There is so much on the web for teachers and education, it is amazing we still need to purchase books! If schools were truly one to one with computers and students our curriculum's could be packed full of interactive teaching sites. The resources on the eduwiki was quite interesting, I could spend a lot of time on that site. Wimbia, the virtual classroom tool looks interesting. I can see using the virtual book clubs, teacher blogs (good subjects, very relevant material) and teacher tips often. I will have to bookmark that one.
I could see using quizlab with my students, though I don't give that many quizzes. I will have to try it out next year when I give my key command quiz. I will be using the engrade site with my UWM students.
Seeing the way the other students did their website evaluations did give me alarm. Every one's looks so much better than mine, but I did put a lot of work into it. I did it brief as I had the evaluation forms filled out and thought we would somehow be using those. I did it like the wiki paragraph said . I guess we are relying more on what we posted on our wiki pages.
Google docs is not always working for me. Sometimes I am able to copy the published link and sometimes I am not, so I have to copy and paste the whole document. I don't understand why this keeps happening, but I am getting away from creating links. I am going to get good at this and make it work. I hope to be better organized next class as I felt very hodge podge this class. As though I was moving 100 miles an hour and unable to catch my breath. I don't think the pressures of the holidays helped. It was stressful. If the schedule could be redone and the class end before Christmas, that would be most helpful. Having homework over that break was painful. Until we meet again.........
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Saturday, January 12, 2008
My Rant-January 9
Tonight I felt stupid in class. I do not enjoy feeling stupid so it was not a pleasant evening for me. I have never "imed" before so it was a totally new experience. I did not understand what we were doing with Pam. Since I was unable to access any of the websites being discussed I did not feel I had anything to contribute. I think perhaps going over or demonstrating how to use the im would have been very beneficial to those of us who have never used it before. I think there were enough of us to warrant that.
Having more demonstration or examples on how an assignment is to be done would be extremely beneficial to this class. I am lost, and my frustration level is over the top at times. The website evaluations took many hours. I truly believe 10 websites was too many. To do a quality job the quantity should have been less. The first 2 websites I looked at took me about 2 hours each. I really wanted to find useful tools for my classroom. But at that rate, I just knew I could not complete the assignment and take care of all my other responsibilities. I must say, my family does suffer due to this masters program. I followed the guidelines in the individual assignment section of the wiki:
"Create an annotated list of the sites. Review the sites using the evaluation tool your study team decides on to guide you in describing the site. Include a brief description, including the kind of pre-prep that is needed to use the site, standards that are supported by the site and evaluation consistency and workings of the site. Is it complete? Working well? Etc."
It would be most beneficial if all rubrics were posted and gone over at the time of the assignment posting. This is at least the second time a rubric has been posted only days or hours before the class met.
It looks like each student did his/her own interpretation of how the assignment was to be done. I put a lot of time into this and now I have to fix it. I never understood that annotated meant the APA format. I even looked it up online to see what it meant. Like Louis said, it is all about learning, and that I am doing. But I really hate feeling stupid in the process. Sometimes I wonder if I can go on blindly like this for much longer. I like to know what exactly it is I am suppose to do and I too often feel as though I am in the dark.
I was looking forward to learning about the best sites in class tonight, but we never discussed them. All that work and now I guess I will have to go to each persons wiki to see what websites work best.
Because of the time crunch in this class I often feel I should keep my trap shut or else I will take up too much time. There are many times I feel the discussion should continue but we must move on so I let it die. And if have found that for me transitioning can be a difficult thing. I guess I am a slow learner and like to linger on things a bit longer until I feel I have grasped the concept. I realize there is not time for that, but it does cause me a lot of frustration.
The subject matter in tonight's class did scare me. I am going to be sharing this with my Jr. high students very soon. Lori and I were already planning on doing a unit in computers on bullying so this will work very nicely into that theme. I went over many of the sites listed on the meit wiki and some I found on my own and there is a ton of information on this subject. I will have a lot of share with my students and can't wait to start this lesson. WE have a serious issue with cyberbullying at our school and I hope this lesson will end it. Some of the videos are really eye openers and it is shocking to know that only 15% of parents realize this is happening. I will work on educating the parents. Getting a speaker in maybe at the next home and school meeting would get the word out.
