Digital Story

I had a great time creating a digital story as an example for my class. I assigned a project for Black History Month for the students to create an autobiography of a famous African American. I then created a sample project for them to view. I used iMovie to create it. I learned so much about the program and it turned out very professional. I plan to use this more often in my classroom. What a great learning tool!

Pink Slips Issued

I'm assuming most districts are in the same position; however, I can not believe I was issued a pink slip yesterday from my district. They issued 220 slips to all non-tenured staff! I'm assuming technology will go out the window in next year's budget too! How can we give our children who are 21st century learners, a relevant education with no technology (let alone no teachers)? I'm not quite sure where the governor thinks this is going, but this vicious cycle is not going to stop. I understand that there is wasted money in the educational "business", but I think this step is a bit extreme. I'm trying to stay positive, acting as if I will have a job in September; however, with a new baby and half of a house (the other half being built), it is quite scary. I give administration a lot of credit and hope that they can figure their way out of this mess. And boy....Governor Christie, your plan better work and get NJ out of debt or you will be hearing it from a lot of people!

Study Island

Have you ever worked with this program? It is an excellent "study" program that will help your students prepare and practice for the New Jersey ASK test. My school recently purchased this program for use in the 5th and 6th grade classrooms and it has been a great tool. The students are excited to use it and the assessment feedback is wonderful. You have the ability to run multiple types of reports and get different scores in reading, math, and writing. The students love it because after they have completed a task which the teacher sets up, they can go into "game mode" and use the skills in a game setting. The students are having a great time while they are practicing and learning new skills! Check it out!

www.studyisland.com

What will disappear in the education world?

http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/2009/12/21-things-that-will-become-obsolete-in.html

Check out this list of things that will be obsolete in education by the year 2020. Will you still have your job?

Readwritethink

So, I've been using this site in my classroom and I think that you should check it out! www.readwritethink.org There are some great templates for projects and drafting here. Use the student resources and see what you find. The site is geared towards Reading/Writing teachers, but you can use it with other disciplines as well. It's one downside is that students can't save their work, so they must print out what they have done or it will be lost.

Are you my teacher?

What would your answer be?

What a Week!

Well after being dropped from my Spring 2010 classes, I am finally re-instated back into the program to make up missing work and catch up on all discussions and assignments. Now with a baby due in 3 days, I have my work cut out for me. Thank goodness this blog and web page were saved to Google so I did not lose those, but I quickly trying to make up everything else. If I can keep this baby from appearing for a few more, I should be good to go, but boy... am I nervous!

Does the Internet Make Us Smarter?

After answering this question in my Educational Technology Class, I thought I might post it out to the rest of the world? Do you think the Internet makes us smarter?

In my opinion, the answer is no. I feel that the Internet is a great tool to assist in making us smarter, but unless the information is read, absorbed, and applied to everyday life, it can be just as useless. It is a helpful resource that students and adults can use to quickly find facts and trivia type information, but is that really considered knowledge?

On the other end, I feel the Internet can also become a crutch for certain people who do not use it correctly. Plagiarism is becoming much more common because it is so easy to "cut and paste" information that was never even read by the student in the first place.

What's your opinion? Do you believe the Internet is making us smarter?

Test Page

This is a test page for my educational technology class.