Adventures in Secure Social School Sites (just getting started) February 28, 2012

(See previous post for the back-story to this one.)

It’s been an exciting two days of school!  Yesterday I introduced my class of third graders to Edmodo.  As it happened, we also began our first PowerPoint project of the year (ah, CamelCase, how hard thou art to type), but before I get too many tangents away from my topic, I’m just going to say that the PowerPoint started well and that I’m perhaps most excited because, due to the copyright lesson in the last workshop, I contacted the photographer at amishphoto.com and got permission for the students to use his photos in their work!  I wanted to dance around a little bit when I got the e-mail back.  I also feel joy when I see his pictures.  Go take a look and you’ll see what I mean.

With such a short time to train on this new site, I didn’t get through many items.  Most are listed in the previous post.  I also looked through the web site’s Rollout Resources page, which had sample letters to parents and sample usage agreements to set up with students.

Yesterday I prepared a page in OneNote, with instructions and a few screen-capped pictures of buttons and things from Edmodo, to print and give to the students.  At the end of the day we only have about 10 minutes after Art on Mondays, so we went to the computer lab, bookbags and all, and got them logged in.  It ended up needing about 15 minutes rather than 10, but they still made the bus and all who were present managed to sign on.  Soon several had filled out the survey on their favorite Special class, and by the end of the evening, 3 had called or texted for help logging in and 4 (including those 3) had completed the first online homework assignment.  The assignment was taken straight from one of the mini-lessons, by the way, and I like it!

Tonight was a whirlwind of activity!  I need to spend some time teaching digital citizenship (deleted one inappropriate comment that was posted as a joke), the uses of this site (deleted about 50 posts and comments that were more like a chat room and two posts that broke the school “English-only” rule, oddly enough by students who don’t speak the language they were posting!), and more features of the site, but I’m glad they are engaged.  I also feel a little like a parent! “How much leeway do I allow? Are they safe online? If a parent sees this page, are they going to be complaining to the principal?” Well, OK, I guess I still feel like a teacher!  Thankfully, a teacher with a very supportive principal and a great group of class parents as well.

Next on the plan:

 

• keep viewing the pre-recorded webinar giving more ideas of ways to use Edmodo, which is currently playing while I type!
• post a video + quiz about fractions from Scholastic, then ask them to send me a message with their score (so they’ll review the math concept AND so they’ll know the difference between a note to me and one to the whole class).
• figure out the best way to teach online citizenship and how to use the site without stifling them.
• write a letter to the parents to tell them about Edmodo and give them their parent code to join as their child’s parent.

 

Software in the Classroom February 26, 2012

“What software do you regularly use in your teaching practice?” asks the syllabus this week. Hoo, boy, let me make a long list!  Seriously, I did, and I will proceed to post it here.  It makes me feel like a good digital native, though not necessarily a great 21st-century teacher since I don’t actually teach the students to use all of this!  Well, third graders don’t need to be able to use all of this yet, but I certainly do hope to introduce them to as many as I can.

• Microsoft Word, Publisher, Excel, and One Note (my lesson plans are all on One Note! and I love how I can search it instantly to see if I already used a vocabulary word this year or pull up the definition we used with it last year.)
• Dropbox (that’s how I keep the lesson plans synchronized!)
• Microsoft Outlook, for the e-mail and calendar, though given my choice I’d use Mozilla Firebird for e-mail; Outlook takes minutes to begin working even if the computer has only been on “sleep” and not turned off.  Unfortunately, our e-mail is hosted on a Microsoft Exchange server so it’s monopolized (probably the wrong word, but it fits my feeling about it!)
• WordPress
• Adobe PDF (read, not write)
• Internet Explorer & Windows Explorer, especially the “print” feature for photos
• Windows Live Photo Gallery & Paint
• Accelerated Reader
• Sometimes Programs: PowerPoint, OpenOffice.Org’s Draw, Paint.net (LOVE this free alternative to Photoshop!), VPN, Atlas, PowerSchool, Audacity, and Calculator
• And I just downloaded iCloud so I can get the photos from my iPhone without having to e-mail them to myself one by one.  I had been using my digital camera with a little USB do-hicky to plug the SD card into the computer, and I still carry it in my bag to school each day, but that may soon end.

