My Final Project

What:   A blog for my 3rd grade classroom, primarily focusing on literacy- but also to keep them informed about specials, important dates , homework, etc.

How:  Using Edublogs I have created a means of posting ideas and comments about literature and writing.  I will initiated discussions by making the original posts and the children will respond.  Posts will be generated around daily read alouds, book clubs, and writing lessons.

Why:  I want to incorporate technology into literacy learning in hopes of sparking the children’s interest and desire to participate. My overall goal is for every child to leave with a i attitude towards reading and writing. Not having to orally respond each time should make timid children more comfortable in discussions. Those children who struggle with penmanship will be saved by typing.  Really reaching for a connection, I’m hoping kids go home and instead of playing their video games or watching TV, they are anxious to check the blog. Eventually I want to open the blog up to parents to they can encourage their kids by commenting on the hard work they’ve done.

 1 thing I’m changing in my practice:  Being my first year as a classroom teacher, it is hard to say what I will change. All I have to base my teaching on is my experience as a specialist. Something that I am going to try to do differently from other teachers, is that I want goals and projects to be student centered. Not every child is good at writing a report or making a poster, but if I they are technologically inclined and I also give them the choice of making a PowerPoint or blog instead, that might be their time to shine. Keeping them interested and excited about what they are learning and what they are doing is my main goal. If they don’t have the will to learn, they won’t.

Collaboration:  A blog wouldn’t be a good blog if it wasn’t collaborative. Nobody intends to write a post and respond to it themselves. Others are expected to participate. Children will mainly post as individuals but they will be commenting on each others posts and responding to the comments that they get. Another way we can collaborate is if I assign posting roles for book clubs. If there were 4 kids per group- after discussing together: one could write about the characters/setting, another about the groups favorite parts/ least favorite parts, one about questions they had over the reading/words, and another could write predictions. 

What I got out of this week…

Coming into this class, I was unsure if how much I would learn would out weigh what I already knew. I’ve poked around on blogs and wikis before but never really utilized them.Out of the other teachers in my school I would say I am in the top 5 percent when it comes to having technology experience. Sitting in this class with professionals from other districts makes me realize how much other teachers are doing with their students,  how much I really haven’t been exposed to, and how much teachers within my district need to step it up . 

The possibilites are endless and this course has motivated me to take back what I’ve learned and make other people want to do it. The trick is to make them want to do what you are doing, not forcing them into learning or using the resources.  It has been a wonderful learning experience to have a whole classroom of teachers and integrators in this class. The subject matter of the course makes our networking even stronger. I’ve gathered so many great sites from my other classmates and jotted down endless ideas for my classroom.  I’ve learned the difference between wikis and blogs. The information has helped me decide that a blog will best fit my needs for my final project.  Delicious was something that I had heard of before, but I was using Ikeepbookmarks. Had I not been told that I had to sign up for this, I would have never known the differences between the 2 sites. I assumed social bookmarking was social bookmarking.  

The side conversations of this room have also been informative.  I love that Alice let the conversations flow and when a great idea or mention of a tool came up, she stopped and exposed us to it–even it it wasn’t on the schedule or homework.  A lot of times, instructors will make you stick right to the agenda and I feel that it minimizes the learning experience. So thank you Alice for letting us take our learning where we wanted it to go. It’s something I will remember for my own teaching practice.

Project Ideas

I am continuing with my idea to build a blog for my 3rd grade students. My primary focus will be literacy- strengthening my students skills by reading, annalyzing, and responding on the blog. My thought is that they will find this fun, as it is a new spin to the old idea of keeping a daily journal or writing responses on paper.  The great part is that their work will never be lost, as it tends to get when stuffed in their desks.

Important classroom information will also be posted on the blog. Ideas are: the class schedule, daily specials, and homework assignments.  If everything is going smoothly in the classroom, I’d like to open the experience up to parents. They can see what their children are doing at school and post comments.

While I have you (Alice) as a resource, I am trying to work out kinks such as the site requiring an email address to leave comments. I want the site to be secure, but easy for the children to use.  Any thoughts are appreciated. Also, I’ve realized that the blog site might be blocked when on the school server???

2 Must Reads- Reaction

The first thing that I noticed about these blogs is that they have a TON of information: wikis, blogrolls, forums, links, etc.  For a person like me, all of this  information at once makes it hard to find a point of focus . From looking at Coolcat Teacher,  I’ve learned that sometimes the layout of the blog can make it have a feeling of TMI (too much info).  Although I’m sure that a lot of these sites she has linked to are useful, maybe most of them should be kept on a del.icio.us account and the blog  should have a link to there?? Or maybe just change the theme?? As I’m building a blog for my third grade classroom, I am keeping in mind that I should have only the most important information on the home page of my blog and should keep it clean and organized to help it be more effective. If I am having trouble focusing as an adult, I can imagine children will have similar problems. As far as being able to follow the flow of the blog and getting the most out of it, I think Fischbowl was the easiest read.

De.licio.us

Delicious is a great tool. I think I  prefer to have a personal account, in addition to a classroom account. I have many teacher resources and personal interest pages that don’t need to be accessible to students.

Using the blog that I am currently building for my 3rd grade class,  I will link to my classroom delicious site.  This will save time by not having children typing out URL’s and I also won’t have to directly put as many links onto my blog b/c delicious will store them for me.

The tagging function of delicious will make it easy for my students to browse through the links that will be labeled by curricular units .  When I tell them to find a resource, they should be able to do it easily. My hope is that this will allow me to utilize my time with students and technology to the fullest capacity, instead of wasting it on searching for and navigating to pages. Having the resources ready for the kids helps alleviate some of my worries of what they might come across when searching on their own. It also allows me to screen the educational value and maturity level of the sites, making sure they are age appropriate. Students can be self-directed and have choice, yet I know they are safe and have given the choices.

One specific fact that I learned from reading the Article: Tag You’re Delicious! is that if I make any notes about my delicious links, they can be seen by the public. Good to know.

A great suggestion blogged was that an account could be setup for the different departments or grade levels at a school, so all educators can more easily have access to what their co-workers are finding.

What do I want to Learn?

- Differentiating between blogs, wikis, and podcasts and learning when it is most appropriate to use each.

- Setup a classroom blog for my 3rd graders that is age appropriate and will support ALL their learning needs.

-Decide what the blog focus will be and how to launch the idea to my students, colleagues, and admins