Smilebox

I mentioned earlier that I was going to try an online scrapbook tool for personal use. I had originally planned to use picasa.google, but did not find it the most user-friendly. However, I found the website smilebox.com and it worked great! Here is the scrapbook I made of my daughter, Kelsey. (You will need to pause the music on the left as the scrapbook plays its own music.)

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Week 3 Reflection

I am writing my formal week 3 reflection a few days before the class week is officially over because I am attempting to use my time wisely. This week has been very busy for me. With my husband gone to Florida and my hurt back and strep throat, not to mention a sick baby, I was left feeling very overwhelmed by this class. I am the kind of person who likes to be organized and have a plan. It made things very difficult when I had so much to do and was not able to do it due to certain circumstances. Therefore, I believe the skill I worked on the most this week was time management. I wanted to make the best use of my time and be productive. I attempted to document my time for this class and was amazed at how many hours were spent reading and using the online tools. Now this does include checking my facebook, which often times takes awhile to get caught up from day to day. However, I also explored new websites and just tried to read and play to see what is all out there that I don't even know about. I commented earlier on using plinky and pandora in previous blogs. I am still feeling as though I am behind and trying to catch up. In a traditional classroom setting, all the students are in one place sharing ideas and receiving the information. In OL learning, it is very much the opposite. When I get the emails about all the posts to the website, I feel as though I need to respond immediately to stay in the loop and caught up. However, with all the posts being made, this is tough to do. Building on my time management skills, I found the Hendron book to be a wise use of my time. I feel as though I can understand the writing and it is an easy read. Sometimes I do not understand the terminology he is using, yet the flow of the writing makes it easy for me to reread or find the answer I am looking for by reading on. I also respect the fact that this author has been in the classroom and can look at technology from a teacher's point of view. On a final note, I am still completely stumped about what I am going to do for my final project. Any suggestions? I am all ears!

Plinky

As you may have been able to tell from my excessive amount of posting today, I am laying on the couch annoyed that I am sick and trying to be productive at the same time. I found the website called Plinky. www.plinky.com It will email you a daily prompt so you have interesting things to blog about. They call it a way to fix blogging block. For older students, you could have them set up a blog and use it as their daily journal. Then, they could sign up for plinky and receive daily prompts to write about. Of course you need to have daily access to the internet, which we have already said gets to be tricky especially during "testing season." But I thought this might be beneficial for some.

Pandora

I just checked out the website www.pandora.com and love it. You type in what kind of music you want to listen to by putting in an artist, song or genre and it creates a playlist for you. Sometimes at school, I struggle to find appropriate music to play for my students. Although they think listening to rap would be the best, obviously the lyrics make that impossible. But I feel it is getting harder and harder to choose appropriate music that is not considered "babyish." So many of the lyrics have inuendos that just cannot be played at school. I don't think they even know what some of the songs are suggesting. (At least I hope they don't know!)I thought the website was nice because it suggests songs you might not have heard before which adds some variety. You would need to preview the song list before playing it, but it is a free online tool that could made kid-friendly with a little work.

Facebook

I have not checked my facebook account for a few days because I have been sick. I just went on this morning and was amazed at how much stuff accumulates in such a short amount of time. I finally just had to tell myself that I could not possibly read all the status updates and look at all the pictures posted. It is so easy to get wrapped up in "playing" on websites like facebook when there are probably more productive things for me to be doing. By just as the other million people with facebook, I too am curious about what others are doing and find myself engulfed with it.

Delicious

I used delicious.com at school on Friday. My students are working on their state reports and often have a very hard time when we are in the lab trying to find information. The search engines are just too big for them because there is so much out there. So I pulled a few students who I knew were struggling and we looked up information through delicious. We were directed to some very user-friendly sites. I also used delicious for personal use. I want to find a way to create a photo collage to post online. I typed this in the search line and again was directed to some great sites. I like the way the website shows you how many visits the site receives to help narrow down your choices as well. The website I found that I plan to try is www.picasa.google.com. If I am able to make the collage, I will try to post it.

Sick

For the first time during our master's program I felt like I couldn't keep up. As you all saw in class on Wednesday, I hurt my back earlier in the week. My husband has been gone to Florida all week with the baseball team, so lifting our 8 month old daughter was a bit of a challenge. However, as my back got better in the latter part of the week, I noticed my throat was really scratchy. By yesterday morning, it was so swollen that I could not talk. I was running a fever and felt awful. I went to the doctor and found out I have strep throat. UGH! Plus, my daughter is coming down with something as well because she has a runny nose, nasty cough and fever. So I have spent the past 24 hours trying to feel better. I couldn't help but keep thinking about the master's work I was not getting done. I forced myself to go online this morning to try to keep up. Hopefully my posts make sense since I am still feeling pretty out of it. I guess the nice thing about online learning is that I am able to type this while sitting in my jammies and dealing with strep throat. Sitting in a classroom setting would probably be quite unbearable at this point. This has also given me a different perspective on single parents. The past week was a blur because I felt all I was doing was running from daycare to school to daycare while trying to get housework done at night and care for my daughter. My husband will definitely be getting the "I appreciate you SO much" speech when he gets back today! Just thought I would share my frustrations as it was a new experience for me to feel like I was truly falling behind.

