Reflections

This has been an awesome year. I have really enjoyed all of the new technology that I have received this year. We are going to be attempting to work on iMovie in May. It is a perfect time as testing is winding down, as well as the year, to keep the kids engaged! I hope I am able to upload the movies for all to see!

2009-2010 YEAR: This just got erased and I have to write it again! Ok, next year I am going to continue all of the things I have used this year. I am going to continue my: monthly newsletter w/comic life, book reports using all of the different Apps we have learned about, iphoto, iMovie, inspiration, and blogging. I really want my students to get into blogging next year. This year I have mainly done the blogging because I am trying to get a feel for everything. I will have a pair of students assigned to blog the week’s work that they have done. I really want to get a better feel of iMovie, and clickers. I will play with them over the summer so I can use them effectively in the classroom.

The sound system is way cool. The kids really like it. I don’t use it all of the time, but I really like it and will use it more next year. It is also way cool because when I show a video (educational of course!) I can plug the sound system into my computer and it is great sound that everyone can hear!!!! That will be nice to start the year out with that next year. Mainly I am going to use all of the programs we have learned about. Trying them out in other subject areas than I did this year, and change it up. I love technology, and having a computer lab in my room is way cool!

I am going to go backwards here and put the most recent reflection on top. I am not going to go back and change the rest; but, from now on I will put the most recent one on top. CLICKERS: WOW!!! I love the clickers they are a way fun way to quiz the students and just to get them to interact more. I have used them a few times I am looking forward to the summer so that I can make more question sets, and go through the premade ones on the internet. I want to use them as a Friday review for any given subject. Not necessarily every Friday, but at least once or twice a month for sure. More as I get to use them more. I find myself forgetting simple things like how to get question sets all set. I can input questions, and answers; however, I can't get the cool box at the top that says only 15 out of 19 have answered. That kind of thing. I am going to have to play with it much more so that I am more comfortable with it. June 16, 2008 Day 1: I have really enjoyed today, and all the new toys we have received. I knew about some of the Web 2.0 tools, but have now learned a bit about how they can be used in the classroom. I can't wait to see what else I can do. I have learned more about Wiki's and Blogs. I think they will be very useful in the classroom! My student computer won't let me play with the fonts, but my home computer will! When in doubt, play till you figure something out! :-) June 17, 2008 Day 2:  Today has already been really fun. We learned about Atomic Learning. It seems like it will be a great way to learn quickly. Or brush up on something that I have learned before, but just need a reminder. I think it would be great if the principal could get a site license, and then teachers could use it for a reference before running to the tech. We also did a really cool pipe cleaner activity. It would be a great beginning of the year activity. Get kids excited to start to the school year, and working with the technology while learning. An "aha!" I figured out how to link my comic life projects to my site! I was able to link my new erosion comic life project, and my newsletter that I have been working on. That was really cool to learn how to do that. I think that comic life will really be a fun tool for the students to use, and to enforce what they have learned. Atomic learning will benefit teachers as well as students. I can show a tutorial to the class before we use the technology!

 June 18, 2008 Day 3: More interesting things today! We learned more about Kagen, and his cooperative learning strategies. I like the different strategies. I have used some of them before, and heard about new ones. I liked the money one, where kids spend their "money" to quickly decide on an idea together. I have used the del.icio.us website before. I already had an account; however, I learned how to add people to my network, and how to get the delicious tag icons on my browser! That will make it easier to save the websites that I am viewing. I can't wait to share this with my team, so that we can share what we find in an easier way. We also learned about webquests. This was a new concept for me, they look like the kids will have fun. It is also a great cooperative learning activity, and a way to get those higher level questions in.

 June 19, 2008 Day 4: Something interesting was Google Docs! I like the way of sharing the documents, and being able to revise and share online quickly. It will really be nice to have everything in one place and not have to worry about attachments! I've never heard about googledocs. They are really cool! I know I will use them right away with my team for collaboration. Hopefully I can get to the point where I can use them with my class for a project. We found that doing a spreadsheet to type our ideas in worked really well because we were able to all be in there at the same time, and not have to wait for the other to finish! Wow! That was a ton of information! Googledocs, blogs! I really like the blogs. I have heard about them, and thought about using them before. However, I have always been reluctant to use them because of privacy. I think with what I learned today I would be more willing to use them. I think they could really benefit the classroom, as well as myself. I loved what PJ said about someone taking the years Blog, and then making it into a book. I have learned so much within four days. Now I want to play with everything that I learned and brainstorm how I am going to incorporate it in my classroom. Thank goodness we have this wonderful group of teachers to lean on for help, and to bounce ideas off of! Thank you Margo and PJ! You guys were great!

