How Far I've Come

Well the end of class has come pretty quickly. In these short weeks I have gone from someone rather intimidated by technology to someone who is ready to meet the changing world with new hope for more ways of educating not only myself, but others as well. I have learned to set up a blog and continue to post to it. I now have an electronic portfolio with work that I have completed these past weeks. I have included my philosophy of education as well as disciplinary ideas for my classroom. I created a PowerPoint with some sound effects, made educational comics, and took a stab at scripting, designing, and directing an animated movie about therapeutic riding.

I think the greatest asset to taking this class was learning new ways to utilize the Internet. From making Webquest's to making comics and animated videos. These are all great ways to keep students engaged in thinking in new ways. I have made copies of many of the educational links that I used throughout class. As I am sure that I will revisit them to come up with further lesson plans and new ways to let students be creative in doing class projects.

I still live with dial-up connections that hinder my ease of access to many sites. This I still find frustrating in a state that continues to promise e-commerce for everyone. In spite of my dial-up setback I have persevered and found much that I can do in slightly different ways.

I am looking forward to one day having a laptop computer and I would also like to have a Kindle to download books and have them read to me. I don't own an ipod, but may look into one of those as well. I understand you can download some books and blogs there as well. I can see that future of the ever changing technology in making teaching an new and wondrous world. I believe that the future is one of open-minded ingenuity and will continue to embrace these ideas instead of shying away.

Google Earth For Education

I have been looking around on googleearth.com. This is a great site for educators. In social studies class I have seen the google earth application used to virtually travel to an area of the world that the class is studying. This seems to really drive home the lesson. Instead of just looking at pictures in a text book, you can travel the globe from the comfort of your school chair. This helps to envision what the world looks like now and not some time ago when a picture was taken.

I also found a literature link. Several books have been discussed and lesson plan ideas shared. I like this site as you can get a glimpse of the author and sometimes find a link to have a chat with them regarding their work. This is a great way to inspire young readers and writers and a new way to talk about literature. I can see this link used as a sort of WebQuest to find out more information about the author, other books that they have written, and finding ways of communicating with the author or others interested in the book.

I tired the math sites as well. I admit that math is my least favorite subject and I am always looking for help in this subject. The math sites are great for finding innovative ideas on calculation with more technical finesse like calculating seismic waves of a tsunami. You can also find help with algebra if seismic waves are too hard to cypher.

The Google Earth site has many applications that can be easily used in the classroom. I realize that it will be an invaluable site for teaching and teaching ideas. This site is updated with the latest technology continually, so will be handy for any activity you can think of.

Teacher Blogs

This week I visited many teacher blogs. These blogs sadly seem to be a forum to rant and vent about the teaching profession. Here I read about bad days, horrible students, and the woes of administrations that don't seem to work or understand what needs to change etc... I can certainly understand needing to vent, but some of the sites made me question my own idea of becoming a teacher. Then I found a few that mentioned being really happy in their teaching and enjoying a lesson that seemed to inspire their students to do work that they found challenging. I found a lesson plan to write a six sentence paragraph on any subject without using a word more than once. I love the idea and the teacher was in awe of what her students wrote. I'll have to squirrel this idea away to try myself. I am even considering trying it myself. I certainly have "buzz" words that I use perhaps too often. I think this could be a great way to try a different way to communicate.

The good thing about some of the blogs were links to other teacher sites. There were links for lesson plans and I found a few sites on poetry, which I plan to visit again. I also see a nice community between teachers that are willing to share their experiences, ideas, resources and communicate about everything under the sun. I also like that the people on these sites even though they make the occasional rant would like to inspire the young and teach them a subject that they have a desire to share. This is what I was hoping to find, a new community with other members of education that are willing to share their knowledge to the teachers that are new to the profession. I did find a few blogs from teachers that are working on their teacher trainings. I hope to be doing that in the next year or so. ...So I will continue to learn all I can and search the Internet for ideas and fellow educators experiences and cyber friendships.