Thing #5

I have been using my web page to keep up with the two classes that I teach and the History Day class starting after winter break. I use them almost exclusivly to post web sites that will help the class. Previously I had tried having the class type in long urls that almost always created panic among the students as they would miss a character in the long alphanumeric strings creating 404 errors. Having multiple students shouting that the website doesn't work all at once leads to chaotic teaching situations to say the least.

They are so helpful for students to work on the assignments outside of class as well. They don't need to navigate to difficult sites, they have it mounted for them already. I hope to help other teachers make use of this invaluable technology tool as well.

History Day

History Day is coming up after winter break. The projects students do are quite in depth. I am looking forward to working with students in their search for primary sources. We tried accessing some today primary sources on the Star Tribune website but it kept asking students to register after a couple clicks into the story. Maybe we'll have to find a way in through the ELM database. Also we want to find the New York Times website but will have to do some exploring to find it. Wed did find the read aloud feature of Nettrekker to be very helpful and many of the students used it upon learning about it.

Thing #29 Atomic Learning

I am really grateful for our districts participation in Atomic Learning. There are so many new technologies to keep up with and I desperately need to learn them. I have been using Atomic Learning at home aand at school with great results. It is so nice to have tutorial in just a few minutes for the basics and then go on to learn the technology by using.

Terry and Banlang are both teaming in the lab for various projects which is helpful to all of us. Both are very creative with their use of technology and are pushing the students to use technology in progressive ways. I am learning from both of them -

Mankato?

I had an opportunity to work with Terry's class on evaluating web sites. We used the fake Mankato page and asked to students to evaluate its accuracy. Since many were unsure exactly where Mankato is we let them know it was only an hours drive south of Minneapolis. I think it opened their eyes to the way the web works and the inaccuracies that can be found on the web.

I started an "Other Things" thing the other night in a class to learn about Moodling. It will contain several items including a Wiki and a blog. I hope it will come in extremely useful in the two class es I teach. As I collaborate with staff at Wellstone I may see applications for it with other teachers.

New Tools

Will start using Atomic Learning to find out about other technologies listed in our 23 + 1. May also look into attending a TIES session in December at their annual meeting. Will continue to try to get my OMPL file active so I can easily view and respond to other blogs.

New Literacy Landscapes

It seems as if technology is changing at an eve increasing pace. Students come into the classroom with all sorts of electronic devices and know so many web sites already. However, I notice that most all their web knowledge is considered by me to entertainment in nature. They know the social networking and the music sites and video sites, but when it comes to using the web for research they are not so sophisticated. I am sooo interested to introduce many of the resources we have to them. I think once they see the power in them they will take off and use them heavily.