Oops!! Forgot to post Chapter 9 :-o

Chapter 9 in Rethinking Education in the age of Technology summarizes many of the themes and values from the previous chapters in the book.  It talks a lot about the effects of technology on children's lives outside of the classroom and how this influences the decisions that need to be made on techniques for teaching inside the classroom.  I found it interesting when the author was talking about how the positive effects of things such as video games, computers, and cell phones help develop skills to benefit their learning in the classroom.

  Also, it was neat to see a perspective on how these technologies also are affecting future careers and characteristics of the future workforce.  It is important that teachers begin changing curriculum to be more computer based and bringing a lot of the technology that children are now accustomed to into the classroom.  Parents also should be aware of this technological literacy gap between them and their children and they also need to take the same measures to make sure they can stay an active part of their child's life and education.  

Bloging 'bout my Blog

I really enjoyed the task of blogging this semester and found out a lot of different ways I can incorporate it into my future classroom. I feel that using this could be extremely effective with my students and could help benefit their education. Blogging is great for reflection and posting ideas.

I feel I put a lot of effort into my blog and posted a reflection for all of the tasks we completed. It was difficult at times to post multiple blogs weekly because of all the other tasks I have to complete during the school week. It was hard to decipher between the two textbooks we were reading at the same time as well. Many times I would catch myself in saving a post rather than publishing it. It was great keeping a blog and it is a great thing to look back on, to remind you of all the different things we have done and learned in the semester.

Wiki and Screencast Reflection

My Wiki revolved around the question "How can animation be integrated in an elementary classroom to benefit student learning" and I spent a lot of time researching this topic because I feel integrating different forms of animation could interest many students. Most students these days spend hours watching cartoons and playing video games, I feel that if we can bring that into the classroom students would be more interested in the material and more willing to learn. 

I enjoyed working on this wiki and felt it gave me confidence in forming my own when I become a teacher. Providing a wiki for my students and their parents/guardians will be a must in my classroom because of all the benefits it can provide, and would be a great addition to my classroom blog. It would be great to update daily and be able to allow student feedback, while having students and their guardians participate.  

I felt formulating the wiki was an excellent task, although I was a bit confused on the purpose of the screencast, because I felt i was repeating all the information I listed on my wiki.


View my Wiki and Screencast!! -
http://ktesch.wikispaces.com/Integration+of+Animation+in+Elementary+Classroom

Delicious is delicious

We have been using the social bookmarking site Delicious during this semester, and I hate to admit that I wanted Professor Boyer to be fed to sharks when he gave us this assignment because I felt it was the stupidest, most useless, and what seemed to be a complete waste of time tool. I now, of course feel extremely guilty of ever thinking that, because it has been one of the most beneficial things we have utilized this semester and feel I could even be their spokesperson.

At the beginning of  Education 331 when Dr. Boyer told us to go to Delicious.com I was was frightened I would see naked women on the page, but in reality it was the best website Boyer exposed us too. Delicious has minimized my extremely large favorites tab on my computer and allows me to have access to my favorite websites when on any computer, not just my own, and has thousand of resources available to access. Delicious also allows me to search different people who have also 'tagged' the website and view their different websites they tagged that I could find useful, allowing me to maximize my resources.

I feel that this is probably the best thing I was informed of this semester and has already used it more times than I would have ever realized. Plus I don't have to scroll through my favorites tab for 10 minutes to find the one website address anymore.

C. 10 Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology

Rethinking of education should aim toward strategies that provide access to the new educational resources for everyone in society and give people the motivation to take advantages of these resources.  (129)

Rethinking Learners discussed how instead of thinking how to improve schools, we should be asking “how can we develop games to teach history”. I felt that this is a logical statement because we are not trying to improve the school itself, a school is a building where learning takes place and we should be focusing on the education that is involved and the different ways we can push forward and offer different tools.

Questions that come up: What might happen if our thinking about learning doesn’t change? If schools cannot change fast enough to keep pace with advances in learning technologies, learning will leave schooling behind. 

It was interesting to hear the statement about school systems currently do not help students develop intrinsic motivation to learn, that there is a huge disengagement with students and the curriculum, enforced by less-than-ideal classroom experiences.  It really was not surprising to see the statistics of 50% of high school students are bored everyday in their classrooms, and 82% reporting school experiences “boring and irrelevant”

Machines for toddlers that teach reading, which I find interesting but as a future teacher I find to be horrifying, because I feel this someday could eliminate my dream job. It is interesting that students who play games, can develop an interest in the subject that may be rather boring. 

