Week 12: The Last Hurrah!

Welcome to the last week of Learn and Earn! Thank you for your participation throughout the course of this class. I hope you learned about some new digital tools to use not only for yourself as a teacher but with your students in your classroom.

For those of you taking this class for clock hours, soon we will be sending out the paperwork for you to fill out and return.

This week, for your last “assignment” I'm asking two things:
1. Go back to one or two previous posts and take a look at your classmates’ comments. Choose one or two of these comments to respond to by answering someone’s question, providing your perspective on someone’s idea, offering a suggestion, etc.

2. Provide your feedback about the class using the form below.

Thank you and I hope you have a wonderful school year!

>

Week 11-Web 2.0

Web 2.0 refers to the idea that the web is now a place where people can interact and collaborate using tools such as blogs, wikis, social networking sites etc. and is no longer just a place to view information. E-learning Tools for School is a collection of web 2.0 tools. (Click on the plus symbol next to the type of tools you are looking for then click on the tiny icon next to the name to view the site.)

For your post this week: Take some time to explore 5-7 tools in-depth and report back telling us your top 3 tools. Explain how you could see yourself using each tool with your students.

Week 10-The Gift of Knowledge

This week's assignment is optional--you only need to complete it if you missed one of the previous weeks' posts. In the spirit of the holidays, I thought we'd give someone who isn't in our class the gift of something you've learned. Here's how it works:

1. Look over the past posts and find something you think you'd like to pass on to someone else.
2. Pick a person on your staff to receive your "gift of knowledge."
3. Visit that person and say, "Hey, do you have minute so I can show you this cool thing I learned?"
4. Show them. (Don't forget, let them "drive." Only in dire situations should you take over the keyboard or mouse of another person--we learn best by doing.)
5. Come back here and tell us what you shared and why, and a little bit about the experience.
6. Enjoy your break!

Week 9: Using Your Teacher Website to Provide Resources

Every teacher in our district has the ability to create a teacher website. Teacher websites can be use to communicate information to parents and students, provide information and resources as documents or links and to create discussion through a discussion board. Photos and videos of students can be added for families to view. Events can be added to the calendar, practice quizes can be created and grades can be shared.

Did you know that you can lock a document? Any file that is uploaded to the documents section can be locked by clicking on the padlock to the right. You will be prompted to create a password. This password can be shared with individual parents so only they can access the file (audio, video, word document). When someone clicks on the file, they must enter the password in order for the file to open.

Here are a few SWIFT sites you may want to visit to see a variety of uses:
Brandon Betlach
Christine Thurston
Cheryl Reilly
Wendy Ward

For this weeks post: Look at how other teachers in the district are using their SWIFT site. Look at other teachers in your grade level/specialty. Report back how you currently use your site and what you would like to add to enhance your site.

Week 8-Staying Organized with OneNote

OneNote is a wonderful program found on our laptops. It is a Microsoft Office program created to work as an electronic notebook. "OneNote is a place for gathering, organizing, searching, and sharing notes, clippings, thoughts, reference materials, and other information." As a teacher I have created notebooks for my class of students, committees and groups as well as print shop and report cards.


When you open the program you will see that there is a notebook already created for you. It is the user guide for the program. There are two tabs, each with several pages. (Start, All Programs, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office OneNote)

For this weeks post, view the OneNote 2007 Guide notebook. If you are new to the program, review the Getting Started with OneNote tab/pages. If you are a currect user, review the More Cool Features tab/pages. Report back and share how you could use this tool as a teacher.

Week 7: Google Street View

If you haven't checked out Google Street View yet, the time has come. You’d be surprised where you and your class can go. Reading a book set in Iowa? Might as well “drive” down Temple Ave. in Shell Rock so that students can get a glimpse of the vast terrain. Or maybe “drive” by the Guggenheim on 5th Ave. in New York City. Or if those options are too luxurious for you, you can also walk to Starbucks from Lake Wilderness. It’s easy—just visit Google Maps, plug in an address or just zoom in on an area you wish to “visit.” Look for the little yellow guy (Pegman) and drag him over to one of the street views that are available in that area (available streets will be highlighted in blue).



This week, tell us how you might use Google Street View in your classroom. Be creative! OR If there isn't a way you could use Street View, visit the Google for Educators page or the Google blog (side note: it's really amazing what Google offers beyond search) to learn about some of the other great resources Google offers that might be useful to you and your students. Let us know what you find and how you might use it.

Week 6: Halfway There!

Well, we're at the halfway point. How is it going? For this week's assignment, I'm asking you to do three things:

1. Provide a little bit of information about your experience so far by answering these questions:

On average how much time do you spend on the assignments?

Do you check back after you post your comment to read other comments?

2. Revisit the previous blog posts (find access to the archived posts in the lower right corner hand of this page), and read through the comments. Find at least one thing to comment on and "reply" to that comment by clicking "reply" and leaving an insight, answer, or suggestion to that comment. One of the benefits of blogging is the conversation it allows for. Imagine if we had done this class via email. I could have sent you each week's post in an email and you could have responded to me with a reply to that email. However, notice how much richer it is to see and respond to each other's thinking using the blog instead.

3. Leave a comment to this post with your "mid-term" reflection. Anything you want to share is fine, but here a few questions you might want to consider: How is this set up working for you? How does learning this way stack up next to more traditional ways of learning? Have you learned anything about the way you learn that might impact how you teach? Any suggestions for the second half of the class? Remember--commenting on someone else's post counts.