End of Blog!

I am now closing my blog for EDM 310 Summer semester! It is complete!

What I Have Learned This Semester...And Blogs.

I have really enjoyed this class this semester. I had to do projects in this class that will really help me when I start teaching in my own classroom. It has shown me that technology is a great tool to incorporate into any subject you are teaching. I have enjoyed using the blogs and I believe they will also come in handy in the classroom. It allows students to share their ideas about different subject with not just the teacher but with the class as a whole. I hope to create a website and blog for my students when I begin teaching. As long as students use the blog for intended subject use I see no drawbacks for using blogs in the classroom.

I have learned about...
Blogs and their use in the classroom
The magic of PowerPoint
How websites can enhance the classroom experience
and how different forms of technology can be used in the classroom for educational purposes, not just for entertainments sake.

iGoogle in Education

iGoogle is a very interesting site! I have always used Yahoo or MSN for my homepage but iGoogle offers so many more options. And you can custom fit these options to your needs. I think that iGoogle could be a great thing to incorporate into the classroom setting. You could have these students customize their page to fit your classroom needs.

The first option I enjoyed was the translate opinion. There is a world of interesting and educational web pages from all around the world and with the translator option, you can read web sites in many different foreign languages.

The second feature I enjoyed was the Google Notebook option. I find that when I cruise the Internet doing research, I waste a lot of paper by printing whole pages for just a little information. The notebook feature would allow me or my students to surf the web and clip and paste info or photos into your notebook. This would help keep your students better organized while doing research and create virtually not paper waste.

A practical "stuff" item I like on iGoogle is the To Do section. Sometimes it is hard to keep assignments and project dates organized and this is a great tool to help you prioritize what you need to do and when it is due.

The fourth feature that I believe will help immensely in the classroom is the Docs & Spreadsheets feature. This would allow students to upload documents to iGoogle and they would be able to access and work on these documents from any computer. These will allow students to not have to worry about having their flash drives on them at all times to do just a little work.

Lastly, I really enjoy the news feature. Many children to do not keep up to date on what is going on in the world around them. You could have students put at least one news source on their iGoogle page and they would post a blog or do a paragraph assignment about one event they have followed for say a week or so.

iGoogle is a great idea and hopefully one day I can use it as a helpful tool in my classroom.

Check out my Web Page!

Well, it is almost the end of the semester and my web site is almost complete! I have one or two more corrections to make and then I will be done! If I had more time I would have organized it a little better and made it look a little "prettier" than it does. I am happy with what I could do with it considering I knew nothing about making a web site before I started the project. I would love to improve the web site after the class is over because my subject, The Mobile Azalea Trail Maids, is an organization I am actively involved with. Check it out here and tell me what you think! I would love to hear your imput!

iPhones in the Classroom.

After our demonstration in class Thursday night with Dr. Strange's new iPhone I thought of a few practically uses for the iPhone in the classroom setting. The iPod feature of the phone is the first excellent feature that could be used. I will be teaching secondary ed Social Studies so I hope to use lecture as would of my main teaching techniques. Students would be able to download past lectures to their iPhone and use them as a reference for test and other assignments. As a current college student I understand how hard it is sometimes to take great notes while a teacher is lecturing so this would be a very useful tool to use to make sure you didn't not miss anything in the lecture.

Another useful feature of the iPhone is the video capabilities. I personally am a visual learner and love watching films on historical events. The downfall of that is that most films take up so much of the class period. The iPhone would allow students to download required videos to their phone and watch them at their convenience. You could then quiz the students on what they learned from the video. The students could also use the phones internet capability while in class to find information about a particular subject they may be studying at that time.

The iPhone would probably be a great organization tool as well. With a built in calender and notes area, the students would have no excuse for not remembering the date of a test or when an assignment is due. Plus, students would be able to access our classroom home page from their phone to help them keep up with assignments and test date.

These are just a few of the uses I have thought of for the iPhone in the classroom. If I happen to come up with some more ideas, I will be more than glad to make another post! I would love to hear some comments one what you guys think about these ideas!