Given this list, I have a bit of a hard time with the assignment this week to choose a software tool that I would like to become more proficient in using, set a goal, find and use some training material, and then use the tool to make some sort of project.  Following that, I am supposed to blog about other software skills that I’d like to improve to “increase [my] professional efficacy.”  Right now I feel like Sherlock, all cocky and sure that I already use things as well as possible.  Given that I do not have a staff of TV writers, a special effects crew, and one heck of an editor making me actually have all the answers, I’m pretty sure that’s a false feeling.  But it took me a while to find anything to study up on, and as my final target is a web-based tool, I don’t know if it counts as a “software skill.”

The software I’d like to become more proficient in is either not invented yet (think Atlas but on the wall-sized, wrap-around touch-screens from Minority Report so you can see and drag everything at once) or not for school (think stay-at-home mom with a pricey digital SLR camera using Photoshop to post photos of her gorgeous kids and exquisite cooking to her professionally-designed blog).  Or maybe I could just buy a time machine, so I can have more time to put units into the current version of Atlas instead of feeling overwhelmed every time I log in and then logging out again.

For now, I’m focusing on Edmodo.  It’s a nifty online class interaction sort of a site that I’m still figuring out.  From what I’ve read thus far, it can do quite a few things.  I’ve tried logging in as a student and a parent to get more of a feel for it, but obviously I’m going to be using it as a teacher.  I’m hoping to introduce it to my students this week.  But first, I need to back up and make a plan!  Otherwise I’ll be writing this thing backward like all those high school papers where you write the paper first and then make note cards and an outline because the teacher said you had to hand those in too. (If anyone ever tells you teachers make good students, laugh!)

So, on to the plan. (And yes, I am typing this post WHILE I work on the assignment.  Seems fitting.)

My goal is to use Edmodo to allow students to do short homework assignments and to interact with each other and myself.  First I need to find out exactly what it can do, which means finding some online training resources.  I also want them to respond to homework viewing for our Reverse Instruction project, but that may take longer than the length of the “Software Tool Activity” assignment.  Toward this end, I will begin introducing them to Edmodo tomorrow or Tuesday in the computer lab, having them answer a short poll that I’ve posted so that they get through the sign-up procedure and see what it’s like to interact.  It will also give me an initial idea of how likely they are to interact much, as it’s a topic they might want to comment on more than once as classmates’ results come in.  We shall see!

Edmodo has training and more on their Help page.  I started off looking at a few Mini-Lessons shared by other teachers, which got me more excited about what is available.  Students can get badges – I can give them one right away for participating in the poll! – and I can subscribe a group to an RSS feed, giving them a choice to join or not join that group – THAT sounds like a brilliant idea, and I’ve already borrowed the idea for journaling.

Next I watched an archived webinar.  There are more that look helpful but it’s getting late.  This exploration will have to continue tomorrow after dinner.

Happy Thoughts February 22, 2012

Happy thoughts for today

This is a “week off” from grad class, though I’m still trying to get SOME work done on next week’s assignments while I can (it is so difficult for me to work when not under a time crunch), and spending hours on a group project.  I’m glad it’s a “week off,” as work is going slightly crazy this week!

My class historian just e-mailed me a PDF of her report on last Friday’s field trip.  She used various multi-syllabic words and inserted photos she and her sister took.  She originally sent it as an Apple document that I couldn’t open, but when I asked her to try another format she sent this.  I am WAY impressed!  (Parent help or not, it’s still stellar.)

With a group of women here tonight, I started a study on David’s life and how it applies to ours.  So far, it’s good!  Best part on the CD tonight: Patricia Shirrer’s list of descriptions/titles of the One to whom we belong.  Now to do the homework!  We’re spreading it out since we’re all so busy; some will meet each week (to discuss the first half of the homework), and then every second week, when we’ll have slowly finished the “5 days’ worth” of homework, we will all meet to share and listen to the next CD.  I’m grateful that I’ll have the accountability, and also glad I’m hosting it on the evening after my Ayi cleans and after things are due for grad class – no extra stress aside from locking the cat in the bedroom for the evening, and when it’s over, I’m already home!

I made “Crunch in a Cloud” tonight with a box of instant pudding from the States layered with some freshly-whipped cream, sprinkled with home-made Gr8pe Nuts.  I don’t remember eating it since elementary school, but it’s just as fun as I remembered!

