educator450

Wow…..I cannot believe it has been 10 weeks!  We have learned so many different tools available for free!  How awesome!  I feel like these are such valuable tools that more people should be aware of them.  Throughout the course I often felt overwhelmed and worried that I would not be able to complete the course.  Fortunately I stuck with the course because every week was something new and useful.  I do wish the course could have been spread out a bit more.  One task per week would have been much more approachable.  I often felt rushed and not really able to play with the tools as much as I wanted.  The most important step now is to use what I know!!  Otherwise this course would have been a waste of time.  The most important aspect of the course for me was blogging.  I plan to blog on my teacher webpage and have in fact registered for a course during professional development week specifically addressing this topic.  I also see myself using Flickr…what a great site!!  Overall, I feel I have definitely benefited from this course.

I played around with Classroom 2.0 much longer than I had planned.  Once again, I am shown a great website that I had no idea existed.  Classroom 2.0 is great because you are able to share ideas and talk with others as if you were part of a “club” without actually having to meet in person.  You can simply log in and you are part of a group of people with similar interests.  I began with the group “Elementary Reading Teachers Discussions” and found several great discussions almost automatically.  ”Best Web Sites for Reading” was one post that had numerous very useful replies.  Teachers provided websites that they had used and found to be effective.  Another great discussion was “Language Arts Activities using a Smartboard.”  One reply linked to a great blog specifically addressing this topic.  How awesome!!  I am always looking for more activities to use on my Smartboard.  I definitely plan to join Classroom 2.0.  It is like buying a teacher book without spending money.

The great thing about this course is that it forces you to try something that seems scary or overwhelming.  I was hesitant to do this “Thing” and actually put it off as long as I could.  For some reason I was nervous because it seemed like many steps.  Although it did take me a bit of time, I figured it out!  I now know how to record something on my computer (didn’t even know it was available), add it to iTunes, use iTunes and convert a file to MP3.  I feel like I have accomplished something.  A podcast is neat and I think it can be used in the classroom.  It is so important for students to learn how to read with expression.  I think creating a podcast is a great way for them to hear how they sound when they read.  They can practice reading short passages with tone, expression, and fluency.  I recorded a poem by Robert Frost and it was interesting to see how I sounded.

As a teacher, I think collaborative documents is definitely a leap in the right direction.  So often we see a teacher give a great lesson or use awesome resources.  It would be super beneficial to store such lessons and ideas in one place that all teachers could go to.  The best part is that other teachers can add ideas to the lesson.  Whenever I have used a lesson I have found online, I always change it or alter it in some way.  It would neat to add our opinions or ideas for improvement or just for variations.  We are constantly learning about accomodations and differentiating our teaching.  A Google Doc would be a great place to add these in one place for others to use.  Teaching should be a collaborative effort.  If a lesson is great, then it should be shared.  Another use for Google Docs would be a list of great websites or online activities for certain topics.  Teachers would add the sites or activities they found, describe the site and link to it.  As teachers add to the list, this would be an awesome resouce for all teachers.  I also would love for teachers to add any Powerpoints to one site and other teachers be able to make alterations or comments.  Overall, I think collaborating would have a positive impact on the teachers AND students!!

Although I have used YouTube numerous times (often when I have missed something interesting caught on tape or on television), I have never used TeacherTube.  I was extremely interested to learn that there are videos available to help me in the classroom.  I watched all kinds of educational videos.  Anything to help teach a lesson or to improve the atmosphere of my classroom is well appreciated.  I was able to watch great ideas in short clips without even leaving my bedroom!!  Pretty cool!  I am always looking for ways to improve my students’ fluency and comprehension.  Therefore, I searched and watched several videos on guided reading groups.  The video I chose is short (1:52), but tells teachers items to have available at the reading table during the lessons.  I also found videos that actually showed real teachers in real lessons with real students!  I was very impressed!  I am extremely happy that I now know how to embed a video in a blog.  My goal is to blog on a regular basis on my teacher webpage.  I am not sure if embedding is allowed, but it would be neat to include little videos for parents to watch if they would like to help their student with a concept.  I would love to use TeacherTube and YouTube to show my students speeches and other footage related to our lessons.  However, I see myself using it more to give me ideas.

