This past week of school we were able to work on our classroom websites. I enjoyed working on it with the help of our instructor, Mike. My website is almost completed in which I am very excited about. I believe by having a classroom website in my future will help myself, the students and as well as their parents to be constantly aware of what is going on in our room. As a future educator I plan on having my classroom website fully running and updated on a weekly basis. I also like having the idea of having extra links or videos for students and parents to checkout!
I recently started using google docs prior to this course. I had actually started using it while student teaching because the school divisions has hotmail blocked. I don't use it very much but I think it's a very neat tool for sending things over the web. Particularly for older students this tool could come in handy when sending papers or presentations quickly and efficiently. In class we did our presentation about social media. Although there were many pros and cons of using social media our group was for it. My biggest concern for social media is cyberbullying. We had watched many videos about bullying over the Internet last term. One girl committed suicide because she was being bullied so bad. I believe that there are many cyberbullying incidents that we do not even hear about. My first priority in my class when integrating technology will be to have a bully proof classroom. Kids are so much or think they are so much more powerful over the Internet which can be very scary!! The biggest positive about social media in my mind is the communication between people all over the world. I believe that I will try and use as much social media in my classroom, but at the same time I am very concerned about the negative affects it can cause.
What do you guys think about social media in the classroom!?
During the second week of classes, we had the opportunity to take a look at a few e-portfolios. I am looking forward to starting my e-portfolio for the term! Our class was able to make up a list of what we thought our e-portfolios should consist of and how they should be layed out. We also had the pleasure of having Andy & Darren show us some interesting ways to express our feelings about a specific topic. For an example we had to pick a word that had something to do with education where we would fill it in with the "what" matters. I chose the word Respect, so my slogan was "Respect Matters". After we decided on our word we had to go onto www.compfight.com and type in our "what" word and decide on a picture that best explains our "what" word. I had learned that when we take pictures say even off of google, we should be citing the URL to give those photographers credit which I have never really thought of before! whoops!! Once the entire class had our pictures done, we had to send them to Andy and Darren through dropitto.me which was a fairly neat process! As soon as the class sent their pictures, it was added into a slide show immediately and we got to view our pictures as a class! I found this type of procedure to be very cool and definitely something I would like to try with older students!! Their presentation was full of tips and strategies to get the students involve with technology while keeping them engaged!
Hey everyone and welcome to my blog for ICT!! I am eager to learn and explore new techniques about technology and how to incorporate them into my placements and future classrooms. I also am worried that some of the technology might be too complex for my technology skills so I am a little on the hesitant side but I'll be keeping an open mind!
During the first week of classes, I learned about simple technology activities to introduce the students to engage my students. The first task we did in class was a word splash, I found this website to be very cool! The word splash can be used for practically anything and could be displayed as posters for in the classroomm as well! I have decided to use the word splash on my classroom website that consists of things that are important for me to have a successful room. With technology being at the tip our students fingertips I believe this website could be used for simple activities to express students thoughts and ideas of particular topics.
Looking forward to reading some other blogs of what you guys think!!
