Insights About Myself After This Blogging Experience

Blogging to my personal site has been an enjoyable and rewarding experience and I discovered how important it was to receive comments/ feedback from my peers. Until I began working on my specialist degree I really had no idea what a blog was. The first time I heard the word blog it sounded mythical and ominous. Now here I am blogging away. Setting up the blog was much easier than I ever expected and I appreciated the controls over who could make comments. A blog is similar to a journal or chronicle in which the writer must up-date it with postings to keep it interesting and current. I can understand how a blog would not be very successful if the author only posted to it once a month. However, making postings twice a week proved to be difficulty because sometimes I would have to search for relevant issues or topics of interest. In the future I aspire to post to my blog once a week as a way to "check in" and keep it current.

Applications of Blogs to My Practice

I am a computer teacher -- so how apropos to have a blog to illustrate to my peers and students my technology applications. I have posted relevant information with some valuable links that both can use as resources and I hope to continue with this practice in the future. Who knows maybe one day I can actually use it at school with my students, but for now it is not meant to be.

Significant Postings from the Blogging Experience

The posting I felt was most significant to my blogging experience was my Philosophy of Technology video because it describes my personal feelings of how I approach technology in the classroom. As Confucius once said "Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in our life". Yes, teaching can be difficult, stressful and exasperating at times, but for me personally I have always enjoyed teaching as my profession. The classroom should be learning centered, differentiated, support multiple intelligences, transformational, and collaborative, as students experience learning through technology. George Bernhard Shaw said it best, "What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge and not knowledge in pursuit of the child. The second posting significant to me was the news of Kathy Cox. How amazing that Georgia's School Superintendent was the first ever to win a million dollars on the television show Are You Smarter that a 5th Grader? In addition, she donated all her winnings to schools for the deaf and blind. Even more ironic was to read in this week's paper, her husband filed for bankruptcy due to his failing construction business. She it truly to be admired for her generosity!

One Stop Shop for Educators

I think one of the most useful sites educators can use is the Georgia Standards Website, which is appropriately called the One Stop Shop for Educators. I forgot until I logged on to use it today, that this is the place for every possible teacher tool, helpful link, support materials and parent information that any one could imagine.

Jones County Film Festival

While attending the GaETC a few weeks ago, I went to a class called Lights, Camera, Film Festival. The instructor explained how their school district hosts a film festival, which showcases the student's best videos for that year. The school system has a theme (last year, Georgia On My Mind) each year to create a unique video production within their location and grade level and each school has a coach to help them with their production. At the conclusion of the year the videos are judged and they have a night of fan-fare and dress-up for the Academy Awards at their fine arts center. Five videos are chosen from each grade level (elementry, middle and high school) and the winners receive little Oscars. What a great way to showcase the student-produced videos. To find out more, go to their Website at http://www.jones.k12.ga.us/

Digital Blue Digital Movie Creator Camera

After reading an education research article about the Digital Blue Digital Movie Creator Camera, I thought I needed to share this information with my fellow educators. I have not personally used this camera but have heard about it from others and it is suppose to be a great tool which allows students to make their own movies. Considered "kid-friendly", this camera comes with editing software, which enables the students to add special effects, titles, credits, sounds, audio, and animation. They can direct and record video and audio images while at or away from their computer. If anyone knows more about this camera please respond because I am seriously thinking about purchasing one for my classroom. It is also reasonably priced. Check out the link if you are interested and let me know what you think.

Crappy Graphs

Crappy Graphs is one of the top 10 Web 2.0 tool your students can use for graphing anything! It is easy to use and jam packed with graphics. You and your students will love it. What is amusing is the subtitle under the heading --- it reads Because"Awesome Graphs" sounded way to pretentious.

Students with emotional problems

Just a note to tell you of a recent experience I had in my classroom. The 7th graders in my computer class were creating digital stories of the Israeli Arab conflict and I had a new student who had recently come from a bad home situation and was in foster care. She had no clue about what the other students were creating because this topic was something the other students had recently studied in their Social Studies class. I asked her what she would like to create and it was a story about her dog she had to leave behind. I told her to create a story about her dog and what it meant to her. Her final project was amazing and she was so proud of her accomplishment.

Top 10 Web 2.0 sites

I just have to tell you about this great Website which you need to check out. I found out about it in one of the sessions I attended at the GaETC. It is called Top 10 Free Sites and it has countless links to some amazing Web 2.0 tools.

The GaETC

I attended the GaETC (Georgia Educational Technology Conference) today and my only regret was I could not attend the other 2 days. I highly recommend it to anyone who may wish to go next year. I went to some great sessions and picked up some super ideas. The first session was given by Bernajean Porter, the creator of DigiTales, and she had some incredible examples to share. Her main focus was on the elements of good storytelling and she emphasized-- you should always ask yourself "what lesson was learned". After watching one of her examples it sparked an idea and I plan on creating a movie of my father who served in WWII and giving it to him for Christmas.