Week 1-2 Reflection

After two weeks of this course, I am feeling like I have developed a routine. In the first few days after our first class, I completed all of our required readings. From there, I was able to post on the thread for Hendron and Da Vinci. I also created a blog and was able to make postings every few days on there as well. I check both my blog and the Ning website daily so I can read the comments made my classmates so I can respond to them. I also find myself surfing the internet and trying to find applicable websites, lessons, and online resources that I can use in my personal and professional life. In addition, I check my facebook account too. Classroom 2.0 has been helpful and I think it is a website I will continue to use after this course is completed. Since I am teaching first grade next year, I think it will be a very useful resource I can utilize to find helpful teaching tools. In the weeks to come, I am looking forward to more "playing" and exploring new ways to incorporate technology into my personal and professional life.

More Tweets

Ok, so by now you can tell I have sort of become obsessed with the Twitter phenomenon. I just find it so interesting that people are documenting every part of their day and sharing it with the world. I mean, does anyone really care if I am on the way to the grocery store or biting my nails? I have definitely been sucked in to keeping a status on my facebook page, which I guess is kind of the same thing. But with Twitter, that is the main focus. I have even read articles about President Obama using Twitter! Since this is so intriguing to me, I decided I need to make a connection to education. I found this on Classroom 2.0 about Twittering. I promise I will try to find something else to obsess about and stop posting about the same topic!

http://web20teach.blogspot.com/2007/08/twitter-tweets-for-higher-education.html

Shaq Tweets

I just posted on the Ning Concordia Website about a radio show I heard that talked about professional sports players "tweeting" during games. Here is the link to a newspaper article that talks more about it. Before this class, I had never heard of twitter. Now it is like it is everywhere!
http://www.thestar.com/Sports/article/606347

I figured it out!

I finally figured out how to add a video without having to navigate away from my blog to view it! Be sure to pause the music player to hear the video.

WCCO Reports on Facebook

I saw this on the news the other night and found it relevant to what we are learning about in class. Again, I don't know how to actually post the video so you don't have to naviagte away from my blog page. I have posted videos I have saved to my computer before, but never any random ones from the internet. If anyone has tips on this, I am all ears! Thanks!

http://wcco.com/specialreports/amelia.joins.facebook.2.955943.html

Classroom Blog

After reading the Hendron pages, I was very intrigued about creating a classroom blog. I currently have a classroom website that is supported through the Medford School website. However, I will admit that I do not use it on a regular basis. I have general information on it fourth grade, but nothing that shows what we are doing in my classroom on a daily basis. I really think this could be a useful tool for me, especially when I start teaching first grade next year. I can make it more of a daily/weekly reflection about what is happening in our classroom. Although I do create a weekly newsletter for my parents, this would be a more interactive way for them to stay updated. Not to mention, it would always be available for parents to view. When we clean our desks, I often find many newsletters shoved in folders that have never even been taken home. Thus, the entire point of the newsletter is lost. I think I will plan to create the layout for my first grade blog this year so it is one less thing I have on my plate when school starts in the fall. Here is my idea list thus far. Feel free to leave comments on what else I can add!
Pictures
Spelling lists
Upcoming dates
Daily/Weekly Reflections (Still to be decided)
Links to helpful websites
Book recommendations
Upcoming community programs
Links to our online curriculum

Classroom 2.0 website

As I told you at class on Wednesday, I am going to be teaching first grade next year. This is both a very exciting and scary thing for me. I do not have any experience in this grade level, so I am feeling a little bit overwhelmed with all that it will entail. However, I am up for the challenge and ready to learn all I can before the fall. In surfing the recommended websites, I found classroom 2.0 to be very teacher friendly. I read an article tonight about what technology I can use with my first graders next year. I am sure this is just the tip of the iceberg, but it was neat to see all the resources that are available at my fingertips.

Do you believe?

I am adding a link to a video I saw at a workshop. I don't think we have seen this in our master's program yet. I am not sure how to add this video on the actual blog so you don't have to navigate away from my page. I guess that is something I am going to have to learn! Any advice from anyone? (You will want to click pause on the music player to listen to the video.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAMLOnSNwzA

First Class

After our first class tonight, I am feeling a little overwhelmed with all the freedom we are given with this class. I am very structured person who needs to be given a set task to accomplish each week. Tell me what to do and I can do. I am definitely not a decision maker, and being given too much freedom honestly makes me nervous. I am the same way with my classroom. My first year was very stressful because I was creating everything from scratch. Now I have a routine and I am able to follow my set pattern. Granted I do adjust my lessons as I deem appropriate. I think this class will be good to help me "ease up" a little and try to go with the flow more. We'll see how it goes!