Assignment 9

Wow! When I listened to Kevin and went to his website, I felt many emotions. There was excitement tempered by fear and insecurity. There was wonder filtered with a moment of sadness at being older and near the end of my teaching career. I felt affirmed and comforted by his remarks especially when he talked about not needing to teach everything about technology. When he spoke about offering technology as a choice to students and letting them explore the how to, I felt relieved.

I liked the quote on his site:"Do whatever it takes to help learners reach their dreams and teach them to dream." That is why I became a teacher! I have found over the past twenty years that more and more students are devoid of dreams. That makes me sad and I often wonder if it is the world situation, the way families live in a fast paced world, or the way we teach, or a combination of all the above. A quote that has hung on my wall for the past 17 years is: "Teaching offers something. It offers love, not only the love of learning and of books and ideas, but also the love that a teacher feels for that rare student who walks into a teacher's life and begins to breathe. I teach because being around people who are beginning to breathe, I occasionally find myself catching my breath with them." (Peter G. Biedler) I look at each of my students as a "rare student" and now I know that I must, as Honeycutt, puts it: "play where they play". I also know that I need to keep breathing, learning, and risk trusting this technological world.

It seems that I am always preparing lessons that will encourage collaboration and problem solving. I use the interact units for Social Studies. In most units there is an element of journal writing. I noticed on Honeycutt's site an Oregon Trail lesson where students collaborated ideas. I will be teaching two Social Studies classes next year and I would like to simulate either the westward movement or an immigrant's journey. The classes could team up, each taking a different trail if I did the westward movement and create a journal of their venture. I am thinking a wiki might work for that. Maybe one class could use movie maker for an immigrant experience and another class could do the write-ups or even podcasts as they pretend to be immigrants and tell their stories. I have to think more deeply about this. My heart is beating fast! It could be from excitement or anxiety.

Reflection 2

I already discussed how I would use Wiki in my classroom. See my May 22nd post. I am confident that I could try a newsletter. Teri told me about a site she visited and I am going to check that out.

I was thinking that bookmarking could be used for certain projects to identify sites students could access necessary information. The sites would be chosen by the teacher but there would be some potential for students to add sites. I know this has to be moderated closely.

I sometimes wish that I had more time to utilize everything I am learning in this course. I am afraid that I am going to forget how to do everything!

I have also discussed the ways I am going to use classroom blogging. As soon as I get my classroom site set up in the fall, you may want to visit. There are so many doors to open using technology. I am in awe.

One thing I need to do for myself as soon as this course is completed is to get rid of my dial-up and move into wireless! I thought I would not ever be interested in doing so.