I have included a couple of links to several different web sites and blogs that discuss the use of iPhones in the classroom!

E-Portfolios for Learning:Apple's iPhone in Education?
The iPhone Scene
3 Features of the iPhone That Will Impact Education

Spreadsheets in the Classroom

I found many useful web pages referring to the use of spreadsheets in the classroom environment. The first site I visited was "Integrating Spreadsheets in the Classroom". This site contains a vast about of resources about how you can use spreadsheets in the classroom. I have several friends who are teachers who say they use spreadsheets for grading purposes but this site offers much more than that. It provides examples of how students can use spreadsheets to help organize data. Students can use spreadsheets to compare and contrast data. I found many projects on this site that used spreadsheets to help organize their data.

As I mention before I have several friends who are teachers that use spreadsheets to help organize grades. I found a great site here that shows teachers different ways to use spreadsheets as a management tool. Spreadsheets can be used to create grids for checklists, sign in sheets, grade book pages,and maintain a budget. Many of these sites not only showed you example of work that can be done, it also gives you instructions on how to do it.

iPods in Education

Everywhere you look or listen in this day in age you see we are living in an iPod world. Apple is taking over! Not really, but it does seem that owning these techno devices are not just a luxury anymore, it is a necessity. Now it seems that classrooms are moving towards the iPod state of mind. I personally do not own an iPod but I do own a MP3 player that I use to record lectures. I then upload my lectures from my MP3 player to my computer to use for future reference. This technology is not only helping me learn more efficiently but is working to help better educate students from kindergarten through the college level around the world.

I found several interesting articles about iPod using in education. I first began with Apples official iPod site. This site gives a nice overview of how teacher are using the iPod for classroom use and highlights programs offered through Apple to help teachers include the iPod into their curriculum. The Apple site also offered several links for articles about the iPod in the classroom. One interesting article talks about how the iPod is helping Special Education students at the Louisa-Muscatine Elementary School in Iowa. Many Special Ed students need the help of a paraprofessional the help read their test for them. Now the students can use the iPod to listen to their test that are already download to the device. It will allow the student to stop, fast-forward or rewind the test and work at his or her own comfortable pace.

Classrooms in the United Kingdom are getting on board as well. South Kent College in Dover, England provided 250 students with iPod Nano’s so that students will listen podcast of lectures. A podcast is essentially a recorded lecture or in many cases for entertainment use, talk shows that allow you to upload and listen at your convenience. Colleges like Duke University here in the U.S. are also intergrading iPod use into their lessons. Their web site states that distributing iPods to their students is “Part of a university initiative to encourage creative uses of technology in education and campus life.” Duke is using iPods in a variety of course studies. You can find out more about how Duke is using iPods for education by clicking here!

I believe intergrading iPods into education is a fantastic idea. It will allow student to learn more effectively by being able to refer back to lectures and lessons and work at their own pace, which sometimes may not be at the same level as some other students. For more interesting articles about iPods in education visit the Education World web site.

Dr. Seymour Papert

When I began my research for this week’s blog on Seymour Papert, it didn’t take long to find the information I needed. There were many web sites highlighted the work Papert has been involved with. I first I explored Dr. Papert’s personal web site. Dr. Papert has been working since the early sixties on ways to better enhance the way that children learn through technology. When he began his work at MIT in 1963 many people laughed at the research he was conducting to integrate the use of technology into the classroom. He dreamed of every student being able to use computers for their personal learning experience. At the time an inexpensive computer for personal use was far from reality.

In his over 40 years of professional work, Dr. Papert has made vast advancements in the classroom technology field. He has founded several technology based programs and foundations including The Logo Foundation which was created to help inform people about his Logo program. Logo is software developed by Dr. Papert that helps students write and create computer graphics. Dr. Papert was also a member of the advisory board for MaMaMedia Inc., a website that was developed by Idit Harel, a former student of his at MIT. MaMaMedia is a fascinating web site that allows students to play safe, fun, educational games on-line. Dr. Papert, who now lives in Maine, has been credited with the first initiative to help every child who is a student in the state of Maine receive a free computer for home use. He know spends time working with the Maine Youth Center to help better educate convicted teen offenders. He is also the co-founder of the Artificial Intelligence program at MIT.