The “Brain Pop” free app is a cool way to watch the video of the day, and it streams really well (MUCH better than YouTbe and no VPN needed).  If only it were at my students’ level…  Don’t try the Trainyard EX app if you like puzzles as much as I do, it is a time-sucking vortex!  Now I’ve gotten to the frustration level of it, making it easier not to open it up again, thankfully!

Google Docs is SOOOOOO neat!  I started one up a couple days ago for my group project collaboration, and dumped in the sources I’d found along with an outline and one or two bits of info… and when I opened my browser today, there it was with my group-mates’ additions to the doc!  Everything should be this easy.

One of the people in my group found a neat info-graphic about the flipped classroom (aka reverse instruction, which is the subject of our project).

Oh, and while tonight’s dessert was fast, the batch of Gr8pe Nuts was the slowest thing I think I’ve ever made!  It’s simple – graham flour, soured milk, honey, soda, and salt, spread on a greased pan to bake – but then you have to crumble it all into small crumbs and toast it!  It took several days and 4 episodes of Star Trek to finish.  I’m glad it made about 10 cups’ worth, 2 cups of which are in my granola and 6 cups in the freezer for future granola.

Last night I re-watched the first episode I ever saw of Star Trek: DS9.  It’s the first time I’ve seen it since that time so many years ago when it introduced me to the series.  It’s the “Brigadoon” episode, which is just such a funny-odd way to be introduced to the series!

Final happy thought: Like David, who knew G had established him as king over Israel (1 Chron 14 v 2), I know that G has placed me here and now; whether I’m successful or struggling, He has anointed me with His Spirit, so I have all I need to live His plan!

Integrity: Copyrights, Fair Use, and This Teacher February 18, 2012

(Workshop 2 Blog Assignment: Teaching in this Century)

I have posted a video for class that has reflections and information on the topic of copyright, fair use, and Creative Commons.  You can view it here:

Copyright Thoughts from This Teacher

I am posting the script below because YouTube said it was too long to put in the comments!

Script:

I’m going to start with a quote and a disclaimer: Wendy Alsup’s blog tagline at Practical Theology for Women reads “This blog is primarily a lecture to myself, but you are welcome to read along and participate.” In the same way, this video blog is first and foremost me talking to myself, though fellow teachers are welcome to listen in and join the conversation. And of course my professor, since the reason I started looking into all this and am up after 11pm for the 5th night this week is that I have to do it for class! Also, because I want this to come off well, I’m obviously reading a prepared script, not just speaking off the cuff. Sorry.

Avoid need for segue by inserting title here.

Integrity: It’s doing the right thing when no one is watching, when people won’t notice, when you won’t get caught or in trouble, and it would be easier to take a short cut.

When I was an intern, we were reminded to live by the highest standards. One was integrity, and I felt rather oversaturated with reminders. I posted a note on my cheese in the dorm fridge, “Personal. Don’t eat. Don’t make me use the ‘i’ word.” I know where the line is with MY stuff. But I know some of the short cuts when it comes to others’ media. Screen-shots, library CDs, VPNs and YouTube and plug-ins to download the videos. Turning to Google and Yahoo for clip-art for the class newsletter & blog and for activity pages for the spare moments in class. True, many of these are posted freely for sharing, but how often do we check now with image searches before just downloading the image? I have never checked the copyright of an image before downloading it, operating by the wishful idea of “if it’s there and grabbable, it must be free to use.” Have you, too?

“Right now, the customers who can’t even *see* why file sharing might be wrong are still young. But 10, 20, 30 years from now, that crowd will be *everybody*. What will happen then?” -David Pogue

As someone in my early 30’s, I am at the beginning edge of the generation that sees media as a free-flowing stream of ideas and entertainment rather than pinned down in paper and plastic and wax commodities. Did you see the version of Hamlet in 2000 with Ethan Hawke and Julia Stiles, set in a modern-day metropolis? Hamlet goes to Blockbuster and brings home a bunch of videos to make a video compilation to “catch the conscience of the king.” Is that legal? He’s not making any money from it, he’s paying for the rentals, yet it isn’t really right, is it? What about the nap time CD I made for my preschool class, with calming songs from various movie soundtracks I checked out of the library? Again, I didn’t sell the resulting CD, it did 16 children a lot of good for months, and it kept me from going mad listening to the same album we’d had from the beginning of the year, but I don’t think that it was really legal, even though it FELT like a good idea.

