Reflections

Wow, I'm still waiting for my video to load for Tool #7. Nonetheless, I will complete the tools without the Atomic Learning and maybe the video. I really do like Photo Story. I told my son I wish we had known about this when we were doing presentations for his high school classes. We may not have done everything on powerpoint. This would have been more fun. I'd like to use this more in the future for other work presentations. I'm impressed with the tools that are available for students. I'm anxious to see how teachers will use this in their classrooms. Can we use these tools in our after school program? What would that look like?

Tool # 11

There are several digiteen topics that would be beneficial for students. We need to discuss safety, bullying, and proper etiquette when using technology. I particulary liked viewing some of the videos on Brain Pop and the TEA webpage. I would explore these further and pick a couple of videos to use when discussing this topic. If I were to use technology extensively in my classroom, this would be something I would plan to teach the first couple of weeks while I am establishing classroom management.

Tool #7

This tool has taken the longest to accomplish. I wanted to do much with photostory and ended up producing a small flick. It's about the things I didn't get to do this summer. I couldn't add the voice over. The microphone wasn't working so I'm publishing without it.

Tool #10

I previously (up to 5 days ago) had an ITouch which was assigned to me by the district. I enjoyed the tool and recently found several free apps for classroom learning. I especially liked the apps that allow for working with words (Shake Spell, Words Free, Word Spy). There were also some good apps for Math (Numbrosia). Five days ago, I traded the ITouch for an IPad. The apps on my ITunes transferred to the IPad. I am still learning how the IPad works. Students should have lots of opportunities during workstations to use the ITouch. The teacher could do a mini-lesson to introduce the different apps. Students can work at their pace and build skills in all academic areas.

Tool #9

Using Jing and screencasting could be a useful tool for establishing effective workstations. Teacher can record instructions and supporting information to help students get work done without interrupting the teacher's small group instruction. A teacher could try recording instructions for a day he/she was absent. Students could listen to messages from teacher on work that is expected to be done.
I've used Skype before at home. I am interested in the use of Skype for read alouds, conducting interviews and presenting a performance. Hopefully someone will try this out.

Tool #8

I searched You Tube, Teacher Tube, and School Tube for teacher training videos. I found a different look to Teacher Tube than what I had used before and did not find it user friendly. I found the following videos which I thought were okay for teacher training ideas.



The video is from You Tube and talks gives an idea for an activity at the beginning of the school year.



Next is a video from School Tube. Enjoy.



Videos allow students and teachers see what is happening in the world and how it relates to what they are doing.

Tool #6

Wikis are a great tool for going paperless in lots of our work as administrators and teachers. Usually, we share copies of school supplies lists, agendas for meetings, checklists, rubrics, etc. and we can share them through this tool. I can envision putting the handbook on the google site and sharing it with the assistant principals and ILT before publishing. This would save lots of time and effort in editing the script. We could add the textbook and guided reading inventories to this and make them accessible to teachers. I looked at the educational origami wiki and liked the Lego Robotics activities described. We're always looking for interesting problem solving activities which can be included in our after school program. This could be a possibility.

Tool #5

It's taken me a long time to get around to posting this and now I'm in a rush to finish all my tools. I had too much fun playing around with delicious and spent a little bit of time with diigo. I mostly used the "education" tag and found some interesting websites. I joined the Khan Academy site as Mallory Shaddix had mentioned this site to me and had recommended I look into it. It popped up in the education search under the "learning" tag. Very interesting work done through this technology oriented academy. It has been featured on PBS and NPR. You can access it at http://www.khanacademy.org/. Another interesting website is Mashable. I found this under the technology tag for social media 2.0. I was able to add this to my google reader list to get new articles as posted. There are several articles already posted that I want to read. The link for Mashable is http://mashable.com/. Mashable also includes a diigo link if you prefer to see it with a different online service. I think this tool will serve in sharing sites with the staff and other principals.

Tool #4

I've been playing with this tool for several days and decided I'd better start posting and finish the 11 tools while on vacation (today is my last day) so I can get to work tomorrow. I see lots of uses for google docs and I'm excited to use it. I'm currently sharing an interview form with the Assistant Principals and see where we can share documents on a regular basis which we all need to view and edit before sharing with faculty and staff (i.e. teacher handbook documents). I've decided to follow other principals' blogs and so far have been able to add 3 principals. Unfortunately, there aren't others with blogs yet. I've picked a couple of teachers to follow for now and will probably add all HBE teachers later. Whew, that's a lot of following.

Tool 3

Wow, I spent lots of time playing with these generators and mashups. I agree with my peers in seeing all kinds of possibilities for word walls with Wordle. I added a Love and Logic one to my blog gadgets. I pulled several photos that tell something about me and may add them to the gadgets later. I've been watching World Cup Soccer so picked something representative of my favorites to add here. I think about the time students could spend on these tools in the classroom and how reluctant we as teachers can be to "waste" time when they need to be reading and doing Math. How about having an after school class where students make books and movies (Animoto) using these tools? These could also be good group projects in class.

Tool 2

I can see lots of value in establishing a PLN especially in our field when we need to be networking with others across the nation. I'm wondering how this could work for our campus when doing a book study. There seems to be some possibilities there. Regarding the tips on commenting, I can attest to the one that says not everyone comments on blogs even though they read them. I've looked through almost all the postings done by teachers on my campus and did not respond to all. Each read was interesting and/or entertaining, but, I'm mindful of the time I have and want to spend on reading blogs. I did post comments to Alfredo, Headiyeh, Pedro, Stephanie Green, and Lisa White. There may have been others, but, can't remember now. I particularly want to reinforce the comment about disagreeing with what others write and criticizing their opinions in a respectful manner. I believe this to be crucial in building relationships and when we teach students to blog, we must also model for them how to disagree while remaining civil to each other.

Tools #1 Blogging

This is fun and almost easy. Navigating the system is time consuming and playing around always takes time. Hopefully, all teachers will use this tool with students in a variety of ways. We can discuss how this can be used in the different grade levels. I'm thinking we could use this tool to send items for discussion or send bulletin announcements.