Reflection!

Whew! I'm done. Truthfully I could have spent days and days on each tool. There is so much out there and we've (11 things bloggers!) obviously only just scratched the surface. I'll admit that I feel I should have a leg up on other teachers being that I'm in the younger generation of teachers who grew up in the technology "boom". However, I still feel that I'm not quite where I should be, especially when I look around at my some of my peers who are such "techies".

My favorite tools were # 3, 4 and 5. I've already used delicious and google docs a couple of times since learning how to use them. I'm always trying to be more organized and these tools absolutely help the cause.

I'm going to keep learning, its either that or be left behind!

Tool # 11

Digital Citizenship sounds very futuristic. Can you imagine what teachers thought about as they planned their lessons 30 years ago? It certainly wasn't about how they could teach their students how to be responsible and safe online. I definitely think that safety should be the number one concern of educators when we teach our students the value and aspects of digital citizenship. Safety is our number one responsibility in our physical classroom and should be in our virtual classroom as well. With that being said I think we also need to do a better job teaching our children how to distinguish between valid and credible information versus well, junk. I think David Warlick hits the nail on the head with this simple step, "Instead of starting with a web page, displayed on the whiteboard, they [teachers] should start with Google, demonstrate how they found the page, the considerations and decisions they applied to select that page, and include in the presentation, the evidence that what's being presented is valuable...When we model authority, we shouldn't be surprised when students look for authority in every piece of information." Here I am so worried about saving time because there is soo much to squeeze in and I'm passing up a great teaching moment that will save me time in the long run.

Tool # 10

What's the big "dealio" about the Ipad I asked my friend. It's a glorified Ipod or mini Macbook I complained. Well answer me she did. She is an interior designer who often meets with clients at their homes away from her office. She explains how easy it is to whip out her Ipad and show her clients her design proposals as opposed to lugging her laptop around everywhere. Hmmm I see that being useful, but I'm not sold! Sidenote: I am the PROUD owner of a macbook and Ipod (I'm on my 2nd) so I'm pro apple just con ipod. Here are my complaints: Please Ipad fans give me reasons why I'm being overly cynical!

1. Awkward size-too big for pocket or purse, you need a small carrying case or briefcase (get a laptop then)

2. Use your phone to call not a giant book- Yes you can get an app that allows you to make calls from your IPad but doesn't your phone do the same thing with less hassle? (and I bet you even have an iphone!)

3. Money not well spent-For 500-800 dollars I'd rather put it towards a laptop or hey even save a couple "hundo" and get an ipod or iphone because from what I can see (once again please let me know what I'm missing!) you'd be making a better investment.

Ok moving on from my rant about Ipads (you just have to get it out sometimes you know!?) I definitely love having ipods in the classroom. I've read a lot of users who have posted reviews about using the ipod with their students who have cognitive disabilities. What a great tool to give those who need a little extra. My kids love hangman and touch hockey. I'd prefer they play more educational games than touch hockey but as long as they are only playing it occasionally I'm ok with it. I'm intrigued by the Level app (which transforms the screen into a ruler both metric and customary) because I can already picture a scavenger hunt during our measurement unit! I'm looking forward to taking an Ipod staff development class this Fall!

Tool # 9

Skype is great! My sister has been in Thailand for the last two months and was there last year for six months. Without Skype my family and I (parents in particular) would have been worried and disconnected from her. Not to mention everyone would have been broke with expensive overseas phone bills. Just a few weeks ago my dad called my sister from his computer on her Thai phone. The whole family sat around and chatted as if she was running errands around town, not halfway around the world.

I've used skype in my classroom before with a similar situation. My students were having a hard time grasping the concept that different parts of the world were living in different time zones. Luckily, my Dad was in Beijing and feeling nice enough to let us call him at 2 in the morning his time. Truth be told he knew I was calling and only pretended to be asleep for the sake of my kids (which they got a kick out of).

I can definitely see the benefits of using Skype or Jing in the classroom (especially since if you use it carefully its free!).

Tool # 8

For the first or second week of school leading into the review of the scientific process I'm planning on doing an inquiry activity. The inquiry activity will be focused around "cleaning up the gulf oil spill." I would show the following videos to my students as a set for that day:

http://www.blinkx.com/watch-video/hd-version-the-longterm-fate-of-the-oil-spill-in-the-atlantic/1kaAu1LSgTgA67hVr9zugA

http://www.blinkx.com/watch-video/no-leaks-from-new-cap-on-gulf-oil-spill/uME9ijMe2aNy1z73L98TjQ

I've been trying for a couple hours to get the videos to post onto here but it won't get past processing the video. Enjoy! Hopefully I'll get them posted better.

