Permissions and Safety

I have been thinking about all the new technology pieces that I would like to incorporate into my classroom over the next year or so and began wondering how do I make sure I create safe environment for my students? What kind of permission do I need from parents? From my principal? What are the districts guidelines for all of this? I know that each item has its own safety features, such as if things are viewed publicly or privately. On the other hand, I also want to make sure that my students and parents can access things quickly and easily. If there are a lot of hoops to jump through it is less likely that they will get on and participate.

And then, what kind of permission do we need from parents. Do parents need to sign something that it is okay for their students to comment on a blog? Participate in a voicethread? Get onto a Wiki and check their homework? These are all questions that I am unsure of the answers to and realize that I will really need to do some research into this to find those answers. I just want to be able to make access to these resources easily available to my students and their parents while also ensuring that my students are being protected on the internet.

Getting Other Teachers On Board

In my final project paper I talked about reaching out to my fellow GT teachers to show them some of the great stuff on the web such as delicious and Wikipages. However, there is the concern of how to get the teachers excited about these wonderful new tools. And then beyond the excitement comes getting them to actually use it and try it out! A lot of times the new technology scares off some people who think it will take too much time to learn, they won't be able to do it, or they are just plain scared of thinking outside of the box. At one of my schools there are now 2 grade levels that use Wikis in their classroom, I think it would be great if it was the norm and was used in every classroom. The things those two grade levels have done with the Wiki are amazing!

I think to combat this issue of fear teachers need to provided with a couple of things. Teachers need to be given the opportunity to see how the resource can be used in their classroom- if they are shown some easy examples or ideas I think that can go along way in getting them excited about using the technology. However, the most important thing I think is time- time to really check into the resource- time to mess around with it and really see the ins and outs of the resource, time to plan and see how it might be implemented in their classroom, and time to share with others all the different ways this can be used/ is being used in the classroom. I think teachers also need to see that although at first it may take some time to learn and use, in the end many of these tools can actually help save time and energy and provide a great resource for kids to use in the classroom.

Passwords

AHHHHHHH! I am very tired of passwords and logins and such. I spent half this week trying to do projects for class but would forget what my password was or what the login was suppose to be. I know one should write them down somewhere, but that list is who knows where and I haven't always been good about writing them down. There are a few variations of one password and login that I use so that I can try and remember it but there are still those times when I can't remember if I should use a login in name or my email (and which one). Sometimes I even get the security questions wrong- really??? I can't remember the answer to a security question about me?!?!? : ) What would be really nice is to have one login and one password that works to get into everything. For instance it opens a page and from there you can access all your accounts. I realize that maybe that isn't the "safe" way to do it, but it would save some time and frustration when all you want to do is finish your homework and get it turned in! : )

Wikis

This week a 5th grade teacher at one of the schools I work at showed me their Wiki page. It was awesome! She really had done a lot with it. She showed me how she kept her newsletters on it, all her homework, and several other things. The reason she was showing me in the first place was that the students had created a live museum for a person they had studied about in class. Since one of my GT students is in her class she wanted me to see what she had done. It was quite impressive. The kids had several items of their work posted on the Wiki from poetry they had written to their history reports or live museum piece. The teacher even had several discussions going and commented on how many students had actually responded to/ or even just looked at the question. She said that in class the students wouldn't have paid that much attention to something she wrote on the board. I was very impressed and asked her several questions about it. In the fall when we come back to school I will be getting together with her again to get some details ironed out so that I can put together and use with the students my Wiki page. I know I got a start on it in this class, but it definitely needs some work and I need to work out the details of how to incorporate it into class- especially when I only see the students once a week for an hour and at the most two times a week for an hour each time. I think one of the first steps is going to be to see who has computer access at home. I know in this day and age most of the student population has a computer at home, but one cannot assume that everyone has a computer at home. And even those that do: the computer may not pull up the Wiki page properly and the student(s) may have limited access to the computer. I do plan to spend some time over the summer getting a little more familiar with the Wiki page so that it is a little more comfortable for me and then I think it will be easier to present and use in class. I think it is a great way to communicate with parents and have students show their work. I am excited to find a way to incorporate it into my classroom.

On Line School

I filled out a survey today for interest in teaching on line at some point in our district. I think it is very exciting that our district would like to provide this opportunity to the students. I really think that it is going to become a norm in the near future: students taking classes online. I have taken several courses on line in the last few years and have really enjoyed the freedom of using my own schedule to complete a course. As a teacher of the gifted and talented this opportunity is very exciting. Many of my students could really benefit from the opportunity to complete their assignments at their own pace (usually a much more rapid pace) and then have the opportunity to pursue their own passions or be able to continue moving through the material at an accelerated pace.

However, in this adventure of on line learning/ teaching I have discovered in this class that I have A LOT to learn still about the opportunities available out there for an on line learning classroom. In the meantime, while still learning, I am excited about finding new ways to incorporate some of what I have discovered/ learned about into my own face to face classroom.

Frustration

So I spent the majority of the afternoon creating a tour on Google Earth. I created the tour at least 5 times. Something always went wrong- it didn't show the bubbles with the information, didn't go to the right places, couldn't figure out where to save it, etc. Although it was fun to create the tour the first couple of times, by the 5th one I really was done with the whole thing. Of course, now I have a tour and am quite proud of it, but can't figure out how to save it in a file so that I can upload it on the class Wiki page. I have tried to use the help section on google earth but still nothing. This is the first time that I have really run into this kind of wall during this class. It is frustrating not to be able to figure it out and to have spent so much time on it. I am going to quit it for now and can hopefully pick it up again tomorrow and get it figured out. Today I think I am just too frustrated and worn out to get it to work...

Still overwhelmed

As I stated in my last entry all this new technology stuff is great, but I am exhausted! I really do enjoy learning about the new things and the chance to think about ways to incorporate it into the classroom. It's just so hard to find the time to really dig deep into the different aspects and really get to learn about them. I feel like I am quickly scraping the surface during disjointed free moments I have during the day. Everytime I get on and think "okay, I have a good chunk of free time to look at this" I swear something comes up- when you have two young children, something always comes up. What would be great is scheduled days at work to lock myself away in a quiet room and really look into the different opportunities out there and figure out ways to incorporate some of them. But I guess since that is not really going to happen I am doing the best I can getting a piece here and a piece there... hoping that it will all come together in the end and make at least a complete picture, even if it is a little out of focus.