final thought

As an educator I feel that I have a lot of work to do to become more connected and move into the 21st century of education. I am happy that I took this course because if not I might not even have the sense to realize that I need to move forward in my educational practice. This class made me realize so many different things about education, there are many tools and resources out there that are here to help us not hinder us. As of right now I do not have any questions but I am sure in the future some will arise as I embark on new technology, and I am glad to know I have some resources and people that can help me along the way.

Response #4 Planning and Implementation

For me it is difficult to plan for some of the web 2.0 tools that I have come across. Like I said in other blogs I first have to see if my district will let me use it and if it is accessible for all the students. After that I feel that it takes a while to really learn some of the tools and for me personally I want to have a very clear understanding before I show the students, so if any issues or misunderstanding come up I will be able to help them work their way through it. I think that once you have a complete understanding of the concept the implementation shouldn’t be difficult as long as you thought about all the parameters of the lesson. For example there are certain tools I feel would be very difficult to implement with a large number of students and some tools witch are not easily manipulated so I think when you are creating a web 2.0 tool for the classroom you need to think about the pros and cons that could impact learning as well as time and effort that you as the teacher have to put forth. Over the past seven weeks or so I have learned so much in class as well as from my classmates about the wide and interesting variety of tools that are out there for us and our students. At first I was a little leery about all of these web 2.0 tools but now that class is coming to an end I really want to try a few of the things I learned about in the school years to come.

Blog #3 Safe Practices with web 2.0

When it comes to safe practices with web 2.0 tools and student use, I believe that the values, skills, and effective practice need to be instilled at a young age. As I said in the Ning conversation on this topic I think it would be very difficult to have students in a high school setting start using certain blogging sites without ever being exposed to them before. I am not saying it could not be done but I look at the population of students that I have and I think asking 400 students with various academic tracks using certain tools and I just think they would have a rough time with it. Now if all of these students used these types of tools in a classroom setting from day one I think the task would be less daunting. I would like to attempt some of the concepts and skills that we learned in class but I think I would have to choose one of my classes that is on a higher maturity level or I think that my life may consist of just monitoring the site and making sure nobody writes anything inappropriate.
When reading chaper 7 in Solomon and Schrum I cannot help but be impressed with the student/teacher code of ethics. I think that all of the points in that section are important but my favorite one is everyone being held accountable. As a teacher I believe that you need to be accountable for everything that is going on and as a student as long as you practice within the guidelines of the class everything should run smoothly with whatever 2.0 tools that the class is using. My other issue or question concerning practices with 2.0 tools is how do you get your school to see that these teaching tools are such an asset to a classroom and convince them that we need to have access to them. I have been trying to get our sites that we use for class unlocked since day one and nobody seems to have any answers for me. If a teacher cannot even have access to the sites how can we introduce them to our students?

Blog #2 Research and the reflective practitioner

Overwhelmed is the best word I can think of when describing all of the web 2.0tools that I have looked at over the past week or so. Actually most of the tools that we have used or discussed are all new to me, I never had any idea that there were so many different learning devices that could be used in the classroom. When being overwhelmed by the variety I was not too overwhelmed by the complexity. I thought that a lot of the tools I looked at were pretty easy to use even though it was only at a quick glance.
When researching I thought how graphic organizers would be a really good asset to my teaching but I also think that a wiki would help me as a teacher and also the students. At my school classes meet on a six day cycle and for my classes every third meeting we are in a classroom the other meetings being in the gymnasium, so I thought to myself it seems like I am always reminding the students what to do and what assignments are coming. If I were to establish a wiki it would save me a lot of time and be very beneficial to the students. Overall I was amazed at the information and tools that our out their to use. I only wish that our district would make it possible for the teachers and students to access these websites.

Ideas for project

My initial idea was to create a project based learning lesson that would take place in a health classroom setting. My thought would be to have the students put into small groups and have them research a specific type of addiction. The project would take place over a few class periods of research and collaboration. One idea I had was for the students to create a mind map on www.mindomo.com where they would have to create a map on their specific addiction and upload videos and articles as well as their own personal research on the topic then they would share it with the class through the site. I also had the idea of using voicethread, which was discussed in class to do the same type of thing where they would tell the class about the addiction and have pictures to go along with it.

Creating my social network

If you asked me the question do I interact on a social network a week ago I would have said no. But that is because I wasn't even sure what a social network was. Now that I think about it and I have a little more understanding of what is going on I do use social networks all the time. Since coming to a new district I have become more interactive with the program moodle, that all of the new teachers in the district communicate with on a regular basis. From the personal aspect of social networking I have never used facebook or myspace is was just never really my thing, however I do communicate with email and balckberry messenger all the time, which is how I stay social connected.

From a professional standpoint I would love to someday create a blog for my health students to be a part of. Even though I am sure it would take me a while to establish, not only the blog but also how to oversee it, I think it would be a great tool. In the health classroom where topics can get a little intense and uncomfortable I think a blog would be great where students could talk about issues and concerns without standing out in a classroom setting. After being in class for just two weeks I feel that web 2.0 tools could really change the face of education and help us a great deal.

INSYS497

I found tonight's class very informative in a subject that I have very little knowledge about, I am excited in learning more about Web 2.0 and how it can help me as an educator as well as becoming more advanced in technology.