Tool #2

I love getting comments, but I'm always hesitant to post -- filled with self-doubt about the importance or validity of my thoughts, I suppose. 

I do agree that teachers need to either match or surpass their students' knowledge of these new forums and ways of communication. In writing classes, we can integrate the appropriate online language and perhaps help them to understand that a digital footprint is permanent -- somewhere! 

Recently I started following a GT teacher from Fort Bend ISD on Twitter and Facebook. He gives great lesson suggestions, both his and others gleaned from the web. Really great stuff.

Tool #8

Okay...so now I know how to set up an iTunes account without entering a credit card.

The management ideas are interesting, but I've watched the kids in the library in the morning using the iTouches. They're already very responsible with them, and that encourages me.

There are a few apps that I think will work well in the classroom. I browse the free education apps when I can.

Can't wait to try using a camera in the classroom -- hopefully with a Skype-based author interview!

Tool #4

Ah, Google Docs. We love your online auto-save ability.

We hate your arbitrary fits of frozen cursors and repeated lines.

We love not having to drag a computer home to work on a document and we love how you allow students to collaborate on a piece of work (like a script or a project) without having to huddle around one computer like cavemen around a fire.

We hate the weirdness involved in the printing process. Seriously. What's up with that missing line on the second page at the top? What's up with the crazy center of the paper, right justification printing when I never told you to do that...

Fickle, fickle Google Docs. At least we don't have to ask the kids to keep up with a flashdrive.

Tool #6

So I know that embedding your choices was "preferred" but I like the Edmodo application. I'm using it right now to take a poll of how the first book club meeting went. Most students seemed to work well together, but I'm curious to see how they felt about it.

I think I'm going to continue the book club talks online with Edmodo. General chats about theme and the like.

Skype is the second choice. My students are contacting authors and we're begging them for a Skype interview. Combined with the ActivBoard (and using our faithful ELMO as a stand-in for a camera), I think we could have a really great conference with an author. Rick Riordan and Brian Falkner are our two initial targets.

Tool #5

Okay. It's not cheating if I upload links to a Prezi that I've made previously, is it?

I love Prezi, by the way. I know that it's just a flashier kind of PowerPoint.

I don't care.

Love it.

It's freakishly easy to use. I think the kids will like the ease of integrating the videos into presentations. Wordle will help them see which words they use more than others -- a lesson on word choice, perhaps? Hmm.

Tool #3 - Part Two

I got a bit frustrated with the last part of the Tool #3 activity. An error message kept popping up saying, "The requested URL /... is too large to process. 
That’s all we know
."

That's all I know. So I've moved on.

Sort of.

Tool #3 - Part One

I feel that in the past few years at Memorial MS, I've had a crash course in the realities of "fair use" and copyright issues. Before having so much technology it wasn't really an issue -- students plagiarized by copying longhand directly from the encyclopedia. Easy to see; a black-and-white, right-and-wrong issue. Image and video copyright has nuances that we never dreamed of before the age of the internet.

Blog Numero Uno

So far, so good. I'm sort of wishing that my Avatar spoke with a cooler accent, though...