wikis

I have been adding to my wiki page (see profile page to check it out) and am getting excited to start the school year and have the students begin working on it. The only problem I foresee is the time issue to spend teaching students how to use the site. With so much content to cover and such little time I worry that I won't have the time to explain how to use the site and teach content for the students to understand what I am talking about. Only time will tell.................

blogging

I always think of things I want to blog about while searching sites online, then when I begin writing my blog I blank. I think that I need to open a word document and jot down any thoughts that are going through my head so when I begin typing I have something to write about. Right now the thoughts I have are: wow I need to file, oh my do I remember what I listened to during the podcast so I can answer questions, do I really know what a wiki is, what am I wearing to work tomorrow, did I shower today?, my goodness I would not want sextuplets (watching Jon and Kate plus eight), is being "green" trendy? (thanks Target and MTV), those are just a few. Anyways back to class and blogging about class. I was saddened that I couldn't read the article comparing wikipedia to Britannica, I was discussing with a library friend of mine wikipedia. We both had discussed earlier in the year about how we didn't want the students to use wikipedia as a research site for their research papers on the Holocaust. After searching through Wikipedia and looking at more and more pages I wondered why I was so close minded to the idea of letting the students use that site as a resource. I fell into the trap of, "oh my goodness, anyone can edit it, it must not be true information". It makes me think that in general we ("the people") don't have a good view of people in the world if our first thought is others are going to sabotage, not do good. Makes me wonder.......

Day after class

Leaving class yesterday I had a chance to digest the information that was handed out during the previous 4 hours. One question I have continued to ask myself is where are all the people, columnists, bloggers, etc., that are protesting the advancement of technology as a teaching tool. We have read articles that keep telling us to include new technological advances into our teaching practices, but have yet to come across articles that are telling us to stay away. I guess my question is when are the masses going to cease the article writing of, we should use it we should use it and start writing articles like, okay it is now accepted let's start using various techniques and this is how we should implement. I think the masses need to clear the hurdle of telling others it is a good thing and realize that it has been accepted and begin showing novices (as myself) how to utilize this power of technology in our classroom. I realize that this was only the 2nd class and that is why were spent time discussing why it is important, I am now looking forward to continuing classes to learn how to implement the information into my classroom and use it effectively.

First Blog/discussing class

I wasn't much of a diary writer as a child, I found my old diary from the 90's and each day I had a one sentence entry "we are still at war", actually quite fitting for the times. This post I want to discuss what was done last week in class. I wasn't in class last week since my 6th grade students were completing their moving on ceremony. Since I missed class I have been playing catch up with the information. One of the big ideas is discussing how and why blogging can be appropriate and useful in schools. There are many sides to this controversy, my take on it is that as long as appropriate district policy's are followed, blogs should be appropriately involved in curriculum. It does not have to be included in each and every lesson or curriculum aspect, especially since it will be time consuming for me as the teacher while I learn, but I have attempted to use it in the classroom and with more time and effort I want to expand.