Having more demonstration or examples on how an assignment is to be done would be extremely beneficial to this class. I am lost, and my frustration level is over the top at times. The website evaluations took many hours. I truly believe 10 websites was too many. To do a quality job the quantity should have been less. The first 2 websites I looked at took me about 2 hours each. I really wanted to find useful tools for my classroom. But at that rate, I just knew I could not complete the assignment and take care of all my other responsibilities. I must say, my family does suffer due to this masters program. I followed the guidelines in the individual assignment section of the wiki:
"Create an annotated list of the sites. Review the sites using the evaluation tool your study team decides on to guide you in describing the site. Include a brief description, including the kind of pre-prep that is needed to use the site, standards that are supported by the site and evaluation consistency and workings of the site. Is it complete? Working well? Etc."
It would be most beneficial if all rubrics were posted and gone over at the time of the assignment posting. This is at least the second time a rubric has been posted only days or hours before the class met.
It looks like each student did his/her own interpretation of how the assignment was to be done. I put a lot of time into this and now I have to fix it. I never understood that annotated meant the APA format. I even looked it up online to see what it meant. Like Louis said, it is all about learning, and that I am doing. But I really hate feeling stupid in the process. Sometimes I wonder if I can go on blindly like this for much longer. I like to know what exactly it is I am suppose to do and I too often feel as though I am in the dark.
I was looking forward to learning about the best sites in class tonight, but we never discussed them. All that work and now I guess I will have to go to each persons wiki to see what websites work best.
Because of the time crunch in this class I often feel I should keep my trap shut or else I will take up too much time. There are many times I feel the discussion should continue but we must move on so I let it die. And if have found that for me transitioning can be a difficult thing. I guess I am a slow learner and like to linger on things a bit longer until I feel I have grasped the concept. I realize there is not time for that, but it does cause me a lot of frustration.
The subject matter in tonight's class did scare me. I am going to be sharing this with my Jr. high students very soon. Lori and I were already planning on doing a unit in computers on bullying so this will work very nicely into that theme. I went over many of the sites listed on the meit wiki and some I found on my own and there is a ton of information on this subject. I will have a lot of share with my students and can't wait to start this lesson. WE have a serious issue with cyberbullying at our school and I hope this lesson will end it. Some of the videos are really eye openers and it is shocking to know that only 15% of parents realize this is happening. I will work on educating the parents. Getting a speaker in maybe at the next home and school meeting would get the word out.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
December 20th
Sharing the scavenger hunts with the class was interesting. It is always fun to see how the students interpret the assignment or use the wiki page to post their work. I learned a few things tonight regarding the wiki page. I think from now I I will try to use the links and attachments more so the wiki page is not so long. But I do like not having to click and open more software in order to view a lesson. But the links and attachments make the page look cleaner.
The google docs presentations on search engines was interesting as well. It is good to learn more about other search engines, the good, the bad and the why is it there in the first place? Some of the research done was enlightening, like when Trinie searched for her husband's book and it was not found on the book search engine. Interesting!
At&T's Knowledge Network is a vast website of teacher resources, with website links one is able to search using a variety of criteria. The wide variety of search option makes finding quality material almost easy. But one must still shuffle though the mound of options. This site offers enough for an entire school year worth of teaching opportunities. This site also offers staff development, free training and workshops, discounts and funding, information on e-rate, grant opportunities, and videoconferencing.
Out of the list of online quizzes I think funbrain was my favorite. That one keeps coming up in my lesson searches as well. I will have to do more exploring with that one for my classes. I got so much out of this classes that I was once again over-whelmed and was trying to sift through it all the next day at school. I think the Thursday teachers are getting bombarded with my excited demonstrations of these websites each time we meet. But I am always so pumped after our Wednesday night class that I have to share with someone. I just hope they are using these sites back in their class rooms.
The google docs presentations on search engines was interesting as well. It is good to learn more about other search engines, the good, the bad and the why is it there in the first place? Some of the research done was enlightening, like when Trinie searched for her husband's book and it was not found on the book search engine. Interesting!
At&T's Knowledge Network is a vast website of teacher resources, with website links one is able to search using a variety of criteria. The wide variety of search option makes finding quality material almost easy. But one must still shuffle though the mound of options. This site offers enough for an entire school year worth of teaching opportunities. This site also offers staff development, free training and workshops, discounts and funding, information on e-rate, grant opportunities, and videoconferencing.
Out of the list of online quizzes I think funbrain was my favorite. That one keeps coming up in my lesson searches as well. I will have to do more exploring with that one for my classes. I got so much out of this classes that I was once again over-whelmed and was trying to sift through it all the next day at school. I think the Thursday teachers are getting bombarded with my excited demonstrations of these websites each time we meet. But I am always so pumped after our Wednesday night class that I have to share with someone. I just hope they are using these sites back in their class rooms.
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