I must admit that the further I get into this course, the more I feel like I lived under a rock.  I really had absolutely no idea what Podcasting was or even what it was used for.  Unfortunately, I really didn’t have any interest in finding out either.  After exploring Podcasting for quite a bit of time, I found that it is one of those technology tools that I would love to use, but will probably not get around to using on a regular basis.  As a teacher, I have so many things I would like to do but do not always get around to doing.  While searching, I did find several interesting podcasts in Great Speeches in History.  It was pretty neat.  There was another entitled Poems Every Child Should Know.  Obviously I did find different television shows, but I can use my DVR for that.  The one thing I would love to use podcasting for is learning Spanish.  While in Junior and High School, I took French.  Not knowing that I would be living in Texas (I moved here in May 2008 from New York), I chose French over Spanish.  Definitely not the best choice looking back.  I would love to learn Spanish for FREE!  Programs, such as Rosetta Stone, are quite expensive.  In addition, I do not have the time to take classes at a college.  In closing, great technology tool that I hope to use in the classroom and even at home.  

I recently read an interesting article on Instructify.  Getting Students Thinking about Health with MyPyramid.Gov describes an interesting website that is designed to teach children six years and older important food lessons.  We constantly hear about the child obesity problem in the United States and this website addresses personal health.  It is definitely a website to use in the classroom when teaching nutrition.  Although I believe child obesity is not a food issue, but rather more of an exercising issue.  When I was a kid I was outside running around all summer long.  Kids now prefer computer time or game system time.  I think it is ironic that schools are allowing students only one or two days a week of snack/ice cream bar to reduce obesity, but then they either take away recess or reduce the number of days.  My second grade class only gets recess three times a week (and it is at 3:00).  I know of schools that do not even have recess.  This seems like such a contradiction.  I have gone off topic and these are my beliefs and not those expressed in the article.  Back to the article, it mentions a neat game found on MyPyramid.gov called Blast Off.  It seems very fun and educational!  The article also has great links to Let’s Move and the Good Egg Project.

LibraryThing is a very cool website, especially for a book lover.  I love reading books.  I would find an author and read all his or her books.  I would actually run out of books and have to switch to another author.  Unfortunately, since I’ve had my two boys my free time for book reading is pretty gone (bummer!!).  That said, LibraryThing would be great for keeping track of what books I have read (especially since I would forget) and also for reading reviews by other avid readers.  When I searched my favorite authors on LibraryThing it would also give me other authors I might enjoy (also a plus).  To really get the most out of this website an individual needs to have quite a bit of free time.  Obviously a person can quickly look up a book or author, but this site offers so much more.

As a teacher, I like the idea of finding a list of books about a specific topic with reviews.  Just the other day (on another site), I was looking for a book and an individual wrote a review that recommended a much better choice.  I do rely on the reviews and recommendations given by others.  This usage of LibraryThing is quite similar to Amazon and Barnes and Noble search engines though.  I may not use the site on a regular basis right now, but it is great to have available.

As the title of this blog implies, I love social bookmarking (more specifically my Del.icio.us account).  It is so much better than just adding to “My Favorites” on my computer.  The ability to tag and sort makes a huge difference.  I started adding my favorites to my Del.icio.us account and found neat websites that I had forgotten all about.  They had gotten lost in the long list that constitutes “My Favorites.”  As a teacher, being able to share my sites with my fellow teachers (and steal theirs) is so useful!  I wrote the Reading lesson plans for two second grade teams last year and this would have come in handy.  I spent many hours searching for fun interactive websites to use on the STAR board.  It would have been very beneficial to have one place to organize all the sites I found.  Also, this tool is great because I am not always on the same computer.  I like the idea of being able to view my favorite websites at any computer.

Here is my Del.isio.us account: http://delicious.com/shannondavidson27

Nicholas

Kyle

I had lots of fun exploring the various tools and websites.  It is crazy to know that there are so many awesome tools available that I had no idea even existed.  I had fun with two pictures on http://www.befunky.com (see above).  It literally took minutes to add an effect to my pictures and save them to my computer.  I am surprised that this site (and those that I have used in the previous weeks) are FREE!!  These days it seems that everything costs money and it is great to have tools that are free and useful.  Although this tool was fun, other tools that I explored are much more relevant in the classroom.  For example, Glogster is great for teachers AND students.  Teachers can use it to make learning more fun and really grab their students’ attention.  Students can also use it for fun or for creating reports.  It is a neat way of showing information and pictures on a topic.