The idea has been brought up multiple times of classrooms without teachers, that students are guided by technology and Teachers can help out when students need more assistance than a computer can provide …Makes me question if I should just change my major now!

If we could find what type of game could interest everyone and have curriculum involved. It would be perfect.

It was interesting to read about the different online games that involve so many basic literacy practices, and how much they are actually utilizing. It has reinforced the idea of bringing technology into the classroom to make the learning more interesting for the students and give them the ability to learn for their future.

One of my favorite quotes has come from this chapter in this book and it states 

" Those of us who care about education should do whatever we can to see that our children are educated the best they can to live in a technology-rich society"

C. 10 What it all Means & Epiogue

What does all of this junk mean anyways?! Obviously there has been changes in the last decade with technology and it is growing more popular than ever and will be a necessity in all classrooms in the near future. There are going to be many things we as future teachers should try to incorporate into our curriculum involving technology, not only to help students be engaged in the material but to prepare them for their future.

This book taught us about many useful tools that are available to us at little or no cost and can so easily be integrated into any classroom. From wikis and blogs to help with communication between schools and home, and social book marketing to help with resources, there are many fantastic tools I will for sure be using daily and in my near future as a teacher. Connecting with people over the internet who share our same passions can help us share so many more resources than ever before.


I do have to say, a big problem with my future career and technology is going to be the endless hours. Because now with this wonderful technology my students can reach me at any hours of the day and this turns the teacher into a no longer 9-5 job ( or 8-3 )

These drastic changes have just come up in the last few years, and makes me wonder what is going to come up in the next decade, or century.

The epilogue was really inspiring on how many tools a person can use in just a few minutes and make what could have been hours of time into a mere 45 minutes.

Exit Slip 12/9/10

Last Day... YAY!

This course has taught me a lot about the importance for integrating technology into the classroom. 

There are many ways I would integrate technology in my elementary classroom and many of my ideas intertwine with each other.

I would integrate by maintaining a  classroom website that includes a daily blog with summaries, assignments and photographs of things we do in the classroom. My website would post daily assignments, resources, information about me including contact information, and our classroom schedule for parents to get up to date. This would open doors and get the community involved in what is going on behind closed doors in the classroom and in the long run, the school could gain much more support. 

This site would also include a wiki in  to be able to get feedback from my students and parents with questions and to open the communication doors. I could easily add to it daily, or hourly to have parents receive up to date information of what their child's during throughout the day. This would allow students to ask questions and for myself as a teacher to understand their level of learning.  This would eliminate the daily question of  "what did you do at school today", with the dreaded comment "Nothing" I would use many different tools online to have the students interact with the material being learned.

Interactive White boards would be a fantastic addition to my classroom to get students interacting with the lessons. I would push for many different forms of technology in my classroom and get students acclimated with using many available resources online, to get the students in charge of their own learning and explore things they want to learn about. It would be a dream for students to have a 1/1 ratio of students to laptops to eliminate the division of students with laptops and without this would give teachers many more lessons that can be done with the resources available.  A great idea would be to take virtual tours of dream field trips that the school system is unable to fund your class personally going, but it takes a few click to go thousands of miles away. Different things I could include in my classroom would be Scratch projects to have students play games while learning and formulate a game with my own lesson. Rather than using Scratch to do this there are HUGE possibilities to the many thousand resources for interactive game play.

It could be a huge benefit to get Epals for students, When I was in elementary school we had pen pals a couple dozen miles away, but students could develop relationships out of our own country.

Using podcast with material for students to review would be a great idea in any classroom, this could be used as study aids and the student can listen to them over and over again. For my classroom I would love to supply Ipods to be able for student to listen to their book while reading along with it. It would be excellent to record the student and send the parent the MP3 file for them to listen to as well.

Screencasting was a great tool we learned about and would be beneficial for students for a homework assignment. Because I want to be working with younger students, I feel that reading though an article with students and being able to point to pictures with the mouse would be an excellent visualization.

This is interesting when you view the ideas we all have in integrating technology in the classroom, it comes down to having students do most learning.

It was an interesting point where Boyer said we Do Not have to know how to create a website because wikis are easy to form where you can concentrate on content, rather than spending hours working on the layout, design and format.

