Join My FBLA Chapter TODAY!

I created a video to try to encourage my students to join FBLA - check it out!

Summer Fun = Fishing

To my kids, summer means fishing...check out the video I made on them fishing at their great-grandparents' pond:

Does Your School Have Teachers Who FEAR Technology?

An educational video link from TeacherTube that really hit home with me was found at:

http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=97&title=Technology_Fear_Factor_in_Education.


This video hit home because of the "fear" that many of the teachers in our school have of technology.  We are very fortunate to have a great deal of technology in our school - wherein all of our students (Kindergarten - 12th Grade) and our teachers have their own MacBook Pro.  Many of our teachers are not taking advantage of this situation because of their fear of technology, and are instead, continuing to teach the way they did 20-30 years ago with an assigned reading, followed up by a worksheet.


It was like this video was made for our school!  It reiterated the message that technology is NOT something to fear.  Students enjoy learning with technology, personalizing their projects, and take pride in showing it to others, entering it in contests, and displaying it on the website.  I need to show this video to some of the teachers in our school to illustrate to them that technology is NOT something that they should be afraid of using - but instead an excellent learning tool!

One Fish, Two Fish - Using Technology in the Classroom

Have you seen some of the educational podcasts out there?  I found it amazing how YOUNG some of the students were who were creating podcasts.  Check out the podcast of One Fish, Two Fish by New Jersey’s East Orange School’s kindergarten class by searching for it in your iTunes account.  While you are there, check out podcasts to material specifically aimed at what you are teaching in the classroom - there are so many helpful podcasts to subscribe to.

I subscribed to this podcast because my students often create videos/podcasts for the elementary students in our district during Dr. Seuss week or by re-telling a childhood story with a twist on the end, so I was looking for new ideas for projects in Garage Band and iMovie for my classes.

I liked this podcast because you could tell that it was done by the kids – not with a lot of teacher intervention.  In this way, it really is the students’ work and something they can take pride in and know they created with their own personal touch.  However, this is also what I didn’t like about the podcast!  For example, in one slide, a student showed and said that three fish plus four fish would equal EIGHT fish!  The clicks of the students turning their recordings on and off and the background sound of waves was also distracting.

The curriculum implications of using podcasts such as this would include, but are not limited to, finding the errors in the information presented.  In the example of this podcast, if you only watched one or two slides of the podcast, it would appear to be a cute, educational podcast.  However, this would be very confusing to another kindergarten student viewing the podcast if the information was presented to him/her, and it was not correct.  Another curriculum implication would be if the school or the individual did not have the technology to subscribe to podcasts and would be behind his/her peers if this method was relied on too heavily.

Because I teach technology, I love to use it in my classroom and feel that the implications are far outweighed by the benefit of students being able to personalize their work and take pride in it – just as New Jersey’s East Orange School’s kindergarten students did in this video!

Technology Survey

In our first week of class, I would like everyone to take my Technology Survey so that I have a better idea of how familiar you are with the software and programs we will be using in this class.

My Curriculum Project: Using My Google Site For Classroom Projects

I am really looking forward to using the Google Site that I am creating in my classes this fall, especially for my Journalism/Advanced Computer class.  Check out what I have done so far on my project here:

Dana Epley's Curriculum Project

Using Blogs in My Classroom

While I have not had my students use this specific blogger site, we do use wikis and blogs on a weekly basis to work on our six traits writing skills on a server-based site.  The disadvantage to this was that the students had to be logged on to the school server to post a comment or make a comment on anyone else's post.  I plan to use blogger next year so that students can use the site at home, as well as at school, but did not want to switch mid-year last year.

I felt this was an educational experience as my students who plan to attend college will, in my opinion, undoubtedly use wikis and blogs on a regular basis, and I want them to feel comfortable using them AND know how to use them correctly.  

Each week, I gave my students a writing prompt over the material that we had covered that week in class.  They were asked to relate the material to something personal in their life.  This required each of my students to partake in the wiki/blog (depending on the week and the assignment) and to learn the differences in the two.  I feel confident that my students would know how to set up a wiki or blog on their own, and I know each of my students knows the difference between the two as well!