Technology Reflections

I’ve been playing with Rock You today

Here’s a slide show of the web 2.0 tools that I either currently use, or want to use in my classroom.

[rockyou 40117871]

For a while now I have been considering going back to school. I have been thinking about getting a degree in Distance Teaching. I feel that Distance Teaching is going to grow in leaps and bounds in the coming years, and it’s also a great way to stay in teaching when I feel that I have had enough of the classroom

Many colleges offer degrees in Distance Teaching, but I really don’t feel like spending thousands of dollars – not to mention that I don’t HAVE thousands of dollars. Global Classroom USA, has a variety of courses that are delivered though Moodle. Their classes range from about $250 to $900, depending on the length and complexity. The time frame ranges from 4 – 8 weeks.

The program for Distance Teaching involves three classes: Teaching and Learning Online, Developing Online Content and Integrating Content Into a Web-based Classroom. They also have an Integrating Content Into a Moodle-Based Classroom in the works. Another course they offer that I am very interested in is Podcasting for Education. I really want to take all four classes, but I just can’t get myself to commit to spending the money. It’s really not all that much – just over $1000. I spent 3 times that when I went back to school a few years ago to get my Reading Endorsement. I need the motivation to commit to it – I really enjoy learning more. I like to say that after time I use the knowledge that I already have in my head and every now and then I need to fill my brain back up again with new knowledge.

Today someone at work told me about a nifty Firefox extension – StumbleUpon.

StumbleUpon helps you discover and share great websites. As you click Stumble!, we deliver high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended by your friends or one of 1,271,345 other websurfers with interests similar to you. Rating these sites you like () automatically shares them with like-minded people – and helps you discover great sites your friends recommend.

So tonite I have been wasting time by clicking away and finding new sites that interest me. Some of my favorites – so far – are Cooking By Numbers – you check off what you have in your fridge and cupboards and it will give you recipes with those ingredients, What Should I Read Next? – tell it a book title and author that you like and it will give you suggestions of similar books (this could be good for students!), and Go2Web2.0 – the Complete Web 2.0 Directory – lists and describes TONS of cool Web 2.0 stuff.

Since I seem to be addicted, I’m sure I’ll post more. But if you can’t wait for me to post more stuff – go Stumble for yourself!

This week my 7th grade reading class read a book in the text book that was a Personal Narrative. We talked about the form of a Personal Narrative, using the story as an example. I pointed out the parts of the story that made it interesting and made it personal. We talked about Plot Diagrams – we had just used one to plot the previous story – and I emphasized beginning, middle and end. They had a Story planner to jot down thoughts about what they wanted to write about. I’ve begun grading the narratives – I’m not sure these kids were in the same classroom as I was last week

Well, OK maybe that’s a bit harsh. I do have to admit that they do have a basic beginning, middle and end, but OMG – the sentence structure is from outer space.

Here are some of the things I’m reading:

• I had gotten (I got, I received), I had been (I went), I had seen (I saw)….had had had….. this is so frustrating!
• single and plurals that do not match: “the reason why it was the saddest days”, “After going on that ride we ate a hot dog and they were very good”
• and then, and then, and then – we need to work on transitions
• not capitalizing Mom, Dad, Uncle, etc
• no paragraphs and/or not indenting paragraphs
• and don’t get me started on dialogue – LOL

Since this is Reading Class and not Language Arts, I’m actually being easy on the grading. It’s not my job to teach writing and I don’t want to contradict anything the LA teachers doing, but I still have to have the kids write in Reading for comprehension purposes.

One final note: don’t plan to have every class complete a writing assignment on the same day – I’m going to be grading these things for days….