Technology Reflections

Yup – I got an ipod Touch today! it’s soooo freakin cool! I still have my video ipod and I’m going to keep that for a while since it’s 30GB and the touch is only 16. I have a ton of audiobooks, so I kept those in the video ipod (along with everything else) and put music and videos on the touch. The coolest thing about the touch is the wi-fi access! I have a wireless network in my house, so I’ve been playing with that. It’s going to be really cool to not have to pull out the laptop, or lug it around in places with free wi-fi. I’m especially looking forward to using it at FETC in January. Maybe I’ll even do some live blogging. The keyboard is a bit sensitive, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

To keep this post somewhat education oriented, I’ll talk about another new toy I’ve been using – Classblogmeister . It’s a great tool to keep kids safe online while allowing them to blog. I used Learnerblogs for the past few years, but all of a sudden last year I couldn’t access them at school. They weren’t being blocked, but the IT guys could not figure out why the pages wouldn’t load. Learnerblogs was cool because of all the different templates, but in order to have security for the kids I had to set up individual accounts for each student using the gmail+name system. That was time consuming. With Classblogmeister I copy and pasted names from my class roster into their system and had classes set up quickly. Classblogmiester doesn’t have many templates to choose from, but my students will live I have been having some issues with Classblogmeister, but I’m forging ahead with it and I’m going to introduce it to my students tomorrow. I just hope that I can actually access it at school……..

I am still a teacher, even though my recent posts have been sports related (GO RED SOX!),  I have a request for you all (all 5 of you who read my blog LOL)

I would like to teach my students how to use Diigo (I need to see if it’s blocked or not, but the IT guys know that I will make sure that it is used properly and they will usually unblock things for me). I think that Diigo will be a great tool for my kids to do some group research on our next unit (The History of Computers). I’m thinking about splitting up the class into generations of computer development and having them do a presentation. I’m even considering Voice Thread for the presentation – again I have to see if I can access it at school.

What I need are tips/tricks to teach my students how to use Diigo. I understand how it works and I can use it, but these are 8th graders and I need to present it well for them. Since I have just started using Diigo today, I was hoping some more seasoned people would reply with their experiences about using the tool.

Thanks!

This time it’s two weeks with students. So far, so good! Most of my students and classes are really good. A few random kids who still do not understand that it’s rude to talk when someone else is talking, a few who will take negative attention over no attention and I always forget how young and needy the 6th graders are at the beginning of the year.

In Reading class we are reading Tangerine by Edward Bloor. This is probably the 4th year that I’ve taught this book and every year I learn more about it and like it even more! It’s always a slow start, but we’re getting through it. I’m supposed to do a book in about 4 weeks and then the LA teachers do a book in their class for the second half of the quarter. Luckily I only have one LA teacher to coordinate with and we are really flexible with each other. Also, she tends to read the book more in class and I tend to have the kids read more at home so that we can discuss in class. The idea is to not have the kids have to read too many books for homework. In addition to the books we read in class, they all have to be reading an independent book for our Reading Counts program.

The computer classes are going well. We’ve finished the Online Safety unit in all computer classes. 6th graders are making Wanted Posters for the WizzyWigs, characters from the Netsmartz curriculum that I use. I’ve moved onto teaching the 7th graders how to use Word more effectively and 8th graders are about to begin a Unit on Digital Photography.

I have decided NOT to use blogs in my classes this year. One overriding reason is the time and effort it takes me to set up all the accounts. In order to ensure safety, I created gmail emails for each of my students in 8th grade computers and reading classes – thats about 100 kids. Then I had to go create each of the blog accounts for them, because I had to keep the gmail email passwords private (I did the gmail+name trick so that all passwords and emails came to one gmail account that I had control over). This week I found a new tool that I am going to use – www.myhaikuclass.com While it does not have blog features, it does have a discussion area where the kids and I can have message board type discussions. It also allows students to upload assignments to me, which I think is cool! There is an email feature, but the teacher has to ENABLE the feature for students to email each other – I won’t be doing that for liability reasons, but I will be able to email the kids and they can respond to me. One other great feature is that the kids do not need to have an email address to sign up and I can have each kid sign up on their own through a special link. That will save me hours of time. I plan to use this program with 8th Grade Computers and Reading classes.

Still thinking about my last post…..I still really like Zoho, but I’m beginning to think that the learning curve for the kids may be too great, at least for the reading kids, since I have so much content that I need to cover. I still want the kids to do collaborative notes, but I think I will use a wiki for that – wikispaces or pbwiki. I have used both and I like both.

Google would be another good alternative – Google Docs and Spreadsheets are great, and they can be shared and collaboratively edited. After reading Clarence Fisher’s post today, I started thinking about teaching RSS to the 8th graders next year. Since I use Google Reader, it would be easy for me to teach the kids how to use it. Keeping everything in Google makes sense.

For the past two years I’ve used blogs with the kids as a means for them to respond to writing prompts. I want more of a true blog next year, with student reflections. I’m thinking about having the kids write something reflective twice a week. Their reflections could be about anything school related; a book they are reading, how hard the science test was, how much they hate math , etc. Just to get the kids writing. I will grade it only on completion, I will not judge their writing or their spelling or their grammar. I will comment when I can and I will encourage them to read their classmate’s blog and make appropriate comments. I think this will help their writing overall. For blogs I use wordpress.

I’ve also been thinking about the email accounts that I mentioned in my previous post. The kids need email accounts to register for all the wonderful online stuff. Pros: I have control of each and every email account, I have the passwords if someone should forget theirs (I don’t let the kids change their password from the default one) Cons: It takes a long time to set up each account, I will have to monitor all the mail when they start sharing documents Alternatives: Have each student set up their own gmail account. They would have to give me their password so that I can monitor them (but in reality, I probably wouldn’t log onto what could be 100 accounts to monitor them). Am I being too over protective? – these are for 7th and 8th graders. I would love to hear thoughts on this – help me decide how to handle the email issue.