One Small Step for Teachers...

I'm in the middle revamping my units in preparation for the beginning of school, and I recently started reading a new book about teaching writing to middle schoolers, which, coincidentally, suggests that, "we need to apply technology to the teaching of writing" (Culham 18). In summary, it stresses the importance of using technological tools that students love to aid in the teaching and learning of writing, even if we, as teachers, might approach these tools anxiously and cautiously (Culham 18). It was so great to be able to connect the information that we have been covering in class to new information that I am trying to implement in my teaching.

Think about how far we've come. Yes, we may have entered with varying degrees of knowledge and exposure to using technology in our classrooms, but speaking for everyone, I think I can confidently say that we've all learned something (correct me if I'm wrong :)....). We might not be IT geniuses, but we certainly know a whole lot more than what we came into this class with. Use this new knowledge wisely to benefit all of our students. Best wishes to all for a successful school year :)


Works Cited (can't get this to format properly, so it will have to do!)
Culham, Ruth. Traits of Writing: the Complete Guide for Middle School. New York: Scholastic, 2010. Print.

The Wonders of Weebly

I started creating my electronic portfolio this week. I decided to go ahead and try to create this project since I am relatively new to the program and this will give me the option to continue working with the portfolio for my exit option for the program. I chose to work with Weebly because it seemed to offer the most professional looking products out of the options that were available. When I first started working with Weebly, I loved it! It offered so many options for personalizing the webpage and making it very professional. I remember during my undergrad we had to create a somewhat similar project, but used html coding instead... those sites didn't turn out quite so professional! Weebly really allows you to simply click and choose the elements that you prefer, delete those you don't, etc. What a powerful program! I would never be able to accomplish this project if I had to create the code!

Moving on... I was really loving Weebly in the beginning. I decided I need a break after an hour or so though, because I was getting hung up on tiny details and getting easily frustrated when my browser was acting up. I'm hoping this doesn't give me a bad taste about Weebly, because so far it's been wonderful! Taking a break from the (class) work to do (school) work though--school starts in less than a month! How did we get to August already!?

Tell Me a Story

When I was young, my father used to make up stories for my sisters and I before bedtime. He would start by asking for random words, and then built a magical story around them, asking us to add details to the story as we went along. Those great memories came flooding back when we began our digital storytelling assignment. What an awesome concept this is, especially for developing readers and writers!

As my group began our storytelling assignment, I really think the hardest part was deciding which program or website to use! There are so many various websites that offer a storytelling function! We finally decided to work with a website called StoryBird. While we were also interested in many of the other websites, this website offered pictures and themes right on their website. It was incredibly easy to use, and it seemed like we created a quality story book with turning pages in no time.

Thinking back to the days when my dad would tell my sisters and I stories, I can't helped but wonder what our stories would have become if we could add pictures and turning pages to them with a website like StoryBird.

Opening Doors with Open Source

I'll admit it, I'm a little impressed. I'm always looking for new, interesting websites and programs that I can use with my students... that are preferably free! When I hear of a colleague using a new website or program, I am always wondering where they were able to discover this awesome new piece of free technology. Sometimes I feel like I look and look forever but never "stumble upon" (haha... get it?) anything of great value. Now I have my own stockpile of interesting, free websites and programs that are surely going to come in handy this year. I've already starting working with and planning for the use of some really great writing tools that will get my students to be excited and interested in doing what I'd like them to do--write! Open Source websites and programs have really impressed me, and now I can really impress others with my new breadth of knowledge of free, interesting websites. I can't wait to share some of these great tools with my colleagues.

Oh, the Places You'll Go...

I was extremely intrigued with the virtual field trip project when we were first introduced to it. Field trips seem to be few and far between at the high school level, so having another option is nice. Furthermore, as an English teacher, using virtual field trips to aid in the teaching of novels is an incredible option to have. Currently though, I teach only grammar and writing, as my students have a separate reading class, so there are not an incredible amount of options for field trips. Hopefully, I eventually will be teaching novels sometime in the future though, so this virtual field trip is a tool that I will definitely keep in my toolbox. There are so many places that students can learn about and "visit" in regards to novels that it seems almost silly to simply tell them about the places or show them a few pictures. No turning back now. Having been exposed to the possibilities that are available thanks to technology and online resources, it doesn't seem like I could possibly return to anything I ever used in the past. There are so many amazing possibilities to take the students farther in their educations than ever before! In the words of Dr. Suess, "Oh, the places you'll go"...thanks to technology!

Awesome Alternatives: Zoho, OpenOffice, and ThinkFree

I am a list maker. Take a step into my classroom or kitchen and you'll be guaranteed to find post it notes plastered around with To Do lists for the day, week, month, etc., usually color coordinated with the topic it addresses. I love making lists. They keep me motivated. I get some sort of thrill from crossing off items on my lists. And now, I can also make lists online with Zoho. How do they know me so well? I spent a great deal of time exploring the Zoho site, and was impressed with all they had to offer from the start. When I found the electronic To Do lists, I was sold. They even let me maintain my thrill of crossing things off my lists with little check boxes to signify when I've completed an item on the list. YES!

Realistically though, Microsoft Office should probably be worried. Every time I have to purchase a new Office package for my computer, I crumble a little bit at how expensive it is for something that I need to have on my computer. Let's face it, most of the work we do on computers (no, I'm not talking about Facebook... real work) is done on word processing programs. Without them, the work that we need to do would never get done. Now, I am proud to say that I may never spend so much money on a Microsoft Office package again thanks to OpenOffice, Zoho, and ThinkFree, which do the same job for free. And we all love things that are free! I know I sound a little bit like a commercial for these three free programs, but I am so thrilled about these online word processing options.

Google-mania

After having explored some, but I'm sure not ALL, of the many facets of Google, I'm surprised Google doesn't own everything! Who would have ever thought that there would be so many Google tools all in one easy location. I'm wondering how I never knew about any of them. I went home and was telling everyone, "There's Google this and Google that," and they said, "Yeah, we know..." What?! How did you know and I'm sitting alone in the dark? Either way, I am so fascinated by the sheer volume of resources that Google presents us now, all of which could easily be used in so many ways in the classroom. My mind is reeling with a zillion different projects that my kids would absolutely LOVE using all of these Google products. Can't wait to use Google to help bring my classroom into the 21st century!

Back to the Future

A few years ago, I created a giant Literature Circle blogging project for one of my undergrad classes. Everyone in class, as college students somewhat familiar with technology, hated the project. Essentially, I was trying to begin thinking about what I could use with high school students, but what I was confronted with was a lot of resistance from college students. The projects actually work really well with high school and middle school students who are a part of the "Net Generation", but having been confronted with such resistance, I kind of gave up with blogging... welcome back to the future!

Sometimes I find it so very interesting just how quickly a gap can grow between generations. I'm not all that removed, age-wise, from the "Net Generation", but only a few short years causes me to feel so out of the loop sometimes. I can catch on quickly, but I often feel like right when I'm starting to master one piece of new technology, it's outdated and something new will take its place. Time to start over. My students are always ready to emphasize that age gap by being sure to know just about everything there is to know about technology...hence my desire to stay as close to "the cutting edge" as possible. I feel, as a teacher in the 21st century, it is equally important to know the technology and know the content. Bring it on, technology.