This class has been one of the best classes I have taken because my opinion about integrating technology has completely changed and was revised. There has been so many new resources that have been brought to my attention. Many good ideas have come out of this class, and I feel integration of technology is one of the MOST important things I will do as a teacher to get students intrigued with the information and once again be excited about learning. Plus Professor Boyer is a fantastic Professor!

"We are preparing students for their future"

12/2 Exit Slip

Today in class today we watched a video of a teachers' story with integrating technology in her own classroom, which helps students prepare for the 21st century while not causing death of many trees. :)

Shes participating in online collaborated projects so students can meet students and view their work in different parts of the world.

Students are able to be active members of society because their work is published online and can receive much feedback from community members. 

With this integration, it helps the students become active participants in their education.

With use of her Smartboard, it helps allows students to actively participate and involves collaborative learning.

She becomes an open educator by formulating a daily blog "open classroom" to post assignments and activities. She blogs to keep communication with the students and their parents/guardians, While her students also maintain a blog for reflection.

Viewing her classroom, she has multiple computers including desktops and MacBooks.



We talked about things that technology helps us do, and we canceled them out by describing ways we could do the same things without technology. We touched on a few things that we could not do without technology, and the ways that technology make it much easier and accessible.

A  main one we talked about is recognition with student work. Its a huge benefit to the student to have more than just a teacher look at the work because it will make the project more rewarding and important.

We discussed technology makes a lot of these ideas better, and allows for more engagement with the students.

We read about the smart and stupid things teachers do with technology. There were a lot of good, and things to think about.

Don't ignore students interests.


"Share your Goods" -  Jeff Boyer

Delete Cyber Bulling PSA

Because the issue is so current, I felt making a cyber bullying PSA would be really relevant to digital citizenship. I spent a lot of time planning out our PSA. I spent a great deal of time finding what clips would work best for the introduction and came up with a outline. I took time researching different statistics that would be eye opening and memorable. I came up with the typing of delete cyber bullying and felt it would be really memorable if I deleted it as an ending. I recorded the typing sounds with audacity on my computer to create a dramatic ending. All in all I spent a great deal of time on the PSA making sure that it was effective to all audiences.




Check it out!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdlDGoJRcU8

11/18 Discussion Refelection & Exit Slip

My group and I did our discussion today in class about chapter 10 in Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology.

We gave directions first and then split them up into groups, but in the first round we should have been more precise in explaining what they are expected to be talking about.  We separated into groups and did a jigsaw discussion, but forgot to call it that. This would have given the students more of an idea of what was happening, rather than explaining it all.  In the Jigsaw we did use many dicuts and colors, to try to get students into even amount of groups, and discussing with different students. I feel that this would also work extremely well with elementary students. We used the ELMO, to visualize the answers that the students gave in 20 words or less about their vision of technology in the future in education. We should have been more prepared, and explained that students did need to bring a piece of paper to write on. Otherwise we could have supplied it to the students.

It would have been interesting if we used the 20 word summary from each group, and summarized into one idea within the class. This would have been extremely effective and gave a complete closure to the chapter.

Those of us who care about education should do whatever we can to see that our children are educated the best they can to live in a technology-rich society.(145)

It's an interesting thought that we are teaching students for their future, which will inevitably involve way more technology that is used now.

Dr. Boyer came up with an extremely interesting though, when we all were thinking that interactive white boards is great NEW technology, really it is not. There are MANY more things that can be implemented into the classroom, and is only reinforcing poor teaching habits teachers make. It is simply a touch power point. Students should be interactive.

Technology Podcast

Today I finished creating my podcast about a contemporary issue with technology. I chose an article from The Arizona Republic website entitled “Schools starting to allow use of Digital Devices” by Amy Wang.

This article talked about different schools in Arizona that are beginning to use technology in their classroom, like Ipads and cellphones. It discussed their methods, along with different professional opinions on the effectiveness of this technology and its potential problems.

I spent a lot of time revising my script to make it clear and concise. I felt that summing the article along with providing an intro and reaction was very difficult to do in less than 3 minutes so it took a lot of movement and wise word choices.  I also felt it was difficult to find a suitable introduction tune for the beginning and ending of the podcast.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/10/24/20101024cellphones-school-classroom.html

I used the tune Radio Martini from Royalty Free Music for my introduction: Music: Kevin MacLeod

My phone ring for the sound effect was done by my very own Samsung cell phone.

