Thing 7a
Well, I’m feeling it now – that overwhelming feeling of being behind. Obviously I signed up for this course, in part, because I needed to get PLU credits. However, after being out of the classroom for 8 years, this course was of great interest to me. I wanted to see how education had evolved in response to advances in technology in the classroom. I have been excited to learn about the Smartboard and am anxious to arrive at the part of this course that helps me design a wikipage for my classroom. What has been overwhelming to me is the amount of information I’ve had to absorb through blog posts. I feel that the readers have been a huge help to me as far as organizing the data that is constantly changing, but I hope that, in the future, I’ll have the time to return to these sites and use the information that is out there, just beyond my fingertips. While completing Thing 7a, I subscribed to the BrainPop feeds. I use this site in my classroom to introduce concepts to the children before conducting my lessons. I had no idea there were feeds on the site- of course, until a month ago, I had no idea what a feed even was. Today, I came across an article about a tool called “Activexpression”. http://www.google.com/reader/view/?tab=my#stream/feed%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.brainpop.com%2Feducators%2Fblog%2F%3Ffeed%3Drss2 This article sparked my interest because I had taken a course earlier in the year on our new Senteo system. My children use the Senteo in Science and I am hoping to integrate it more into my room. As it becomes a more popular classroom tool, and as the children become more advanced in their typing skills, I’ll be anxious to see how this similar system can be used in my classroom. I’ve found that anything that I can put in their hands, other than a pencil, gets them more engaged in the learning process. I can’t wait to see what other technological tools are out there for use in my classroom.