Tool #7

I choose to post my imovie that I created two years ago in college. The move is nearly 9 minutes long and I believe it demonstrates my ability to use the program! As part of the college of education at UT we were required to purchase a Mac Book upon entering our PDS. The college of education set up an incentive program with Apple. This only now strikes me as ironic seeing that Michael Dell (one of the "Dellionares") is a UT grad and supposed big donor. The movie was created for my social studies content class during my professional development sequence (final 3 semesters of college). We were asked to present an imovie on a social justice issue as a culminating project. I chose to follow the events of "Keep UT Hate Free Week" at the University of Texas that April. This project took many many hours (as well as an hour to upload and post!) so Enjoy!
I think that imovie is a great program to create a really professional looking project, but it is a bit out of the elementary range.

ohhh ohhh we're halfway there...

Ok although I'm doing a slight victory dance about being halfway finished, shame on me to attempt to do this in one fowl swoop. I leave the day after tomorrow for a wedding in Memphis and then on to Thailand and Nam the day after I get back. I know I know I shouldnt be complaining, but my deadline of tonight is looking a little daunting. Break time= gym (its wedding week!) and shower

Tool #6

Well I certainly feel a little silly right now. The past couple of years everyone has been going on and on about how Wikipedia is not a credible source yada yada. I never really understood the reason why. I just understood that I was not to use it as credible research for college papers. Hello, duh! It's pretty crazy to me that just ANYBODY can go on to whichever topic they wish and edit. I'm fairly certain that I am not an authority on anything. Although, I do know a fair number of people (with large heads) that do believe they are an authority on any number of topics. Do I really want to be reading their beliefs, insight, and opinions and taking it as fact? I see the benefits of using a wiki, but I would most have to say that I am alarmed at how naive I have been about the fact v. fiction in the name of wikipedia.

Tool # 5

Ugh! I'm having to retype what I just wrote for tool #5= annoying. On ward though, I think that the purpose of both delicious and Diigo are two fold (just like Google Doc and reader): 1) to keep the user more organized 2) to share with your PLN. It's as if someone is trying to send me a sign that I need to be more organized (thanks a lot technology god). I had difficulty getting Diigo onto my tool bar so I reverted back to using delicious. From the tutorials I watched though it seems that Diigo has more to offer than Delicious so I'll have to go back one day and try it again. Here goes my first attempt at linking: Here are my two websites I've added my Delicious. The first one is ReadWriteThink , a website that I've used before but always forget about and can never find again! The second site I've added to my delicious is Spelling City , a website that would be helpful to integrate into my word study program.

Tool # 4

I definately see the student benefit of using googledoc at the high school level. I think it would be somewhat limited to waht the kids in elementary would be able to do with it. Two years ago however I could have used google docs when my students were creating readers theaters scripts. One student sat down and typed for a minute while the others watched. Then they just rotated in and ot until the script was complete. Google docs would have been perfect for that purpose. The google doc I was messing around with was the 5th grade math road map. I would invite the other math teachers and the sis to that document. From there we could post what lessons we were doing that day, games, workstations and assessments. It would be a really beneficial planning tool in keeping everyone on the same page. Google reader is useful for a technologically disorganized person like myself who often has ten different windows open at one time. Now I can have everything I need in one place. In addition to subscribing to the 11 things blogs I've been following, I also subscribed to my sister's blog. She is currently in Thailand and blogging about her internship and travels. I have to say that I am impressed with her writing skills. She appears much older and wiser than her 20 years. The bottom line Google=so much more than a search engine.

Tool # 3

This tool was fun but a bit frustrating when I couldn't get certain sites to work. Truth be told, I really couldn't figure out how to save the images to my blog so I abandoned the sight and tried a different one. I could have spent hours trying out new image generators, but since my summer s winding down I must go on! This could be used in my classroom in many ways. I'm focusing a lot of my energy on projects this year with my students and all of these offer technology based project ideas. I offer the comic strip as a final product for many classroom assignments so this would be a good way to take it into the 21st century.

Tool # 2

One of the benefits of being a newbie teacher is that I was able to be part of many PLC throughout college. During my last three semesters of college posting, responding and blogging were constants throughout each course. There was even a class that we spent an entire period conversing online with the entire class including the prof. People aren't afraid to speak their minds though and in a room full of ladies, feelings (and egos) were easily hurt. Just because you aren't saying something to someone's face doesn't mean the words (or text) can't sting. Bloggers are putting themselves or at least their ideas out there and readers feel empowered to say what they feel behind the mask of their computer. As far as the commenting advice I agree with several points especially those saying how commenting will lead people back to your blog. I find myself venturing off into cyber world far from my initial direction solely by clicking on a link. This is how you find the good stuff! I'm going to follow two blogs from my own school to start (I'll find some others to follow along the way). 1. Gann's Gazette ( Always a good conversation and laugh with her) 2. Journeying Julie (Always has great advice and ideas for my teaching so I'm hoping to find some more wisdon through her blog!).

Tool # 1

So Far So Good: Setting up my blog and avatar went pretty smoothly. I love the idea of having students blog. My first year of teaching I did student/teacher dialogue journals for the first month or so of school. While the kids enjoyed them, in the end they ended up being too much for me to handle. I love the idea of traditional pen and paper journaling but I think online blogging is much more manageable time wise. I'll put it on my list of endeavors to pursue this year.