11/4 Exit Slip

During our 331 class today we touched on the division of classes during presentations. We talked about how much more organized it becomes when we present the expectations first, and then have the class break up into groups.  discussion. The group today used a venn ddiagram for discussion and I felt it was really interesting to use and helped with clarifying the area we were suppose to discuss.

We talked about using Scratch and tips to making it reusable and good.
- Randomizing math problems
- Make sure the "start" of the project looks like a start of a project
- make words appear for the time it takes you to read it 2x
- make sure the projects developmentally appropriate
- maybe add a different scene
- have characters with movement
- make sure directions are clear
- you are able to unlock the 'sprite' to allow it to move in presentation mode

Again, we talked about creating our wiki page and the componets that must be in it to make it a well working wiki.

11/11 Exit Slip

Today in class we discussed on Chapter 9 from our book.

It was great that they tried to use scribble-nuts for the discussion, but the site did not work on many of ours.
They worked great and instead of panicking, they had us work into groups and discuss.
we liked how the group made us explain our thoughts in five words or less, to be concise.

Yay its a workday!

So Much to do... So little time.

How Schools can Cope with the New Technology c.8

In chapter 8 of Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology it discussed many ways that schools can cope with new technology. Because of how much time students are spending on video games and watching T.V. , school activities need to be much more engaging. An interesting idea that they touched on is having narrow focused certifications that are general to all schooling and by completing them they would respect specific skills.  This would have all classes and schools maintain ‘certificates’ of specific studies, and receiving a credential would be similar to receiving a diploma, but in smaller steps.  This could benefit students because they would all have the same guidelines to follow and would have the same starting point and opportunities.  Although it does bring up many questions and makes me wonder how different this really is from the typical school system we need now, it sounds like the certificates are the same as grades and completions of classes. This is also a huge disadvantage to students who are unsure of what they want to do as they grow up.  The only difference in this case would be that students would determine when they feel prepared to take the course exam.

The book talked about a tool many universities use today, Desire2Learn, aka D2L for online access to discussion boards, collaborative project development spaces and online textbooks and readings. These tools similar to D2L give teachers the availability to use the discussion boards as well and help explore and engage in students work. Another benefit to these types of programs is in most cases it can give nearly immediate responses and the ability to work with classmates.

Go! Animate Screencast

To view my fantastic Go!Animate Screencast click this link below


http://www.screencast.com/users/ktesch782

I put a lot of time learning the Go!Animate program so I could make a successful screencast. Doing so I spent a lot time going over the many different features and making my own projects. I put in a lot of effort in order to summarize the complex Go!Animate program.

I was worried in the beginning about creating a screencast, and have to say the worst thing about it was to hear my own voice played back. Creating a screencast is very easy to do when you get the hang of it and I feel I will use this as often as I can in my future classrooms, because I feel it could be very beneficial to my students in understanding a program.

C. 8 Podcasting, video and screencasting and live streaming

From YouTube, to Podcasts to Google there are many great forms of media on the internet.  It is weird to remember back to the days where your internet connection was so loud when you logged on you needed ear plugs, and when it took hours to download your favorite song. Now nearly anything is able to download in seconds or stream right though your TV, like Netflix and blockbuster are doing now.

Podcasts are a fantastic invention, Many people who we normally wouldn’t hear from, have voices than can be heard by millions. This is such a fantastic way to implement in a classroom.  My favorite podcast is CNN’s AC360,because on an everyday basics I don’t have 2 hour time slot to watch my favorite newscasters news, so its great I can watch it on the go on my iPod for a mere 20 minutes, and watch it anywhere I please.

For schools to contain radio stations at school for students to listen to would cost hundreds of dollars,  but now because of Podcasts that is no longer an issue, students can form their own “talk radio” on a podcast it, upload it and hundreds of students can listen to it in minutes.

Podcasts would be an excellent tool to incorporate into a classroom, and liven up an activity, rather than have students write paper after paper or give a speech orally, students now can do an audio podcast. 

YouTube has created a huge phenomenon with video publishing.  Its mind boggling that over 20 hours of video are being loaded to YouTube every minute.  Although the content  may or may not be appropriate, the sharing of videos is a huge advantage to the education system, because more sources are available.