Rodd Lucier is an educator and a blogger who also advocates for respect of copyright. He comments in a recent post, “In a world where creating and remixing is open to anyone, it’s time to hold ourselves accountable and to model the ethical use of online content.”

A lot of what I knew before this assignment about copyright comes from seeing it around on knitting patterns – “feel free to make this, but don’t charge for the product beyond making it for a friend who pays you back for the materials you used” – and the odd Creative Commons license here and there.

Now I’ve learned that there are actually quite a few different permutations of the CC license. The basic right CC licenses reserve is attribution – you’ve got to give credit where it’s due. Other rights that may be reserved (but are not unless you say so) are derivatives, commercial rights, and share-alike. If the licenser restricts derivation, you shouldn’t use their work to make something different or cut off part of it. If the license is non-commercial, then don’t sell it, and I imagine this goes beyond flat-out printing or burning the work and selling it – like showing a video of Merry Melodies for a paying crowd of neighborhood children, the first time I remember bending a law, even if they were just paying 25 cents. A share-alike license means that if people use your work to make other things, they should keep the same kind of license on it that you have on in, not more or less restrictive. Read more on their site, link below.

Of course, some things may be marked as in the Public Domain, joining lots of old things – like all the Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and other classics you find reprinted in Chinese bookstores and Dover Thrift Editions in the States, or the Mona Lisa herself, which you can photograph, paint a copy of, or spoof to your heart’s content.

Speaking of spoofing, it is alright to parody copyrighted works; the courts test for “fair use” when someone is accused of copyright infringement, and if you’re not stealing their market but using an insubstantial bit in your own creation to advance interest in the art, you’re probably safe. Still, I don’t think my class newsletters fall into that category, so I need to be more careful when downloading images for it! You can read more about fair use on Wikipedia, link in the doobly-doo.
1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

“Fair use does not say ‘it’s okay to repost someone’s work if you don’t make money on it.’” Ellen Brundige aka “Greekgeek”

“Fair use” is hard to pin down, but for teachers there are some general guidelines that have been hashed out, since education is a purpose the government and most creators of content want to support. Here is a list courtesy of Education World author Linda Starr:
• a single chapter from a book
• an excerpt from a work that combines language and illustrations, such as a children’s book, not exceeding two pages or 10 percent of the work, whichever is less
• a poem of 250 words or less or up to 250 words of a longer poem
• an article, short story, or essay of 2,500 words or less, or excerpts of up to 1,000 words or 10 percent of a longer work, whichever is less; or
• a single chart, graph, diagram, drawing, cartoon, or picture from a book, periodical, or newspaper.

I’ve never really been on the other side of this. I’ve written exactly one knitting pattern in my life, my sole contribution to published craft of any kind – link in the doobley-do – as far as I know no one else has ever made the scarf, and it’s only as I’ve been researching this that I’ve thought of how I’d feel if someone started making the scarves and selling them, without giving me credit.

That might be what we need. Dianne McKenzie, a commenter on Rodd’s blog, suggested that we have students choose the license for their own creative work posted at school, and I think that’s an idea with a lot of potential. Once they experience the feeling of ownership and protectiveness, they will have “climbed into a person’s skin and walked around in it,” as Harper Lee put it.

We can also teach students – partly by modeling – to ask for permission to use copyrighted material. Another commenter, Heather Durnin, shared that a student who received permission from a photographer in another country not only got to use the photo in his presentation but was able to learn more on the topic he was presenting from that same copyright holder.

I personally asked for and received permission to use someone else’s sewing pattern for the little owls I sold at a craft fair last summer to raise money for charity, and that was a big thing for me. Hopefully the first of many steps in the right direction.

the challenge to model academic integrity – screenshots

Post-Viewing Pop Quiz

What are some things you do well in respecting other’s right to what they have made?
What are some practices you could change to line up with copyright law? How do the Fair Use rules help you find the right place to draw the line?
How do Creative Commons licenses help you as a teacher avoid copyright infringement?
What is one project in which your students could cover their own work with CC licenses?

Here are some links for Sources & Further Reading.