Dr. Papert has done extensive work in improve the way children learn. If you would like to learn more information check out his site here! You can find many articles about Dr. Papert and read many papers and speeches he has personally written.

"Polar Bears"

I have been extremely impressed by the classroom blogs I have explored and that doesn’t stop with Mr. Roemer’s blog about his fifth grade class in Tampa, Florida called “The Polar Bears”. His blog and site are probably the most extensive I have researched so far. Again, like many of the others, he is using his blog and site for information for his students as well as their parents. One thing I can say about his blog/web page is that no student or parent should ever have any question about class policies, assignments, projects, grades or events going on with their class. Mr. Roemer has provided a great site navigation that allows students and parents to find a wealth of information. Since school is out for the summer, he is using the site to keep in touch with his students and keep them involved with school activities. This will help keep his student’s active and read to learn when school does roll around again. Obviously, just by view the site, you can tell that Mr. Roemer is a very dedicated teacher who cares very much about not only his current students but also about his past students and parents as well. Everyone should take a look at this site. We as future educators could learn so much for this site.
Access "The Polar Bears" here!

Class 104 Blog

The first site that I explored for teachers using blogs in the U.S. was Mrs. Cathie English’s site for her eleventh and twelfth grade English classes at Aurora High School in Aurora, Nebraska. The name of her classroom blog is Room 104. One of Mrs. English’s focuses for her blog is to get parents involved with their children’s schoolwork. The students are asked to essentially hold on-line discussions about the literary work they have read through their blogs. Mrs. English has encouraged her parents to read the blog entries and leave comments. Mrs. English also has variety of links listed on her blog site to help students navigate to other student’s blogs, student writing, their class curriculum, blog instructions and also links to Mrs. English’s literary blog. Mrs. English’s site is extensive and is such a valuable resource for her students and parents.

Access Mrs. English's blog here!
Access Aurora High School's site here!

International Schools Using Blogs (Part 2)

The next site I explored on the international level was for Mr. Al Upton third and fourth grade classes at the Glenelg School, Adelaide, Australia. What Mr. Upton is trying to achieve with his blog is getting his young students involved with communication through the internet. He has provided multiple links that allow students to explore blog making, game making and other forms of communication through the web. Mr. Upton calls his blog “multi-purpose”. He uses his blog for his students, for educational dialogue, and for blog resources and development. He is not only trying to reach out to his children about how a blog could be used in enhancing their educational experiece but also by reaching out to overwhelmed teachers that may be able to uses blogs as a resource for their students as well. How Mr. Upton has integrated blogs into his classroom is by asking students to respond to different subjects of interest on their personal blog. As with Mr. Coyle’s class, this allows the students to share their thoughts and feeling with other students. It was quite interesting reading some of the 8 and 9 year olds blogs. The mind of a child can be quite interesting. You can find Mr. Upton's blog here!

International Schools Using Blogs (Part One)

After a little searching and exploring, I found two very interesting international schools that are using blogs to help enhance their student’s educations. Mr. Coyle’s eight-grade humanities class from the American Embassy School in New Delhi, India was the first one I explored. Mr. Gary Coyle, an eighteen year veteran of teaching humanities studies, is using his blog to not only help keep his students and parents informed on what is going on in their classroom but also by integrating their class work into the blog. The students are responsible for varies blog assignments and the guidelines for what the students need to post are clearly listed on the blog. By having the students post blogs, it allows the students to explain and discuss how they feel about a certain subject they are studying and share it not only with the students in their class but the students in Mr. Coyle’s other classes. By having all the guidelines listed on the blog, his students can be positive that they are doing any particular assignment correctly. He also has provided a breakdown of what the students can expect for each quarter in his class. I was really impressed by this blog. The resources that Mr. Coyle has provided for his students are extensive. I could probably write a paper about all the information he has provided for his students. I advise everyone to take a look at this site. This is an excellent example of how we could include blogs into our classroom and how to make them effective. You can find Mr. Coyle's blog here!

