Mrs. Jouanet’s Edublog

WOW!!!!!!!!! I guess you decided to save the best for last   Classroom 2.0 was amazing.  I found so many forums and discussions that I found fascinating.  One in particular Are We Giving Kids Credit For What They Ca DO? really struck home with me.  It has alot to do with differentiation in the classroom, which I try to implement.  The linked video shows teacher’s turning algebra in to child’s play!

I have a section of my day that my students have the opportunity to work on hands on algebraic equations with math manipulitives.  It is when I really feel as though my students are extending themselves at their own pace…and I love it- they do too!

I do see advantages in social networking, yet do have some reservations with younger students.

I truly consider myself to good writing teacher. So when I came across The Writing Teacher’s Blog which has tips, techniques, and strategies for writing I became excited.  Then I took a moment and thought of how my google reader has brought me to many places that I normally wouldn’t have come across.  I love life long learning

Finally something I found that didn’t knock my socks off.  Because I use igoogle, I could see some similarities between pageflakes and igoogle.  I have igoogle uploaded to my school laptop, and I feel as though it has kept me more organized professionally.  I can’t say that anything really struck me as using pageflakes for my students and classroom.  Some of the definite themes & topics that I would use as pageflakes searches or RSS feeds would definitely be news topics.  My pageflakes was fun to explore, but it is the only ‘thing’ that I cannot see myself putting to good use

As an avid, yet new igoogle user, google docs was fun to explore.  As always the common craft show explained brilliantly, yet simply how google docs has real advantage over email attachments. 

Some of the ways that I could use these professionally and in the classroom are as follows:

1. Sharing lesson plan formats with a colleague, such as mine, would be helpful.
2. Collaboratively creating a parent newsletter for fourth grade would be a snap using google reader.  This could lessen our load of weekly newsletters, as we all would be taking part in it.
3. As far as creating a presentation or even a add on story, each student could contribute their part, and then once complete, we could see the final creation.
4. And for FUN…if any one needed my itinerary for Spring Break in Florida- they could sneek a peek and all of my fun activities

Although, I’ve heard about podcasts, and have an ipod, I have never listened to a podcast.  This was alot of fun! The educational podcasts on NPR were espcially interesting, and I’ve heard them advertised on NPR, but am teaching while their ‘on’.  I use i-tunes for my ipod to download music, but have never downloaded podcasts.  This will be a great journey for me, I know, as I’ve just become very interested in my ipod   What a great way to gain information and catch up on things while working out!

I have not used podcasting in the classroom, but am thinking of a way to incorporate with poetry and Mother’s Day.  As far as next year, job willing, it would be a great way to incorporate my class weather reports:)

After exploring LT, I quick jumped over to my email account and forwarded all of the information and link to LT.  By bookclub is bitter-sweet.  Because of my demands in the classroom and my 10 PLU’s in five months :0…my reading for pleasure has taken a back seat…way back.  My reading presently consists of grading papers, reading with my 5 & 7 year olds, and of course guided reading with my fourth graders.  One thing I am really looking forward to over spring break and summer vacation is READING   My stepmother is like my LT.  She is a voracious reader, as are all of my parents, but she usually knows just what I like.  I will definitely introduce her to LT.  Personally, I could see my self connecting with my book club members on LT and searching for books that may interest me based on my interests.

After exploring the groups section, I was intrigued by the 50 Book Challenge, as my class of 26 fourth graders has something very similar- 25 children’s literature books, artilces, or stories.  Upon completion of their reading selection, they have to fill out a graphic organizer (story map) on their book or such.  LT could really help out some of my avid readers in finding books they like.  I will have to investigate on whether Cobb Schools allows it as a accessible website??

My deliious bookmarks are a compilation of personal and professional, travel, and language arts, cooking, and geometry.  I definitely plan on importing and organizing all of my bookmarks from Firefox to Delicious, but need to research more on how to organize them.  For instance, with my Firefox, I can create folders for certain topics.  I will have to explore on delicious how to do so.  It never ceases to amaze me how technology can simplify my life, yet at the same time stretch my fear of technology into understanding and embracing it.  As I type this, my husband is chatting with me about the Conficker worm…telling me he thinks I should figure out how to safeguard our computer.  I’m getting better, but I’m not that good.  I guess, we’ll have to have a class face-to-face with Jerrie for her to fix something of that magnitude

I found a very interesting blog post on Cool Cat Teacher’s blog diving into topics of teachertube & you tube for students.  As a parent and teacher, it is obvious that youtube would be beneficial in some learning arenas.  But, as we all know, it is very easy to stumble across inappropriate content.

Cool Cat Teacher states,

“I know that teachertube is something that many teachers use, although it tends to be pretty slow.  There are several ways youtube could do this:

• A self or community ratings system that would allow filters to only let videos of certain ratings through.

• Vetted educators could be a mass group of volunteers and content approvers.  They would see a check that would send videos off of the “real” youtube onto a mirror site with only educationally appropriate videos.  Let educators patrol and police it – it would certainly work as I think there are a lot of us who would commit to this.”   Some of the other sites that I came across while reading this post are:  youtube education youtube edu tech crunch k12 learning

I would love to explore these more in depth, especially tech, crunch, youtube edu, and K12 Learning.  I want to keep my Google Reader going, but am realizing I will need to dive a little deeper to find other blogs of interest, professionally and personally.