looking forward to continuing to enjoy podcasts, myself and sharing them with others, both in teaching and out.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Thing 19 Learning about Podcasting
I think one of the most exciting things about Podcasting is how new it is. So many of these things have been in use for a long time, that I feel slow about catching up.
I listened to a few different podcasts. The first was Grammar Girl's tips at grammar.quickanddirtytips.com. She explained further vs. farther. I'm inspired to do my own Spanish grammar tips. Actually having the students do them would be even better. I had been thinking about videos like the ones that explain podcasts, google docs, etc. Their style is simple and it would be simple enough to be accomplished (although I know nothing is as simple as it looks after editing)!
The podcast I most enjoyed were the storynory.com stories. I love to read aloud to my students and since I've been teaching Spanish for the last few years I have very few classroom opportunities to read. I do get to do story time at the bookstore where I work on Saturdays and that definitely fills a hole for me! I know that copyright would be limiting, but perhaps my students and I could write some original stories to read and record.
I clicked on Dan's math for the masses, but from his list it looked like he was speaking to a more educated mass than that to which I belong :)!
I wanted to try a student podcast and ended up with digitalvoices.wikispaces.com, listening to Britnie's speech on being yourself. It was sweet, but the navigation was definitely not as polished. It was good to see a realistic representation of what students would do.
My husband reminds me that his radio station WSDP, which belongs to the Plymouth Canton School District has regular podcasts of their community focus segments. I plan to subscribe (I'm assuming that's Thing 20 :)). I've been sharing this journey with him, maybe he could get the podcasts on epnweb.org.
I listened to a few different podcasts. The first was Grammar Girl's tips at grammar.quickanddirtytips.com. She explained further vs. farther. I'm inspired to do my own Spanish grammar tips. Actually having the students do them would be even better. I had been thinking about videos like the ones that explain podcasts, google docs, etc. Their style is simple and it would be simple enough to be accomplished (although I know nothing is as simple as it looks after editing)!
The podcast I most enjoyed were the storynory.com stories. I love to read aloud to my students and since I've been teaching Spanish for the last few years I have very few classroom opportunities to read. I do get to do story time at the bookstore where I work on Saturdays and that definitely fills a hole for me! I know that copyright would be limiting, but perhaps my students and I could write some original stories to read and record.
I clicked on Dan's math for the masses, but from his list it looked like he was speaking to a more educated mass than that to which I belong :)!
I wanted to try a student podcast and ended up with digitalvoices.wikispaces.com, listening to Britnie's speech on being yourself. It was sweet, but the navigation was definitely not as polished. It was good to see a realistic representation of what students would do.
My husband reminds me that his radio station WSDP, which belongs to the Plymouth Canton School District has regular podcasts of their community focus segments. I plan to subscribe (I'm assuming that's Thing 20 :)). I've been sharing this journey with him, maybe he could get the podcasts on epnweb.org.
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