As I read this book, the first thing that struck me was how user-friendly it is. I like how the author gives advice and gives step-by-step instructions to follow. He clearly explains all the toolbox items and how each one works. For me, I have used weblogs and have my own department blog that I and a colleague created. It has links for students to easily access practice websites, research sites, and fun activities in French and Spansih. Here is the link to my blog, if you want to look at it:
I like the reference to an online filing cabinet and it being a way for students never to misplace their work. However, I have always held off on using my blog for posting homework assignments because I didn't want students or parents to say "You didn't post it on the blog" as an excuse if I couldn't get to post it on a given day.
My school district uses Moodle and last spring the World Language Department set up a Moodle site for language teachers to view meeting minutes, share curriculum work, share activities that we like, etc. It has connected us in a way that we never have been, especially since we rarely meet as a complete group.
In addition to blogs, I have used a wiki before, but didn't really understand how it worked. It was a wiki that was set up by USM for their interns. I had an intern and I had to go into the wiki and post evidence for each of the standards, as i observed what my intern did applied to each standard. The intern's university supervisor and the intern also had to post evidence. It was a wonderful way to share how the intern was meeting each standard, and we each a different color so we knew who submitted which piece of evidence. We all were able to view the wiki during the intern's final standards assessment meeting. For me, it was a great first experience with a wiki, but I feeling overwhelmed at the idea of trying to do something like that for my 12 different classes, 150 students total! It's mind-boggling for me right now.
I really liked how we used a wikispace to collaborate on the Dracula activity. I would like to experiment this year with having some of students do that.
Finally, what struck me most in this book was this quote: "RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and if you're an educator, I think it's the one technology that you should start using today, right now, this minute. And tomorrow, you should teach your students to use it." That statement made me want to do that, so I am planning to set up an RSS for myself. Beyond that, I plan to teach my students this fall how to use it.
In conclusion, I know that this text will become a manual for me this fall. I will re-read the RSS chapter next week to set up my RSS, I will read it again before helping my students with an RSS, and I will access it to enhance how I use my blog, to possibly explore Facebook in the Classroom more deeply, and to use as a general resource for my classroom web toolbox.
Blog
I like the reference to an online filing cabinet and it being a way for students never to misplace their work. However, I have always held off on using my blog for posting homework assignments because I didn't want students or parents to say "You didn't post it on the blog" as an excuse if I couldn't get to post it on a given day.
My school district uses Moodle and last spring the World Language Department set up a Moodle site for language teachers to view meeting minutes, share curriculum work, share activities that we like, etc. It has connected us in a way that we never have been, especially since we rarely meet as a complete group.
In addition to blogs, I have used a wiki before, but didn't really understand how it worked. It was a wiki that was set up by USM for their interns. I had an intern and I had to go into the wiki and post evidence for each of the standards, as i observed what my intern did applied to each standard. The intern's university supervisor and the intern also had to post evidence. It was a wonderful way to share how the intern was meeting each standard, and we each a different color so we knew who submitted which piece of evidence. We all were able to view the wiki during the intern's final standards assessment meeting. For me, it was a great first experience with a wiki, but I feeling overwhelmed at the idea of trying to do something like that for my 12 different classes, 150 students total! It's mind-boggling for me right now.
I really liked how we used a wikispace to collaborate on the Dracula activity. I would like to experiment this year with having some of students do that.
Finally, what struck me most in this book was this quote: "RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and if you're an educator, I think it's the one technology that you should start using today, right now, this minute. And tomorrow, you should teach your students to use it." That statement made me want to do that, so I am planning to set up an RSS for myself. Beyond that, I plan to teach my students this fall how to use it.
In conclusion, I know that this text will become a manual for me this fall. I will re-read the RSS chapter next week to set up my RSS, I will read it again before helping my students with an RSS, and I will access it to enhance how I use my blog, to possibly explore Facebook in the Classroom more deeply, and to use as a general resource for my classroom web toolbox.