 June 22, 2008 I have been playing with blogs, and my two wiki pages. They are really fun. I had my information translated on my classroom wiki because most of my parents don't speak English at all, or learning but don't know it all yet. So I thought that would be a fun element to add to my page. I added a rules page, and a questions page. I am really looking forward to see who will use it. Will it be mainly me that uses it? Or will I have parents that want to use it? I can't wait to see how it plays out. I have also been experimenting with blogs. I have created a classroom blog, and I also created a family blog. I am using my personal blog to play around with the site. Hopefully the practice I am getting using that one will help me use my classroom blog more effectively! <span style="color: rgb(84, 5, 163);">September  <span style="color: rgb(84, 5, 163);"><span style="color: rgb(55, 0, 255);"> 5, 2008 We've started school, and I have already been able to use some of the toys! The document camera is amazing. I love being able to direct the students and do the exact same thing with the projector, and I don't have to make an overhead! It works great with graph paper, I am able to do the example for the students and that really helps them. I can't wait till the computers get set up, and the sound system gets put in, it will <span style="color: rgb(115, 0, 255);">work out great!

September 15, 2008 I'm so excited! The district came in to image the computers! I'm so excited! I can't wait to use inspiration with the kids, and comic life! I bet they will really like it.

<span style="color: rgb(28, 4, 185);">September 29, 2008 Comic Life, and Inspiration are amazing! I love using them with the students. I've taught with them, had the students use them to take notes, and also had the students use the template I made and took a quiz on the computer using Comic Life! They loved it, it was a different way for them, and fun. Inspiration has been great for brainstorming. We write autobiographies in our grade this year. It is really helping the students to think it out. We used it for our Biography Reports as well. They turned out great! Using a wikispace and blog are very fun. However, given the place I work both haven't been very effective parent communication. It will be interesting to find out after Parent Teacher Conference when I can tell parents more about it whether it becomes useful for the parents.

<span style="color: rgb(141, 7, 7);">October 8, 2008 The document camera is extremely helpful. I use the camera to show, and explain what the student is working on. When I hand out any paper to the student I have an example of the exact paper and explain the paper as it is being projected onto the screen. The students are able to look at the screen and see exactly what I want them to do, and how to do it. I use the document camera daily, it is wonderful!

<span style="color: rgb(0, 3, 255);">October 13, 2008 This is seriously the coolest program. I love all of the things I learned over summer training. I am really starting to get into it, and I have have been able to do a lot of projects with my students. I am finding so many ways to use comic life. I have been able to use it as a quiz, information based, rubric, I've had students make one to show what they have learned, and I am finding more and more ways. I love it! We just finished our first iphoto project. We made a pipe cleaner slideshow. The kids had a ton of fun with it. Now that they have done it once they will be doing an election one, I can't wait to see what they come up with. My group of kids this year work really good as groups, this should be a very fun and interesting project! I am so happy to be in this project!

December 2008 I am still learning all of the cool things I can do with a Doc Cam. Given more time throughout the year I am sure to find even more things that cool little contraption can do! My students are loving using all of the technology and are using their typing skills even more this year than ever before I am sure. I make sure to use the computers a lot; at the same time making sure I don't over use them so that the students get bored. The kids love using the digital camera for projects. My goal for when we come back on break is to make an iphoto video, and then an imovie.

<span style="color: rgb(152, 6, 6);"><span style="color: rgb(184, 5, 5);">February 2, 2009 We did a really cool project today using the digital cameras. I have Hogwarts Houses, so they kids are already divided up into 4 groups. Our goal was to find Geometric Terms in the classroom. (Line, line segment, point, plane, ray, and midpoint) We used the cameras to find these terms in the classrrom. After we took the pictures I downloaded them to the class wikispace, and posted them! Now they will definitely have a way to remember the terms. We usually do this in the classroom; however it was my student teachers idea to use the cameras, way cool huh?! I just had the coolest idea, well at least I think. My student teacher will be here till the end of February. We need to make a movie to show what she's down since she's been here and what we've learned. I'll take the pictures and have the kids turn it into a video! Cool idea huh? <span style="color: rgb(5, 56, 8);">March 19, 2009 Clikers! They are really cool! I love using the clickers during math. I have found that my students are more prone to answer questions when they using the clickers. It is also a fun way to do a quiz, and helps those who daydream stay focused. I need to use them more but have not had time to make the assignments that I want to. I think that over the summer I will be able to make more assignments and then will be more set for next year! We just played with the proscopes in training, if I am lucky enough to find where it was stowed during the summer then I will be able to play with it. I am thinking that someone else took it but I am sure I'll find it! They are a really cool tool!