Year-round School & Shiny New Tech Tools

I started working on August 3rd this year, my school has gone "Track E" or Year-Round". Of course not every Chicago Public School has done this, which is very inconvenient for those of us who have school age children in another school and a husband who also teaches both on a regular schedule. I keep hearing, "mommy where are you going, it's summer!" I found some research that shows this trend doesn't even work http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070811151449.htm

Hummm, we will see.

It was nice to arrive to my library/classroom to play with my new Hitachi StarBoard (interactive whiteboard)and the Elmo document camera that was attached to it. The kids are starry eyed when I turn it on. I can't wait to find some new ideas to use with them. So far I have used it to show a video clip that is related to the book I read them. I love the Dewey Decimal Rap I found at http://www.schooltube.com/video/a6f0e9bf883c6426497b/The-Dewey-Decimal-Rap

I have also had my little ones move the ABCs around the board into the alphabetical order. I plan to scan my first book with the Elmo next week and highlight some of the difficult words and link it to Google images as we read.

Any ideas?

PLN: blogs that have the most in Technology Trends

The blogs I find I get the most technology trends from include

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/
http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com
http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/
http://www.classroom20.com
http://www.teachgennow.com.au
http://www.kleinspiration.com

I also get A LOT of techie ideas from the people I follow on Twitter.

Just what I needed

I am making a video to apply for the Google Teacher Academy and I needed an illustration to show that I share. I found a free web 2.0 tool called Gliffy that creates charts and graphs.

Web 2.0 Teacher Tools

I have been trying to put all the web 2.0 online tools I use in my classroom all on one page in preparation for a course I am teaching in technology trends for Concordia University. If I am missing any very useful sites, please let me know.

Web 2.0 Tools

Meeting Marc Brown!

I had the very BIG pleasure of meeting Marc Brown this past week and it was awesome! He is such a nice, seemingly humble person. Very funny and entertaining with the K-2 students who got to see him. He posed for countless pictures and signed more than 100 books. His new book, Arthur Turns Green was the hot seller.

Teaching students to write...no more essays?

This is a thought-provoking notion discussed in this NYTimes article. What skills do our students need?

Teaching to the Text Message

Not just for Early Adopters

As a technology specialist, this almost brought tears to my eyes...

ICE 2011 Conference

I spent the last two days at the Illinois Computing Educators (ICE) conference and I am once again humbled...I do not know everything about technology in education...shocker. The buzz word or program of this conference seemed to be Prezi, a web-based presentation program.

I went to several great sessions and here are the highlights:

I went to "So what does a technology enhanced intermediate classroom look like?" presented by some Naperville, IL teachers. This had some lesson ideas, but they didn't go much beyond the use of wikis, video, and Comic Life. One of the presenter did have two phrases in his presentation that I took note of: "make the content your own" and "interact with the content". He stressed the importance of letting the students pick their own way of expressing the content. I am going to strive to provide more options!

I went to Rushton Hurley's "The ease, power, and cool multimedia" session. This, as usual, was very entertaining. I love Rushton's style of presenting, very inspiring. He has a useful website with a lot of cool technology tools & ideas.

I went to a session called, " Bloom's textonomy-Cell phones in the classroom". This was interesting because it is a constant battle to keep the students from using their cell phones during my class. In this session I learned that you can text Google and they will texxt you back anything from a definition to a list of pizza places...amazing. Google's phone number is 466453. They also talked about using Google Forms to create surveys or questions and having the students text their answers. Also, about QR codes, which was new to me (QR is short for Quick Response (they can be read quickly by a cell phone. They are used to take a piece of information from a transitory media and put it in to your cell phone). They showed the web tool, Poll Everywhere, which was new to me.

I went to "Mash-up your subjects with Web 2.0 Tools", because it was presented by my doctoral cohort member and friend, Joan. While I already new how to embed stuff from one tool to another, she showed some fun sites that I have never used like blabberize. So funny to make a picture talk, I used it in my son's dinosaur project...fun stuff.

I went to Tammy Worcester's "Quick and easy computer activities for kids". She is an author of many teacher idea books. She had some very useful PowerPoint lessons.

I went to "WOW, playing with learning, learning through playing". This was supposed to be how to use World of Warcraft as an educational tool. They spent a lot of time showing the game and then when asked how they could justify students playing during the school day, they said the game has the potential to be a communication tool where students can meet and collaborate.... ridiculous. I see no educational value in World of Warcraft...sorry.

I went to "Igniting 21st century learning through the school library". This was a group of librarians and how they use technology in their library programs. One of them mentioned NoodleTools for note taking, sounds like a good tool for my students during science fair time.

I have yet to look over all the materials that are on the conference wiki, I'm sure there is a wealth of further information there. I have been inspired, renewed my enthusiasm for technology in education!

All about the books, the library, & technology

I am starting this long overdue blog to chronicle the professional information I gather at conferences, in my daily work as a library media & technology specialist, and as a teacher. As well I will include my commentary on the books I read and the knowledge I gain as the mother to three boys and soon an adopted daughter. I say long overdue, because I have been a library teacher in the Chicago Public School system for 17 years. I have been using blogs for many years and should have made a professional blog long ago. I teach library and computer skills to over 700 students in a K-8 Chicago public school. I am a National Board Certified teacher with a doctorate in instructional technology, a masters degree in library science, and a bachelor of science degree in elementary education.