Tool # 11 YEA

1. What are your favorite tools you now have in your personal technology toolbox? Briefly describe a particular activity that you will plan for your students using at least one of these new tools.

I like a lot of things, the comix strip, the study land, and blogging with my class. The skyping is always good! I think first I am going to work on implimenting the daily blog about the happenings in my class so that parents will be tuned into our class discussions. I like that all of these things are open for our use.

2. How have you transformed your thinking about the learning that will take place in your classroom? How has your vision for your classroom changed? Are you going to need to make any changes to your classroom to accommodate the 21st Century learner? I really liked the movie with Sir Robinson It is definitely something I would like the leaders of our district to look into. I think I am making progress in my classroom and trying to push the technology envelope, fortunately I am in a school that is very technology forward!

3. Were there any unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you? Some of these were difficult and will have to double check setting it up before you plan to use it. I hadn't thought of actually teaching it explicitly to the students but will next year.

YEA! I am finally done! That test was HARD!!!

Tool # 10

Rules for good digital citizenship

1. Discuss at least three things you would want to make sure your students understand about being good digital citizens.
1. If you wouldn't want your mom to read it then don't send it to someone else. Everything electronic can be shared!
2. I think you need to balance this with the reason we want them to be on the Internet in the first place. Students need to be explicitly taught the "rules" that are appropriate.
3. I think in my classroom that I need to make it very clear cyber bullying will not be tolerated. Since there is an element of being concealed it is much easier for some kids to make remarks about others without thinking it is a big deal. It is a big deal!

I think students sometimes think they are protected by the very fact that they are at school but they need to know some of the dangerous of the Internet as well.
I like the brainpop on digital etiquette and the one of digital citizenship

Tool #9

I really liked the TUTpup! I liked being able to compete against kids from all over the world. I think this would be a different way to have the kids practice multiplication and division without it being a worksheet. I wonder if there is some way I could get them to document which ones they played and their score. I think stations only work if you can hold kids accountable otherwise they just waste valuable instructional time.

I was checking out the Study Ladder and I LOVE this idea for use with kids they test out of a certain concept and can move on to differentiate for them. Also used for differentiated homework which is always tough!

My centers are not like rotate to the next one. I have a lot of independent activities and projects that the students move through. I like that I can customize this for students.

Tool # 8

I am very happy to have the new net books. Our old dell laptops are very slow and had many problems. I look forward to being about to have our own set to use that are updated. I do however think that the net books/and ipads are better than the itouches. There are some great apps but more often the net books will be used for real world projects. I would like to have some suggestions on apps for older students with the itouch and ipad. Most of the ones I have found are games.

I am very familiar with both the net books and the ipads. I think that it is really nice that they all have web cams and the SD cards can be used when we take pictures of our class experiments.

I think I will be okay with setting up the ipad and maintaining it. I am going to be asking my parents to help with itunes gift certificates on my wall wisher!

Tool # 7

I like the idea of Skypeing with another class. We could skype different classrooms in the district to collaborate look at data. Since we are all doing the same science experiments we could discuss our results and look for big picture ideas. We could also skype with scientist that know about our unit to get real world connection to our experiments

I would like to start small with this, maybe class to class then ask around for a scientist who would be willing to devote their time.

Tool # 6

http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/mrscharles Wall wisher and http://charlesrce.blogspot.com/
Class blog

I LOVE the wall wishers and setting up the classroom blog. I think I will start out the blog then give it over to the students to keep up on a daily basis. It can have different pieces and also a place for them to go to discuss questions that come up but that we don't have time to really discuss to great extent.

Wall wishers will be used to communicate info and reminders to parents and students. I was thinking I would use twitter to communicate to parents but then saw that it is recommended for 6th and up so decided on the other two.

Tool # 5

Here is my wordle! All about me! I have used this last year and I like them a lot!

I particularly LOVE the comix. I use these all the time on paper with my menu projects. Some students don't want to do this activity but don't want to because they can't draw. This will not be a problem now! LOVE IT!

This one was actually in working order which is a happy way to end today!

Tool # 4

Google Docs!





I think this is good for sharing the document among students. Group work can be done between my classes. I like this one. My students last year did have some experience and seemed to enjoy it.
You could put templates for students or Parents could have a form to disccuss issues.


I like this one!

Tool # 3 Online videos

http://www1.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=53859&title=Glacial_Erosion
http://www1.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=35038&title=Weathering_Erosion_Deposition_AM_Class

Here are my two videos. I think that I prefer to have the link as trying to embed this in the post was troublesome! I tried to look at the video instructions but I think good old fashion typed instructions to embed would be helpful. They maybe on there but I could not find them. It is also frustrating to have some of the videos not working. I could see adding this if you wanted to make a video for my parents to see then embed it. However I would be aware of the which students are allowed to publish pictures.

I am still a little confused about what I can use and can't. I think the safest thing would be to only post original content for now and not scan whole documents.

I also looked for the Picasso web remix but was unable to fine it. This 11 tools seems a little harder than the 23 things. I feel like I am a fairly computer savy but at each turn this seems to take an extremely long time to get these items to work. This is taking a lot longer than the 9 PDLC hours that I am getting. I am hoping my future experience is better.

I do appreciate Karen taking her time to help us with our tools!