Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Social Media

Ok, I'll say it. I love Facebook. I have been on Facebook for quite a few years now and I love how it reconnected me with friends and acquaintances from so  many years ago. I love seeing the pictures of their families, sharing in their Simchas and their lives even from a distance. I love posting pictures of my own family, my sons' bar-mitzvah pictures and some of my own special family memories. I love the different groups I have been a part of. Sometimes I hear news from Facebook even before I hear it on CNN! I love the little jokes that are posted and hearing so many great stories from people.
What's new to me though, is using Facebook for advancing my professional development. I created a k-3 Technology group and have already had people asked to join. I started searching educational pages and was surprised by how many were already on Facebook. Someone in my Ed Tech course started a group for us on Edmodo and I think it was an amazing idea and a great way for us to share our ideas and our professional resources. It's been very enlightening to use social media sites for professional communication.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Productivity Tools

I am slightly overwhelmed by the amount of productivity tools that I was exposed to in this week's lesson. I feel like it will take me weeks to really go through all of them and see how I can use them effectively. I've been told that using Google Docs is a great way to always have access to your documents. As a person who has always used Microsoft Word, I was reluctant to make the change. The arguments make sense: always have access to documents, don't have to worry about saving on a usb, able to collaborate on one document etc. Today someone in my group posted about Google Cloud Connect, and he absolutely made my day! Google Cloud Connect allows me to continue to use Word and then sync my document into Google Docs. I feel like I have to best of both worlds now. I can continue using Word and still have all the advantages of Google Docs. I am very grateful to the amazing educators that I am learning with in this Ed Tech course.

Saturday, January 12, 2013


When  I first started thinking about this week’s lesson, using podcasts and vodcasts in the classroom, I guess I was thinking about it more as a teaching tool to use with my students and not as much as an instrument for learning. I imagined myself making vodcasts to attach to my websites. I thought about videotaping myself teaching a certain math concept that my students could refer to if they were studying or having difficulty with a concept. I thought I could also find vodcasts online that I could send them to if they wanted to learn something. This week, while researching for this assignment, I came across some great podcasts done by first and second grade students. I was listening to them read their stories online and I began to think differently about podcasts and their uses. What a great way to practice reading and improve fluency for young readers! As a first and third grade teacher, I’m always trying to find ways to use technology with my students that is grade appropriate. During this course, I often started out the weeks thinking my kids are too young to use this technology. But the more that I research and look what others from this course are doing, the more uses I find for my little ones.  I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else is doing with vodcasts and podcasts. 

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Twitter in the Younger Grades?

This week I was reading about microblogging and Twitter in particular. While I had a Twitter account from a year ago or so, I never accessed it. I only signed up to see what my teenage sons were talking about. Now that I've had to revisit Twitter for my Ed Tech course, I'm seeing it in a new way. I guess I never realized that there was more to Twitter than following Oprah! Our assignment for the week was to come up with a Twitter lesson plan that is relevant to what we teach. Being a first and third grade teacher, I was stumped on how I could possibly use it with my students. I decided to aim for a lesson with my third graders as I thought I would have more success. As I was searching on google for inspiration, I was quite surprised by the amount of blogs out there with ideas for using Twitter in the class. Although, most of them were geared to higher levels than I teach. For the younger grades, Twitter seemed to be used more as a communication tool with parents. I use a blog for that so I didn't feel that would be useful for me. I didn't want my third graders using Twitter for personal information so I decided to have them created fictional Twitter accounts for biographical figures that they were reading and "Tweet" from their character's point of view. I hope it's a lesson that I will be able to try, as I'm going to have to speak to administration as well as the parents on their feelings about using Twitter with 8 and 9 year olds. I would be curious if anyone had any experience they could share about using Twitter with younger students.