Screencasting has been a new term I learned recently, I always knew what it was but never the word for it.  It’s great to be able to watch a tutorial and see the step by step process.  Creating screencasts could be great in a classroom to be able to teach younger students the tools they are using.  Although I don’t know how many things you could really screencast and what elementary students could do with it, which means there may have to be more research done on this form of media.

Live Streaming is an absolute excellent idea for classrooms, because the possibilities, like most of these tools, are endless.  I feel that using this would be great for students who are home sick, and can watch at home.

Ch. 7 – What may be lost and what may be gained?

In this chapter, a lot is discussed about the effects of increasing technology in the realm of education.  By dividing these effects into two categories, what could be lost and what could be gained, the chapter discusses the positive and negative effects of technology.  To begin, it talks about some things that we may lose by focusing more on technology in the classroom.  I definitely feel that some of these things are an issue, such as dividing social groups and isolating the individual.  Within the students in the classroom, a division could take place between those who have access to computers and technology and those who may not have access to these things.  This may cause a separation between white and non-white or rich and poor, which in turn would cause conflict.  In order to avoid this, I feel it would be necessary to only use technology that I would be sure everyone would have access to and readily be able to use.  Also, I would avoid technologies such as private education systems or programs that must be purchased and I would only use technology that doesn’t force the students to contribute financially.  Another problem that arises from technology in the classroom is that it isolates individual students when forced to work on their own on a computer.  Traditional classroom procedure is a teacher talking to the students while having them be engaged and involved in the lesson.  With some of the new technology, it deviates from that tradition and moves towards a curriculum of individual projects, computer lessons, and communicating online.  Though this problem is of concern, I think it can be avoided by using group projects and other group assignments to engage students.

                Though there are many losses associated with the introduction of technology in the classroom, there are many things to be gained as well.  From the many programs we have discussed in class as well as read about, it is easy to see the variety of tools as teachers we have at our disposal. By using these multiple tools, education has the ability to become more engaging and customizable.  Many different technologies can be employed during a single lesson, and most of these that engage students can be modified to fit their skill and comfort levels.  Also, students who use new technology will feel more connected to the material when compared to traditional methods.  This is important because it will help improve retention and comprehension.  In all, technology I feel is more beneficial because the tools and the way they are used to customize lessons to fit the needs of situation that you are using them for.     

C.9 Social Network

Social Networking is getting more popular as we speak. Facebook, Facebook, and Facebook is all I hear about. I remember when I thought my mom was ridiculous because she wanted to create her own profile, but to my surprise she is more addicted than a regular high school student.
Not surprisingly Facebook is growing by 700,000 accounts per day, but the surprising part is that a huge chunk of them are 55 years old.  Now even my mom has her problems with the internet and she's years away from this age mark.
Personally, not being an extreme advocate of Facebook, as an elementary teacher I don't feel I would use it in my classroom although, I am still not fully decided on this issue.  There are some major benefits to utilizing these networks in your class but there are many cons that nearly outweigh the pros.  The main reason why I wouldn't use my own personal account for this reason is the question of where is my separation between my personal life and work life. Something that I would consider though is creating a "teacher" account, separate from my personal account to allow the students to contact me there. Creating a group on Facebook would also be a great use, to have the students post questions if needed and contact other classmates. This would open a lot of doors that I don't believe the school websites allow for.  Many students that are quiet in the classroom would be able to speak up and be heard.

10/28 Exit Slip

In class today it was interesting to hear that there is a lot of money out there to support educators for objects in their classroom, but only the teachers who take the incentive receive it.

It was amazing to hear Professor Boyer’s story of receiving a smart board because he asked for it.    

These stories bring up many ideas to help receive funding for schools. 

We have a lot of homework to do this coming week, and the homework load is only getting larger.

Exit Slip 10/21

After our group presentation today Professor Boyer explained a great strategy that I feel I will utilize in my classroom some day. The Jigsaw strategies consists of students being part of groups and discussing a single topic per group, then break up those groups and have the students teach/discuss with other groups about their topic.

We discussed the importance of locking items on our interactive whiteboard lesson.  This is great to know how to do because students will accidently move objects that should not be moved if they are not locked in place.  We learned about the infinite cloner which is another great trick to learn with the smart notebook program.

It was interesting that we touched on font and color choice for our lessons; it’s something that you never really think about but it’s extremely important.  Boyer bought up an interesting rule, the 6x6 rule which means no more than 6 lines of text, each line consisting of 6 words per line when looking at a presentation/PowerPoint.