Global SchoolNet

Wow, I think I may have found a place(Web site) where my students can collaborate together with students from other countries and the site is not blocked!! It is called Global SchoolNet and it is "linking kids around the world" by promoting engagement between teachers and students from other countries through the development of projects and exchanging ideas.

Digg

Well I found out a real surprise. I can open Digg from school. I better keep this hush, hush for a while. Anyone can view news, pictures, videos, podcasts, and stories old and new, and if you wish to add your own you can sign up with an email address

Magic Pen

Where has this week gone? Somehow I let it slip by and now here I am posting to my blog, midnight Sunday. I'd like to tell you about a great collaborative tool found on the Internet called Magic Pen. It begins with a very simple concept of moving a small red ball to a flag, but it progresses quickly to a very difficult game of construction, and it is based completely on physics. The complexity of the game is built on gravity, friction, and inertia, and requires some serious engineering skills before you can complete all 24 levels. A note of interest-- it is a very addicting game so make sure you have time to spare when you begin playing.

Did You Know?

This short video, Did You Know, speaks volumes to me as an educator. All teachers need to watch this and be aware of the competition our children will face as adults. Our main focus should be preparing them for this rapidly changing world-- this means teaching them with technology. I found this video on YouTube and the following is the citation:

Fisch, K. & McLead, S. (Creators). Did You Know?[http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com]. video retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

Brainy Betty

The Website Brainy Betty offers a variety of free downloads for teachers and students. You can download hundreds of FREE PowerPoint backgrounds, some with animation and graphics that are unbelievably vibrant and useful for creating entertaining and meaningful presentations. The impressive templates and video backgrounds can help both you and your students create presentations with 3D transition effects, and there are some great Excel, Word, and Publisher templates as well.

TIES-Technology Information Education Services

Digital storytelling is a modern day approach of the oral and written form of traditional storytelling that dates back to early human history as a way to pass down knowledge and beliefs from generation to generation. As a a proponent of DST, Maria Davenport, director of TIES (Technology Information Education Services: www.ties.k12.mn.us ) explains in the article Show and Tell, how the collaboration of 38 Minnesota school districts work. She believes if kids can collaborate, create and publish their own videos the story is far more meaningful. The TIES Website has many hands-on tools to help teachers produce professional looking videos.

Bolch, Matt. (2008). Show and tell. T H E Journal, 35(8), 28-30. Retrieved from ERIC database.

GEM: Gateway to 21st Century Skills

GEM is a project by the US Department of Education to create a central database which acts much like a catalog of resources from state, federal, university, and commercial sites. This "catalog" of ideas is supported by many sponsors, one of which is the National Education Association. Much like Google, it acts like a search engine with over 50,000 educational resources. The actual search tool is found in a small box in the upper right-hand corner of the page. There you will find lesson plans, reports, articles, thematic websites, and great teaching tools.

Edutopia - George Lucas Educational Foundation

I recently discovered another great Website for educators called Edutopia--- maybe I'm one of the few educators unaware of this site. A person could spend hours perusing the many videos depicting real life classroom learning, stories about innovative schools and learning labs, and lesson plans with an emphasis on technology. Go take the online poll asking: Should teachers teach students netiquette? (meaning should educators take the time to teach students online mannners). What is your opinion?

New TechTip of the Week

If you haven't already tried Zamzar.com, you MUST try it. I just found 2 great educational videos on YouTube, which I wanted to share with my students. As we all know, it just isn't possible to access YouTube from school so I copied the URL from each video, pasted it in the Zamzar program, then Zamzar downloaded the video, formatted it, and sent it back to me in my email. I saved both videos onto my flash drive for later use. The best part is it was FREE! Be aware when sending videos to Zamzar, you must be careful in choosing the correct format you want the company to use when sending the video back to you. I use the wmv format.

Techno Gadget of the Week

Everyone needs to at least try out Google SketchUp at least once in their life. I love to draw and create and this is a fabulous tool that allows me to create a 3 dimensional drawing. SketchUp is a free download software from Google, which allows the user to model, explore and create 3D drawings on their computer. The software also comes with free tutorials to help get you started. Click on the link, download the software and try it out.

Kathy Cox is Smarter Than a Fifth Grader

What a great opportunity to showcase our Georgia School Superintendent, Kathy Cox, as she won $1,000,000 last Friday(9-12-08) on the Fox game show "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" We in Fayette County are especially proud of Mrs. Cox's prize winning accomplishment because she is a former high school social studies teacher from our county and her family resides in Fayetteville. Even more admirable than winning was what she chose to do with the money--- donate all the proceeds to state schools for the deaf and one for the blind. I found the news article , For the Georgia Schools Chief, Geography and History Pay Off , online posted at NYTimes.com and the entire story can be read by clicking on the article link. Way to go Kathy!!

My Blogger Classmates

Amy
Robert
Jack
Dr.Baylen
A.Adams
Diane
The Nerd Lounge
Leon
Jessica

My philosophy of technology in the classroom

Your invited to watch my short movie on my philosophy of technology and learning in the classroom