CC:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
http://www.slideshare.net/thecleversheep/creative-commons-what-every-educator-needs-to-know-presentation
Fair Use & Copyright:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter7/7-b.html
http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr280b.shtml
Copyright & Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InzDjH1-9Ns
http://www.youtube.com/t/copyright_center
Education & Young People
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/the-generational-divide-in-copyright-morality/
http://thecleversheep.blogspot.com/2011/11/we-can-all-do-better.html
Miscellaneous:
http://greekgeek.hubpages.com/hub/Is-Pinterest-a-Haven-for-Copyright-Violations
http://www.theologyforwomen.org/
http://missjubilee.wordpress.com/2008/02/15/hogwarts-unity-scarf/
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee – read it! http://books.google.com/books/about/To_Kill_a_Mockingbird.html?id=0NEbHGREK7cC

Teaching in this century February 16, 2012

Buzzword time: I am empowering my students to unlock their full potential using twenty-first-century teaching skills. Everybody say “Ooooh!”

What is touted as being new and special is not necessarily new – though it is different from the way we think of “school” being done – nor is it all about computers.  It’s more about the way we expect the students to function in and interact with society and the workplace.  It’s asking students to apply what they’re learning with a group to solve “real-world problems.”  After all, we messed it up pretty badly, and soon they’re gonna have to fix it!

The shift away from following a basal reader, a lesson-a-day math curriculum, and a list of vocabulary and concepts to read about in the Social Studies text book and practice in the workbook is exciting, frightening, wonderful, and overwhelming.  I feel like I was not particularly trained for this in college. (Sorry, HC, I love you, but if you taught it I must have slept through it. Possible but not probable.)  As both a student and a teacher, I like the clear end-point and easy mindlessness of a worksheet and ready-to-go lesson plan, but from both sides I can also see how an application of the skills and knowledge gives the chance to be creative and really OWN the material, such as when our Elementary Math professor asked us to create a numbering system using just 4 digits plus zero.  Inventing a base-5 system with my group helped me understand place-value at 20 like I wish my students could understand before they’re 10. (He was always one of my favs at ol’ HC.)  I’ve been trying to differentiate, to use projects that allow students to apply concepts with different levels of readiness and different areas of interest, to engage students in raising money for an orphan’s home (real) and designing a garden for an orphanage’s grounds (pretend).  I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface, but thinking about this in class lately has made me realize that I am headed in the right direction and have made some progress, even if I am still light years away from the classrooms described as examples in the books and articles describing this.

Unfortunately, I need to find more ways to teach and practice the twenty-first-century skills.  I don’t see it as something my students are very strong at when they leave me.  Even in the area you would first think of as belonging in the twenty-first century, typing and using a computer, they still have so much to learn.  Maybe, just maybe this year we will get through all the keys on the keyboard, and they will at least know HOW to practice and learn typing – there’s no way we’ll actually give them enough practice to really LEARN touch-typing until they have a 1-to-1 laptop thing going on and can do drills while waiting for classmates or filling a couple minutes between activities.

Teaching students using these big projects and collaboration is risky.  What if the information you’re hoping they’ll acquire doesn’t all stick, or you can’t pace the unit well enough that they all get to everything?  What if their group implodes and you’re picking up emotional shards around the class?  What if it takes so long you don’t get to the next two units?  What if you don’t scaffold enough and have to double-back and do worksheets and book lessons anyway, or scaffold too much and bore them?  Some of these are the same risks that come with any teaching, of course!  And there are also rewards – students being able to adapt, cooperate, and learn without a teacher spoon-feeding them, becoming people who are more ready and likely to engage the issues of the day as they grow older and more able to speak and act in the local, national, and global communities they are a part of.  And hopefully, students who are more engaged and less bored in the classroom day in and day out!

Read more:
http://p21.org/storage/documents/p21-stateimp_learning_environments.pdf
http://techlearning.com/article/13832

Twenty-First-Century Skills February 14, 2012

If anyone would like to debate with me the number of hyphens or use of words instead of numerals in the title of this post, I’d love a good grammar/style debate!

This post comes to you from a rabbit trail of an assignment.  ”Twenty-first-century skills” (which I cannot type, the letter order in “century” just confuses the heck out of my fingers!) are supposed to be things like building standards-based, collaborative, deep-thinking-and-learning projects instead of rote memorization (because apparently that’s a new idea and this is not just chronological snobbery? ah, well, I’m young, what do I know?), but I got to typing about other things and finally admitted that I needed to take the paragraph out because my classmates don’t need more to read, I personally only get through 3 or 4 other people’s posts and their chains of replies, so I can not only see their POV, I’m in it.  So, here’s the paragraph (and now this one’s threatening to be longer than the excerpt it’s introducing!)

