Take Care

Amy and Class,

I wanted to end this class blog with a quick THANK YOU! It has been a pleasure to have class with you all. A special THANKS to my group mates! It has been a blast working on the projects and laughing at the Dude for all his craziness. Amy-you have been a great help and a vast source of information. Thank you for taking the time to teach and help prepare us to teach. I cannot wait to apply what we have learned! Good luck to all in your future teaching, I hope to run into you all out in the "real world."

Take Care,
Karen

Chapter 9

As I read "Big Shift #7: The Web as Notebook," the environmentally conscious part of me, smiled. I like the idea of students doing as many assignments as possible without the use of endless amounts of paper, killing acres of trees. Also, the idea that students will be able to keep a record of their assignments for future use is excellent. Teachers could also design a space for students to post notes that they should review before CATS testing. That way students could go back and look over the things that may be covered.

Technology Autobiography 2

As the end of our class approaches, I read my original autobiography and reflected on it. I find that my views have not changed, but strengthened. I hope that I will one day teach to a class that has their own laptops. The course text states over and over how important it is for students to have constant access to technology. I am lucky that through a grant from General Electric, I will have a tablet laptop and LCD projector because I teach science. This will help me to include technology in my instruction, but I also hope to have at least a few computers in my classroom to utilize. Most schools only have one computer lab and time can be hard to come by. I am also willing to look at used or refurbished laptops that I can purchase at a discount to use in my room if we are without classroom computers. After this class, I think of computers as a necessity rather than a luxury.

At the start of Teaching with Technology, I thought that I would learn some new technologies. But I never imagined I would want to use them all! I did come into this class hating blogs and seeing no real use for them in my classroom. I have now changed my mind. I forced myself to use blogging as a technology for the midterm project. After doing so, I really do want to use it in my classroom. And selfishly, I love the fact that I can grade all my students' work without a huge stack of paper to go through.

As the semester progressed, I tried to look at each new technology as a middle school student. I found them all to be fun and something that my students will be capable of doing. And because of our midterm and final, I have found a way to use each of my favorites within the standards. This will be immensely useful when I go to actually teach those lessons, I will already have an idea in mind on how to make it interesting for my classes.

I am thankful that this course was a part of our program and hope that I am able to take more like it in the future. Technology is ever evolving and I need to keep up, so that my students don't totally pass me by.

Web Quest

Mr. Whitehead,

I wanted to take a moment to explain to you why we should present Web Quests as a classroom tool at our summer professional development seminars. Web Quests are a great way for students to learn about or to increase their knowledge on a subject while safely exploring the internet. Teachers design the Web Quest and provide their students with links to specific web sites that have appropriate content. This is a new and exciting way for students to answer any question a teacher wants to ask.
Please take the time to look at this example: http://www.questgarden.com/47/99/7/070320082834/
Wasn't that fun?! Do not worry, our teachers could easily do this. There a tools out there that just ask you to fill in the blank and it is done. It is very simple to take an existing lesson plan and turn it into a Web Quest. I am very willing to teach this PD. I would group teachers by subject area and have them develop a Web Quest for them to use next school year. I believe that this is an excellent way for our school to integrate technology in every subject area. It might even spark those reluctant teachers to start exploring the use of technology in their classrooms. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions. Thank you for your time.

Karen Letendre

Chapter 6

I wish that I had known about Furl from the start of my MAT experience. There have been so many good sites I have discovered along the way. I have added some to my favorites, but my husband and I currently share a laptop; so I did not want to put a bunch of stuff on it that he would have to wade through to find his favorites. If I had known it could be done to a website where it would be neatly tucked away, I would already have a vast library of reference sites. I also like the idea that it could be accessed from home or school on any computer. Another great feature is that when you save a page, you get a snapshot of the page to see forever, even if the page is taken down.

Also, I like the idea of a furl account for team teachers. All science teachers (for example) could have a shared Furl account where they post websites that have cool experiment ideas that relate to our curriculum). I learn best by doing and most students are the same way. So, the more hands on we can make science, the more fun it becomes, and more is retained by the students.

And for pure laziness sake, I love the feature that will automatically format a website into MLA (or other) format for use in a bibliography. That is an excellent use of technology, but I am sure that I am making English and future English teachers cringe. But hey, I have done it on my own until now, and couldn't we all use any extra time we can save?