CEDO - 520 Final Post

This class has gone so fast!!!  I am really excited about a lot of the stuff I have learned.  I just wish I had more time to explore all of these amazing resources.

This week we have learned a lot about internet safety for both kids and adults.  This is a topic I think I need more knowledge about, but one that I don't actively seek information about.  I need to do a better job of keeping my identity safe.  I am also looking forward to sharing some of these new things with my students.  The sixth graders that I teach are very naive when it comes to internet safety and yet I know they use the internet all of the time.  I feel like it is my job to make them aware of the dangers that are out there.  Hopefully, now that I am the "technology teacher" I can focus on these topics. 

I am excited about our few week break and ready for our next class!

Fun, new tools....week 3

This week I had a lot of fun exploring new website tools.  A lot of them I had used before, but some of them were new to me.  I have never used Poll Everywhere before and I am so excited to use it!!  It did make me question our districts rule of no cell phones allowed in school.  If we allowed them to be used we could gain easy feedback by using the Poll Everywhere tool.  Of course then you have lots of other issues to deal with.  I am also excited about TokBox!  I don't necessarily know how I would use it in my sixth grade classroom, but it is a cool tool!!

I am sad that next week is our last week of class!  I do feel like I am learning about of new tools that I haven't used.  I have as enjoyed our classroom discussions.  It was very interesting to hear every ones take on homeschooling.  We have lost a few students to online school and I am still not sure if I am a bit supporter of it for younger kids.  On the other hand, being a teacher, I see the good and bad things that happen in the public school setting and it scares me to one day ( 4 years from now) send my son to public school.   I am excited for this week's discussion.

CEDO 520 - Week 2

I have enjoyed a lot of the tasks this week.  The articles/quotes we have been asked to read have been very thought provoking and I have liked reading my classmates reactions to them as well.   I have learned a lot about internet searches and website credibility this week.  I realized how much I have to learn about the internet.  For something I use multiple times a day I sure don't know how to use it very well!!!  I am excited to bring these new ideas back to my kids and coworkers!!  I can't wait to see what resources everyone puts out there in their annotated bibliography assignment... I have a feeling I am going to learn about some wonderful, new resources!!!  I have also enjoyed not having to do group work thus far!  I have enjoyed all of the people I have worked with so far, but it is really hard to coordinate all of our schedules when we are all so busy!!

CEDO 520 - Initial Thoughts

I am excited to begin another course.  I was a little unsure as to what this class was going to be about, but after taking a look at the rubric I am excited to get going on the work!!  I am familiar with Wikis, Blog and Google Docs, but I don't use them enough!!!  Our school has a staff wiki page where we post interesting websites or other resources we have made.  We just started it last year so it needs some work.  I was excited that we started this Wiki because I had heard so much about Wikis, but until looking at our class wiki (for CEDO 520) I didn't realize Wikis could be so advanced.  I hope to become more familiar with them during this class so I can share it with my staff in the fall. 

During the past three classes I feel that I have gained a pretty good understanding of Google Docs and Blogs.  Again I have yet to use them in the classroom and still struggle with how to use something like Google Docs with students that don't have e-mail addresses.  I would like to start a classroom blog for my 3rd-6th graders in the fall!! 

I did notice in the syllabus that we are going to talk about teaching kids how to be safe online and how to find credible sources.  This is probably the part of the class I am the most excited about !!  I feel like those are two of the most important things we need to teach our kids while using technology.  Kids are using technology daily and they need to know how to be save online as well as the fact that everything on the Internet isn't true.   I hope to gain knowledge on how to teach these concepts to my students. 

I am ready to begin this class and hoping to take away a lot of good information from it!!!