Enthusiasm Pays!

Today I spent a half a day at one of my elementary schools. More and more teachers are coming to me and asking for ideas for integrating technology into their classrooms.   Since I have been taking my Web 2.0 class, I have found so many great tools on the web and am having a great time using them. I think my enthusiasm for these tools are rubbing off on the teachers around me.

I found some interesting Watercycle videos on You Tube for my 3rd grade teachers and linked them to a wiki so the teachers could just log on to the wiki and play the videos.  For one of the teachers, that was the first time she saw the academic potential of YouTube.  I guess she spent a lot of time the evening I sent the wiki address (http://watercycles.wikispaces.com/) to her looking through YouTube for other resources for science.

I am now using wikis to schedule our tech work.  This way all of us who are responsible for repair and troubleshooting knows what needs fixed and who might be the lead person on the repair.  I am also using a wiki to keep track of who has signed up for our three day technology computer camp.  The advantage of the wiki for these kinds of tasks is that it can be accessed from any computer 24/7 and edited by any member of the group.  We’re not tied to our desktops or the computer we use most of the time.

MLTI Student Tech Team Conference

I attended the MLTI Student Tech Team Conference with my students last Friday. At this conference the students got a chance to choose three project based courses that deal with cutting edge technology. I told the students to choose what THEY want to learn about and attend those courses. They were so excited! They don’t often hear a teacher tell them that they can learn whatever they want to. I’m wondering how they will use the knowledge they gained on Friday. Will they share with their fellow learners back at school or will they keep their learning to themselves? If they share with their fellow learners we will have students who are quite competent. My hope is that they will share what they learn and everyone will know a little more about computers than they did last week.

A Humbling Experience

I get notified in email each time someone posts to my blog.  Since I am a newbie at writing blogs (though I read them all the time), I didn’t expect anyone in the “outside world” to comment on my blog.  Imagine my surprise this morning when I had three posts here and none of them were from someone I knew.  Two were actually from the UK!!  Now I am used to giving and getting opinions in my own school district but having someone in another country start a discussion with me almost blows my mind.  I am going to teach my teachers and staff to use Web 2.0 technology this summer.  I guess the first thing I will tell them is to be prepared for a WIDE audience.  I would love to hook my students up with students from other countries.  I hope that maybe through this blog I will be able to do that.  Kids who live in rural Maine sometimes don’t even leave the state until they are grown-up.  Think of the opportunity to visit another country and actually talk to kids your own age without leaving your classroom.  Using Skype the students would even be able to see each other and if we wanted to turn the camera on the world outside the classroom they could get a look at where their web acquaintances lived.  Mind boggling, huh–but very possible using the technology we have available in our schools today!

Voki

Someone in my class posted information about a voki and of course that was enough to send me scurrying to the site to see if I was interested. I started trying to make a voki and our 4th graders who were leaving the lab immediately gathered around me to see what I was up to. Talk about the teachable moment–we started talking about what I was doing and WHY. I explained to them that I was taking a Web 2.0 class which required me to start a blog and that a voki could be added to a blog to further personalize it. Of course, they started asking their teacher if she was going to do a blog. Well, at least the conversation is started. That’s a good thing.

Web 2.0 Class

As part of an online class I am taking I have to start a blog.  I started this blog in 2006 and made three posts which I have just deleted to start again.  I am really interested in this Web 2.0 class but the amount of reading has gotten out of hand.  The teacher says read the first articles and then skim the rest.  I find it too interesting to just skim so I have gotten behind.  I must hurry up but there is so many of her resources that fascinate me that I just can’t hurry.

If I can learn how to keep a blog, maybe I can get some of my teachers interested in starting one to keep their students and teachers informed about what is going on in their classroom.  This is rather scary because it puts the teachers’ classes out there in a very public arena.  What if a parent disagrees with a lesson and adds a comment to the blog?  How does the teacher respond?