MY HEAD IS SWIMMING

This class makes my head swim at times. It is so hard to explore everything and I want a week to just be alone to see what is out there.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/claretaylor05

I love the Flikr site and know that with the ap on my phone I can really use this. The students will love placing photos and I am wondering if we can incorporate it in the biographies. By having the residents in West Hartford pots or scan to flikr we can allow photos to be incorporated or linked to.  The project in the cloud is really amazing and I can see so many ways we can expand the collaboration in our room. I believe this next generation will be seeing and using information in so many different ways. As their teacher I want to offer opportunities and help them see the potential. The Prezi work they have done in the past 3 weeks is incredible and I have let them totally train one another. I have had some pressure from parents who feel I need to offer a tutorial. What the parents don’t understand is that the students are surpassing the teachers. Society 6 is definitely a site I want to explore and potentially purchase art. I am also thinking of posting the art work that I have created and adding it as a link to my memoir page.

I like the idea of stopping students from going on random searches. The Custom Search Engines are an interesting idea. I can see the advantage of creating a closed search environment for the younger students or setting boundaries for a search. With 5^th graders heading off to middle school I think having them know how to search on the global web is beneficial. As a teacher I am having difficulty keeping up with technology and searching for what I feel are the best suites may not be the best students find. I am wondering if the students are given the task of finding sites and collecting the best they find. Possibly creating a rubric of what makes a good site and a submission form if the site meets the criteria.

I love the screen capture sites but have yet to find the application in my teaching. It is good to have it in my back pocket and I know it will come in handy. I loved Cast-O-Matic and think that demos would be great to capture.  The Teacher tube and YouTube avenues for expression and searches are amazing. I have posted videos of my daughter and many people have viewed them. I love hearing the stories of unknown people having their videos go viral. This medium breaks down the traditional route to becoming a celebrity. I need to find a quicker means of shooting and editing videos. I will be getting two cameras this week and can’t wait for the students to start exploring the possible projects.

http://society6.com/

http://animoto.com/

New Great Sites
Today's class had my mind swimming with all the possibilities in technology. I am glad I am leartning about what is out there but I feel very far out of the loop.


http://delicious.com/ Social Bookmarking has been confusing for me and I now understand what the power is. I am not sure how I could use it with students but I am wondering about the education side of DIIGO for the students to collect their research sources. I am defiantly going to join Delicious and think the Common Core Exploring could be a powerful focus for this tool. In just seconds I fould this booknmark page that offers wonderful links.

http://delicious.com/stacks/view/P8bJok Common Core State Standards

I also want to explore special education sites and find out more about apps for preschoolers. I find my bookmark in favorites are too linier and it would be great to have a site to collect and save my research. It is also something I could share with special education teachers and parents of special needs students.


http://freerangestock.com/ I am looking for photos for biography project and think this could be a good source. The older shots to show a person age progression. It would be great to have another source for my students other than Google Images. Just today I was unable to scan photos from Time For Kids and the students ended up using the internet to get their own images.


http://www.doodle.com/ Calendar scheduling – I can’t wait to use this site to try to schedule with the Blazes teachers. I have 11 teachers to pull together for student field trips. It will be a lot simpler to have the Doodle to see when they want to schedule their student tutors. The kids will also enjoy being part of this process.


http://thinkfinity.org/ Teacher resources – I haven’t been back to explore Kathy Schrock’s site and need to check out what is new. The Verizon site seems more modern with be a great source.  areas http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/authordate.html


Social Media- I am a used of Facebook and am seeing the obsession that happens. I am glad they there is a 12 year and older limit but think that age will come down soon. I have never friended parents or students but have had friends become parents and that can be awkward. I have tight privacy settings but I know many who do not even have privacy set. I love the idea of using Fake Book and am going to incorporate it in my next biography project.
http://classtools.net/fb/home/page


Second Life - This site is scary to me. I am not clear on the “normal” uses but think there could be a lot of people living in this world and not embracing real life. It is important as a teacher to be aware and I need to keep an open mind. My gut says that this is not a place I want to be part of. http://secondlife.com/?gclid=CN6IhcG04q4CFUPc4Aod_yh7ZQ Second Life

RSS

I love the idea of RSS and using it to streamline my tracking of information. In school we often follow the Patch as well as the local news. Students write and send out press releases to the West Hartford Press, West Hartford Press and West Hartford News. I think Google Reader will be a great tool to manage access stories. I tried Edmodo and discovered it will is not seen as a feed source. As we move into the new website of SharpSchool there will be more opportunities to add blogging for the students and I can have the ability to follow each one on my RSS feed. There have not been many blogging, newspaper, podcast or vodcasts sites that I have followed since much of this is new. I see the value and know that as time goes on this can be very valuable.

My current personal passion is understanding more about my daughter’s special education needs.  I would like to start exploring the world of special education and specifically DDS and Intellectual Disabled blogs. This will help me understand her needs but it also will help me be a better teacher. There is so much about PPTs, IEPs, goal setting and finding services for children with special needs. I think the RSS offers a great way to manage this information and I can see it being a tool to help parents of my students.

I loved the demo of Screen Cast-o-Matic. I can see the many possibilities in the class. We have been working with the document cameras with the audio recording and this site gives me the option of recording my complete smartboard lesson. I have printed my notes on the smartboard but how powerful would it be to record voice and allow kids to play it when they were absent. I am excited about Flipping Classrooms and know we will see more and more of this. The lecture and demo do not need to be whole class but the problem solving and collaboration need to be done with peers. The whole concept of homework misses the impact of learning with the teacher and working together toward a solution. Too often parents are asked to help and they were not privy to the instruction. It a situation with  struggling students having the parents be able to access the instruction could really aid the student’s understanding.  This Screen-o-Cast could really help in my lessons and its simplicity is beautiful!

FINALLY
I figured out how to post a podcast. This link will take you to the Testimony I gave at the Senate Hearing on Bill 24 Education Reform on February 21st:

PodCast Testimony on Senate Bill 24

I was able to get the mic to work on my school computer but not on my home computer. Then access to bean pod was restricted. I have a student who is thrilled about using audio recording with PowerPoint. He is researching Greek Gods and is going to interview Poseidon and Zeus. I have about 6 students learning how to do Prezi and they are grinning ear to ear. It is wonderful how excited they get about technology.