EDUC 573- Fish Out of Water

Wow, "the times they are a changin'".  I have been a contributor to a higher education blog for Financial Aid administrators for some time now, but it never occurred to me the many different possibilities for using a blog in an educational setting.  I look forward to not only learning these new educational tools, but applying them in my professional career.  I currently supervise a staff of around 22 people and I can see using the blog and the screencast as ways to distribute training materials and gather feedback, while allowing my staff to utilize the tools on their own schedule.

EDU 573

I am absolutely thrilled to say that I successfully created a screencast.  I think this will  be a wonderful tool to explain and show students how to create power points, create word processing documents etc. on the computer.  It would work wonderfully because I could begin the screencast then walk around and assist students that need help.  I am excited to try this new technology in a classroom.

I have never created a screencast, blog or podcast.  I am new to all of these technologies.  I am finding this course very difficult and frustrating.  I hope by reading the book and creating some of the required materials that I will become more technologically savvy.  Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Screencast

I enjoyed making the screencast after I figured out how to create it.  I think that screencast would be great to put on my class website when we are beginning a new subject.  They would help the parents to see what we are learning and how to do the skill.  I am very excited about trying it with my class.

EDUC 573 (Web Blog & Screen-Cast

In the past I have created a teacher webpage for my students and parents to visit to stay up to date on assignments and happenenings in my class.  After keeping it updated and in use for a few years, I found that the majority of students and parents did not keep up with it or use it as a resource, so I stopped keeping up with it myself.  The students liked getting on it at school to get their updates, but I had a low population of students who actually had computer and internet access at home.  The students and parents who did provided good feedback on the webpage, but unfortunately there were many who could not access it.  The socioeconomic status of many of my students is not the best, and many of us can attest to that here in rural eastern Kentucky.  Many times, I am teaching basic word processing and PowerPoint skills in my 7th grade classroom, so a lot of the students are way behind when it comes to technology use because they have never been exposed to it on a regular basis.  That is scary because we all know how technology dependent the world has become.  I do have an on-line portal that students and parents can visit to keep up with grades and assignments, and the kids are always asking to log on to that here at school to check things.  I allow them time each week to do that, or each day if they finish their assignments early.  I have also used the Screen-Cast program a little bit in the classroom for PowerPoint presentations.  Students are starting to become a little bit familiar with that as I work it in.  I hope to let them use the program first-handed with their own presentations over the 2nd semester.

EDUC 573 (New to Blogging)

Well I can honestly say that this is my first time blogging.  I have used the screen-cast program before a couple of times, and I have created my own teacher webpage, so I am a little familiar with some of the different types of technology that Will Richardson talks about in his book.  I am not, however, into the whole blogging, wikis, twitter, facebook, post this, post that type of stuff.  I use many different technoloical resources in my classroom, from PowerPoint presentations, to on-line programs, to interactive things for the students.  I am interested in learning some of these technology-based programs and trying to incorporate where I can.  With less than half of my student population having computer access at home, it does make it difficult.  I do have a parent and student portal set up to where they can view their grades on-line and we can communicate back and forth better, and the kids like keeping up with that.  I am cautious though about communicating with students on-line outside of a classroom setting because I know how some kids and parents can be.  The ideas presented in this book are great for those settings where every student is eager to learn and responsible, but the reality is that not all are the same.  These programs do present some challenges to keep up with and enforce, but I can see the positives as well if ran correctly and in the right setting.

Blogging for the first time

When I first realized that we would have to participate and create in a blog, I was very apprehensive.  I have heard of blogs but have never actually participated in one.  So as I was reading in our book “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson”, I found that I agreed with the reading that the students are more familiar with the new technologies than are the students.  I know that my 5 year old can more easily operate her websites than I could at the age of 20.  I do see how technology is being incorporated more into our curriculum now than in the past.  I am amazed that our elementary students now have to type their responses to a writing assessment as early as third grade.  I didn’t even take typing until I was in high school.  As I was reading, I was also didn’t realize that the school websites could be considered a blog.  That leads me to ask, is my school website considered a blog, because our class information such as schedule, assignments, and projects are located there and the parents can send us an email through the site.  So would it be considered a blog?  In our text it states that “blogging takes as much skill as sending an email” (Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson), I hope that by the end of this class, it will be that easy.