ACCESS

The Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators, and Students Statewide (ACCESS) program provides students and teachers with resources that may not be available to them in their school or district via the Internet. Because of the lack of resources, many school across the state may not be able to provide their students with programs such as Advanced Diploma or Advanced Placement courses. ACCESS provides distant learning courses delivered by qualified Alabama certified teachers, it allows students to interact with students from other schools, provides any given school with additional teachers, allows team-teaching between schools and expands the reach of education.

What this web site allows teachers to do is expand their classroom. One of the many resources available is the blended learning program. This allows teachers to combine on-line learning with the traditional classroom setting. Some of the advantages of blended learning includes being able to allow students to work at their own pace, allows teachers to work with students on an individual basis as others are working and allows students to go back to an on-line lesson when needed. Video conferencing allows teachers to connect with Internet only E-teachers who can effectively include word processed notes for lectures, video clips and audio clips into their lesson that will better enhance their students learning experience. One of the most valuable resources available on ACCESS are the distant learning opportunities. It will allow teachers to provide their students with courses on-line that may not be available to them through their school such as advanced classes or AP courses. I believe with the use of the resources available on ACCESS we will not only be able to provide a better learning environment for our students but prepare them for the technologically advanced college or work field that is in their future.

Putting ALEX to use...

When I begin teaching, ALEX will be a very useful resource, not only for me as a teacher but for my students as well. My major is Secondary Education with my concentration in Social Sciences. I hope to be able to use the resources available on ALEX to help spark my student’s interest in the world of Social Studies. From the available on-line lesson plans to the variety of web links, I hope to utilize as many of the services available for my use.

One resource that would be very useful is the on-line lesson plans that are available. Since lesson plans that are submitted to ALEX are written by teachers here in the State of Alabama most follow the state Course of Study standards. This will allow me to follow state guidelines for what I am expected to teach my students through out the year. The personal workspace will come in handy to help me write and save lesson plans online. Also, with their Create Your Own Web page feature that is coming soon, I will be able to create a page for my classes where my students can access information about our class such as homework assignments or test dates. My students will be able to use ALEX to access useful web links that could help them with their class projects, homework and term papers. ALEX also has links that my students could use to access online interactive activities.

As I continue my studies in secondary education, I hope to explore ALEX more and learn about how I can utilize these services in my professional teaching career.

Resources Available Through the Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX)

As a future educator, it is important for me to know and understand the resources that are available to help me not only better educate my students but will also help me in my professional studies. The Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX) is such a resource. It is an informative web site that was designed by the Alabama Department of Education as an information resource not only useful to educators but parents and students as well. This site allows educators to share helpful lesson plans, web links and interactive activities with many teachers, parents, and students that may not know that these resources where available for their use. ALEX indicates that most of the resources that are available are connected to the Alabama Courses of Study by National Board Certified Teachers.

ALEX provides a wide variety of resources that are available to Elementary, Secondary and Special Education teachers. One of the most useful resources available allows you to search for lesson plans targeted to your grade level and course of study. You may also narrow your search to include specific information on your course of study. As a registered user of ALEX, you are provided a free personal workspace. In this Personal Workspace you have a place to help you write, organize and save lesson plans and you can also search for lesson plans there. Soon you will be able to create a web page in your personal workspace. Other feature of ALEX is its vast amount of Web Links. You may search for web links geared towards teachers, administrators, and students. Web Links available for teachers include not only your specific course of study but also Library and Media links, Online Projects links, reference links, and technology links. You will also find information on ALEX about Professional Learning. As teachers we must not only help our students continue with their educational progress but continue educating ourselves. The Professional Learning page provides information on professional development opportunities, grant opportunities and information on professional organizations. The best feature of ALEX is that is constantly improving and expanding. As more educators take advantage of the resources available on ALEX,the more that will contribute their wealth of knowledge to help others and myself on our professional journey.

Summer 2007

Welcome to my blog for the Summer of 2007. I hope you enjoy reading my post!