Twitter

I am brand new to twitter and am exploring it for the first time. I have to say I have always been intrigued by it, but never really found the time to sit down and use it. It is amazing that you can be connected to so many people all over the world. The possibilities seem endless! I believe that as a teacher, twitter would be a great tool to use to connect with other teachers who may teach the same grade level or subject as you. It would also be neat to use as a tool to connect your class with a class from another country, much like the old fashion "pen pal" writing. Perhaps twitter is the 21st Century way of having a "pen pal!"

I enjoyed reading the article "Twenty-Nine Interesting Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom." At first I could not really pin point exactly how this tool could be used in a classroom, after reading that article it really gave me some interesting ideas. I really liked the idea of using a Tweet to let parents follow what you are doing in the classroom. I also liked the idea of putting a Tweet out to ask people where they are located, and then having the class use that to find information in an atlas and then connecting it to using Google Docs. I can just imagine how interested and engaged the students would be. In my reading class I usually ask my students to write a summary based on money, for example they may have to write a .25 summary. Each word in the summary is worth a penny and they can not exceed the price tag. I could easily transfer this to a tweet with the character limitation of 140. Students would have to write a summary that they could "tweet", and would not be able to go over the character limitations.

Twitter is very interesting to me! I also like the fact that you can follow influential people like the president of the United States of America, as well has famous authors, celebrities, etc.

Technology Transformed Learning Enviroments

I thought this was a very good article and provided very useful information. It inspired me to think about how I could better the learning environments of my students with technology. I have recently started to use Google docs with my team of co-workers as well as my students. I can honestly say that this tool has helped to provoke conversation with the students as well as the staff members. Students are not afraid to write things down, and seem more apt to ask questions when the spotlight is not on them, like it is when they have to raise their hand. I have began to see a high level of thinking come out from their little minds. I am looking forward to trying to transform the learning environments in my classroom with the guidance from this article in the back of my mind. I think as a teacher, this article gives you some things to work for within your classroom.

Four Things We Don't Teach, but Should

Four Things We Don’t Teach, but Should

After reading the article written by Alan November, I could not agree with him more. There are four important skills that students should learn about the technology and the internet. The four important skills are having global empathy, social and ethical responsibility, permanence of online information, and finally using critical thinking with information found online.

Students certainly need to know and feel what it is like to respect different points of view. So many times in my own teaching I find students arguing and arguing about who is “more right.” It is really hard to get them to understand that both people may be right, because of the different views they are looking at. Students are so quick to judge and can be very critical towards others. I agree with November when he said that technology can help students to better develop empathy towards others while interacting through the web.

Social and ethical responsibility on the web is huge for students to understand. It is rare to sit down and watch the evening news and not hear something about topics such as cyber bulling or sexting. Cyber bulling and sexting seem to be a growing problem throughout the country. I believe that is due to the lack of education students receive about it. It is not enough to have one guidance class that references Cyber Bulling. The education on topics such as these should not be uncommon to hear around schools. I believe that the new laws that are being passed certainly helps to bring these problems to the forefront, however more needs to be done by schools to shed even more light on these topics. We know that students are using all of these tools at home, and most certainly the students who needs the education on topics such as cyber bulling and sexting are not getting that from home. I believe that making students aware of the sad stories that happen because of Cyber Bullying and Texting can be affective for some. I also think that making students aware of the consequences of such behaviors could help as well. I think awareness is the key though. These are issues that should be brought up more than one time in a school year. Every chance that you get to refer to these important issues could stop one kid from participating. I believe it would also be beneficial to start making students aware of these situations earlier and earlier. The earlier they can begin to be educated on issues, the better off it may be.

One thing that I am looking forward to doing next year is having a speaker from a local law agency come in and speak about these types of things to our grade level.

It was interesting to read about the topic of the permanence of information that is posted online. I agree with November when he states that students are careless about what they post online. Students live in the moment. They do not take a second to think about the after affects of their actions could or will be.

I was glad to see that November listed the critical thinking about information found online. I complete a lesson with my students before introducing how to complete a research paper. In the lesson I clearly detail how things such as Google work when searching for documents. The students are always amazed that the first link that pops up doesn’t have the best information. We then go into detail about why it does not.

I enjoyed reading this article and shared it with many of my colleagues. I think it did a really nice job of highlighting important information that every student should learn.

Feelings About Delicous

Before doing this assignment, much like the assignments before this, I was unfamiliar with delicious and the whole concept of social bookmarking. I must say that after watching the video and reading articles on delicious it is very user friendly. I feel comfortable using it and sharing it with others. I am looking forward to trying to incorporate it into my classroom with an upcoming research project in which groups of students must work together to research a specific topic. I also think that delicous or diigo would be great to use with colleagues that may teach the same grade level or subject as you. I think it would be a great way to share resources with others by just subscribing to each others networks.

Diigo and Delicious

When I first was comparing both diigo and delicious it was hard to tell exactly what the differences between the two are. After researching diigo, to me it seems as if it is a higher tech version of delicious. They both serve the same purpose of social bookmarking. There some things that you can do on diigo that you can not do on delicious. For example on diigo you can save pictures from the web and sort them into albums. This could be extremely useful when using with students if they were doing research, but also needed pictures. Another thing you can do on diigo that you can not do in delicious is actually collaborate with other people by placing sticky notes on the certain parts of the web page you can collaborate with others while reading the article. Saving actual copies of the pages that you want to bookmark instead of just the link is another feature found on diigo.

Both diigo and delicious are great tools that would enhance student learning in school. Both of these sites were completely new to me, but I must say that I am already thinking about how I can use them in the classroom. Both sites are great to use during any type of project in which students must collaborate because of the capability of sharing the information you have found with others. Students would be able to work independently, but yet share their ideas with others. Another good use for the social bookmarking sites in the classroom would sharing your ideas you have found as a teacher with the students. I usually just type out a list of websites that I want the students to visit while on the computer doing projects. With delicious if each student had an account, or if you made an account for the classroom those websites could be easily accessible to the students.

Using Google Docs

I have to admit as I began to read over the assignment that involved using Google Docs, I was very apprehensive. Most of the apprehension was only because it was something I had never heard of or seen before. As I went through the directions step by step and and viewed the final results of the project, I was amazed that I had never even heard of this tool before. I believe it is a great tool that could be implemented into the classroom very easily, in a variety of different ways. I could not help to think about all the things I could do with Google Docs in my writing classes. It would be a great way to implement technology into my writing classes. Google Docs was very user friendly. My only question now is, how do you convince your school to let you use it? I am somewhat frustrated at the fact that there are all of these useful tools out there but some teachers are not able to use them due to technology constraints or barriers put in place by school districts concerning safety issues. Students are going to have to learn to use these tools sooner or later, so why not prepare them for the future. I have learned so many useful things to implement into my classroom in the three short weeks that we have been in this class, it just stinks not to be able to try any of them in my own classroom!

Wiki's and Professional Development

Wiki's can be used in a variety of different ways for both students and teachers. Teachers can use wiki's as a way to enhance their professional development. Wiki's can be used to collaborate and communicate with teachers not only in the building in which you teach in, but around the world as well. Imagine the information you can get and share with willing teachers in different states or countries. Wiki's provide a great format for teachers to share and collaborate different project ideas. I believe that wiki's are also a great way to help to document your own professional development plan in accordance with PI-34. With a wiki you would be able to share your ideas as well as get feedback from other educators in regards to your own professional development plan.