Welcome

Greetings. I wanted to welcome you all to the class!

Summer class 2011 members: Sorry, Don't have a class list yet.

Please post a daily blog reflection of your day to this site.

See Jeff for help if needed.

A little about myself: I'm a corporate faculty for Harrisburg University during the summer months. I work for Berks Intermediate Unit as a Program Administrator in the office of professional development and curriculum related to educational technology instructional integration.

Live in Lititz, PA and have 3 grown children. One working, one at PSU as a grad student and one as a Sophomore at Pitt.

The Longer Road Traveled

It's been a challenging road traveling through new Web 2.0 terrain while continuing down the ole' education turnpike. There's been technical potholes and 'traffic' jams along the way, but the destination was interesting a beneficial for the kids. When they ask "Are we there yet?" you can honestly say "Nope, this trip never ends."

The presentation is finished and the files uploaded to WikiSpaces. All we need are citations and a late night bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. Almost forgot, I still need to finish the homework from the last summer class. I knew that euphoric feeling wasn't going to last long. I bid you farewell with this newly discovered picture. Enjoy :-)

Final Project Day

I'm so excited as we approach the final hour for final presentations. I can not wait to see the class presentations and hear about how the lessons went, what was learned and the pitfalls that occurred. It is hard to imagine how teachers can go back to a classroom after completing this course and NOT integrate and change the way they engage students. I keep asking myself: Why don't all students have the knowledge at graduation to compete in today's ever limited work force? Are we negligent by not teaching them with the tools available today? What needs to change? Always more questions than answers, but I continue to look and ask, what if.......

Reflections on Day #6

I realize this is a bit past Day 6, but wanted to still comment on how valuable day 6 of our class was for me.
It was nice to revisit everything we had covered in the previous 5 days. There was sooooo much. It gave me a chance to make a note of the tools and ideas I wanted to try and incorporate into my classroom and my instruction.
Learning about screencast, jing, and download helper.net was valuable, especially when putting my presentation together for our final class.
We discussed Rubistar and that was so helpful when creating my rubric for my comic strip project. I have used Rubistar several times since our last class. This is a great site. I have recommended it to several teachers in my building.
I enjoyed the time devoted to sharing our project ideas with each other. Not only was it nice to hear everyone's thoughts, but it helped to validate that my project idea was headed in the right direction. I appreciated the advice and suggestions from the group.
Jeff's overview of the project and questions to ponder was very helpful. I have found myself returning to these thoughts and questions as I create my final presentation.
I enjoyed day 6 and found it helped to piece the class together and make sense of all that we had been exposed to in the previous 5 days.

On Monday, I will be doing a class skype with my 7-14 FACS group. Last week in class we worked on reviewing the PA standards for child development for 9-18 months old. Then I selected a category for each student to develop questions for the class skype. I sat with each student and rephrased, or restated questions for a good interview question. Students then rehearsed their particular questions with partners. Finally, I had then sit at the computer, to practice for Monday's Skype. I am going to try to record the Skype so I can show it to other sections. Next week I am going to have a forum on Moodle, with responses to the activity as well as what they learned. This week, I typed a rubric to grade the students on the skype activity. At this point, that is where I'm at with my project.

Where for art thou Romeo Web 2.0??

I want to create the most exciting and riveting Romeo and Juliet Moodle site, that incorporates a few of the best Web 2.0 tools for collaboration. I am finding that the information I want to use, is primarily to help them build anticipation, find resources, and gain background information. A lot of the materials I have from other teachers and from publisher's teacher resources, is pencil and paper activities. Ultimately, I feel I need to re-create some of these and/or make them collaborative via Google Docs, or forums. This project is a bit more difficult than I imagined. I need to keep it simple for my students sake, but I need to elaborate on it for the projects sake. It continues to be a work in progress. My other concern is, we are not starting this novel until the second term. Therefore, I am not going to have student feedback. @Jeff, can you remind me if that is necessary?

Final Project

Please use our blog to share your progress on the final project with your classmates.
Let us know how your project is progressing and if you need any help with any part of your project. I would like everyone to post your idea, status of your project, etc....

As we approach our last class, please review the Moodle site to make sure you have finished all the discussion forums.

I have added a page to our Wiki (http://2010ltms600.wikispaces.com/FINAL+PORJECT) for question and answer to any question anyone may have. Of course, you're welcome to email me as well.


Please register for the Ed Tech Clinics Showcase on November 11. The registration form is available at http://tiny.cc/1z10u . It’s a great opportunity to see some of the class projects from all of the other ETC courses. It will be a great evening of sharing and exploring other projects that reflect changes in learning.

Happy computing!