Dead Week....REALLY?

It is not December. It is not December. It is not December! I wonder if I keep telling myself that I will wake up and it will be August. I can't believe how fast this year has gone. It seems like just yesterday I sat down at my computer and wrote my very first blog. I was so nervous. I had never written a blog before and I was scared to have other people read my thoughts and comment back on them. As the weeks went quickly by, I soon found myself very comfortable blogging. As soon as I finished one blog, I was thinking about what I would write about for the next one. I loved blogging about technology, but I found myself wanting to blog about what was going on in the world or my life. I really liked sharing my thoughts for others to read. I've thought about setting up another blog. I think it would be a great way to keep in touch with my family members or friends who do not live close by. I have really come to like blogging and look forward to using it in my classroom. I look forward to seeing my future students' reactions to blogging.

I feel as though I have learned so many great things in this class and have refreshed my memory of some technologies that I haven't used in a while. I was amazed by all of the technologies (simple and complex) that are available. I'm more than ready to try these out in the classroom!

Good luck to everyone on their finals!

Blogs, Blogs, Blogs

For my very first blog post, I wrote about some of the possibilities of using blogs in the classroom. I feel that since this class is coming to an end it would only be appropriate to add to the list. I remember writing the blog thinking my ideas were really good, but after hearing my classmates ideas and seeing classroom blogs, I realized there are so many wonderful ways to use blogs in the classroom!

First off, blogs would be a perfect way to create a classroom news page. The teacher and students could update this page with pictures of the classroom, homework assignments, notes, special events, stories written by the students, and many more! This would allow for parents and even grandparents to stay connected with the classroom.

Another idea for a classroom blog is to use it as a means for writing. There are A LOT of ways this could be done. The teacher could blog a writing prompt and then each students' response could be a comment or could be posted in his/her own blog. Blogging could also be used as a means for storytelling. This would make it very easy for a teacher to hold a peer review session. The teacher could also use blogs for journal writing. If this was done, the teacher would be able to check each journal from anywhere with an Internet connection and she would no longer have to carry around several writing notebooks. There are so many ways in which blogs could be used to for writing activities!

One of my favorite things about blogs is that I could connect with another teacher across the country even across the world and our classes could blog back and forth together in a matter of minutes! Before the Internet, if a teacher wanted to connect with a distant classroom, it could take days by the time the other class got the mail and responded back. Blogs completely changed the way this was done. I would love for my future students to be able to do a project about another country and get the information from students who live in the country. I think the experience would be amazing!

I've always known about blogs, but I never imagined being able to use them in the classroom. I'm glad that we have spent time talking about them, and that I was able to start one! I can honestly say that this is one technology I will try to use in my own classroom.

Web 2.0 tools and Interactive Whiteboards

Before this class, I had no clue what a Web 2.0 tool was or that they even existed. After learning about them, I can honestly say that this is one form of technology that I plan to use quite frequently in my classroom. I was especially impressed with some of the tools my classmates found! If it wasn't for having to study for other classes, I'm pretty sure I would be playing around on these sites. Some of the sites were so user friendly and even better free! It's nice to know that I have this technology at my fingertips and I don't have to pay a lot of money (or any) to use it. I was surprised by how many options were out there. You can create graphic organizers, slideshows, books, movies, classroom twitter pages, drawings, etc; edit pictures; write a story and have someone from across the room even across the country simultaneously add events to the story; etc....I feel that I barely touched on what is possible. I'm really glad that this class introducted me to this type of technology!

Since I have talked about how much I love Web 2.0 tools, I must talk about how much I love interactive whiteboards! I have always known what they were, but I have never had experience with them nor did I know everything that was available to download for them. I loved that you could download pre-made lesson plans and watch a video of how the lesson played out in the classroom. That was such a neat feature. I loved all of the classroom management downloads that were available. I feel things like that would save the teacher so much time! I really hope that the school district I work for has interactive whiteboards. I think I would spend an entire day playing around with all of the features and downloading lessons!

For those of you who have your own classroom or those who have experience these technologies in the classroom, have you seen Web 2.0 tools used in the classroom? If so, what ones and how were they used? Also if you have an interactive whiteboard, what are some of the ways in wich you use it?  I love learning how other teachers incorporate technology!