I also find myself pushing basic computer skills things like typing, word processing, e-mail, and using the internet!  Is that even twenty-first-century or is it twentieth-century?  As my group has heard this week, I try to post classroom news on a blog, but often feel like no one’s reading it; I sometimes give homework that involves things online and some students can’t access the internet at home, meaning I have to come up with alternate assignments; and I don’t feel like third graders can do much with blogs, wikis, or other forms of typed-word expression because they can’t type yet: most hunt-and-peck and a few know-where-keys-are-and-peck, which is faster but in the long run not any better.  Should we start teaching typing instead of cursive?  This is becoming a real question on my mind. (Or will keyboards go away once voice recognition improves enough in a decade or less?)

Thoughts?

Reflections on Technology at School February 9, 2012

Over the years, this blog has held a variety of topics, from baking and knitting to travels and hanging with friends to an earthquake and a mysterious guest in the night.  The frequency of posts has waxed and waned, averaging less than one a month lately.  I’ve posted about school before, and I will now be using this forum to focus more on that as I study for my master’s degree in education.  Being required to begin blogging on specific topics, I find that I do not like to waste space on the net nor my own writing time by starting a separate blog.  By posting here, this portion of my life will be chronicled in the same place as the rest, those few who read my blog (hello? are you out there?) will be able to follow along, and I will be able to look back at it after I’ve finished in line with my other postings.  I’ve come to realize that most web accounts I’ve started have fallen by the wayside over the years, but this blog and FB are two that I’ve stuck with so far. …and I don’t expect that posting “notes” on FB would be accepted for this assignment!

Today’s post considers the use of technology in school, using the NETS as a standard. (What does it stand for? I don’t know) NETS covers five areas:

• Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity.  I do try to give the students chances to be creative and deal with real-world problems, such as figuring out how to find the area of the classroom floor so we can order carpeting, or organizing a fund-raiser for an Swallow’s Nest, but not as often as I’d like and not often with technology.  The one sub-point of this buzzword-bingo-winning category write-up that I do somewhat meet is to “model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments.”  Well, yes, I’m taking classes online!  The students don’t often actually see me doing it, but they know I am a student as well as a teacher. Perhaps I could talk more about this with them.
• Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments.  I think I did better at this last year, when I had some PPT assessments and reviews; so far this year, I haven’t used any of those.  I would really like to see some examples of this category at a third grade level – it all sounds so *good* yet so *vague,* with no guidance on how to move from where I am to where I should be.
• Model Digital-Age Work and Learning.  In this area, I am somewhat proud of my class web site (contact me personally if you’d like to see it; I don’t share the address widely).  During the holidays it fell by the wayside, but I’m finally getting back into the newsletter-writing swing of things.  I’ve posted not only announcements but also songs for memory, photos, links, and pages for students to use for research during one or two units.  Really, it’s hard to find research materials on a third grade level online, and if I had time, I’d do that for more subjects.
• Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility.  This is also an area for growth.  If you’re looking for ideas on interacting with children from other countries, do check out flatstanleyproject.com and worldmathsday.com – they are a start!
• Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership.  Well, I’ve used the internet to participate in discussions on how to teach knitting to my students, but this class is the first time I’ve used it to discuss how to teach technology outside of my school!

The assignment next asks about “barriers to technology use.”  I suppose they are pretty average – there are only so many computers available, they don’t always work, and various servers, wireless, or other devices *cough* printers *cough* go down from time to time to time to time…  But they are generally kept in good repair and are mostly easily accessible.

The admonition to “fear not” in regards to technology is not one I tend to need in terms of trying new things or sharing it with others.  It may come into play though when I look at the long list of NETS standards and feel overwhelmed and vulnerable to being labeled a “poor teacher” for not meeting more of them.  As I begin this class, I hope that I will begin to really understand how to incorporate and teach technology more thoroughly and “better” to my class.  Book learning or discussion of standards can only go so far; I need to know how it will apply in my classroom in the next week for it to really do me good as a teacher.  If I were to turn that hope into a goal, it would be: to use and model technology to meet my students’ needs and teach them how to use the technology (nicely vague), such as by having them write a proper e-mail to their classmate who moved away over the holiday, design and budget a garden using Excel, and create a poster or PSA about Swallow’s Nest using Publisher, Paint.net, or video editing software (much more specific!)  There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?