It’s great when we get to learn some of the tricks of smart notebook. I wish that we would spend a lot more time on the different tips and things we can use on this program, because we will be using this program a lot within our career, and a lot of us are brand new to this program.

C. 6 Eras of Education

In chapter 6 of Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology it discusses the different eras that break up the history of education. It's strange to see that years ago children were expected to do the same jobs as their parents. I could never imagine myself doing the exact same thing. It seems like the children were expected to mirror the parents; they were taught to think and do as their parents.
It is interesting to read that early education was to prepare children for the work they would do when they became adults. The subjects that they were taught were basic skills like reading, writing, basic computations, and most importantly, skills like reading the Bible and tasks like buying and selling goods.  It’s strange to me to think that many of the classes we have now were unheard not so long ago. Each subject eventually added on to form a curriculum depending on the type of jobs. History, English and civics were stressed for preparation of children becoming citizens. Then later on it was decided that there should be a set of courses students should take, involving English, math, Latin and Greek, history, science and geography. Most of these are still offered in our general schooling.

In the new age, the responsibility is leaning more towards parents and students rather than the states, as it did in the first era.  Students are given more options for their learning and education has expanded. Now teaching can be done nearly anywhere.

I feel that students should understand how we came about the education system we are using today and what each subject’s origin is within the system.

Smartboard Lesson

I completed a lesson appropriate for first graders on Nouns in SMART Notebook, compatible with SmartBoards. I have never used this program before and found it extremely difficult to work the program. I was up until late hours in the morning working on my project to get it to the standard I wanted it at. In total I spent at least 6 hours on it. I tried to utilize some of the games that were available in the program but had difficulty figuring out how to alter them to the grade level I intended it for. I wish we were given more instruction on how to use this program. After working on it for quite some time I did get the hang of it and feel it would be a great program to use with any Smartboard. If I am privileged enough to get a teaching job, yet alone a job with a smart board included in the classroom, I will utilize this program to its potential because it is an excellent source to get students involved in the lesson.

I got an itch for Scratch

I have just finished my Scratch project and am really excited about it. Although Scratch was difficult to start and I had many questions along the way I feel it is an excellent teaching approach for many students. My project consisted of Dino-addition with dinosaurs using basic addition facts. This would be so great to individualize different levels in a classroom and have students work at their own pace. I feel that Scratch is a little complicated at first but after you have an idea of what you want it to look like and you get the hang of it, it really isn't so bad. I spend a fair amount of time on my project to get it to how I wanted it to be, and am proud of what it came out to be.

Flicker Fun

Photography is a favorite hobby of many and it is great how many websites encourage this.  Digital cameras are a necessity in many families and photos are essential as well. Great ways to share the captured moment in this time period is by sharing pictures over the internet so many different can view them. Flicker is one of the most well known picture sharing sites and can be a great thing to use to share with family and use in the classroom.  This would be a great resource to be able to share moments with the students with parents and the community to have a visual of what the students are actually doing at school.  I feel that posting pictures online of a classroom helps relatives from a distance know what the child is doing in school and allows people to view what the school is actually doing.

Putting together a photo stream gives many visuals and can even be given to the students at the end of the year to recap of what they have done.  It gives students a yearbook of just their classroom, and all the material and activities they covered.

I thought it would be a great thing to do to have students interact with the pictures as it described in the chapter, to add notes to parts of pictures. This would work fantastic for vocabulary terms, for example, in identifying parts of a plant.

Adding pictures online is similar to adding different projects online as we talked about in previous chapters, but this gives a clear visual, and even with help of video, it can paint a full picture. This allows the community to give positive feedback and even push students to work harder because they realize that others will see their work.

With more knowledge of the subject I feel that posting pictures online and/or on a website similar to flicker would be a fantastic way to help parents and community members visualize what is taking place in my classroom.  I feel this could only benefit my classroom. It’s strange to realize how many resources we have on the web that we are yet unaware of and we don’t utilize to their full potential.

Exit Slip 10/14

I thought today’s discussion went really well and the group did a fantastic job hitting main points that were brought up in the chapter. I found it most interesting when Pam brought up a situation that occurred at her house and computer based learning software.  Pam has a child that plays games and after they switched his game playing to games with more text, his reading level skyrocketed. I thought that it was an interesting thing to incorporate if a child is struggling with reading.