This week: I-Movies and Ed Tech "Mentoring"
I found the conference call with Marcie from Philadelphia Science Academy to be very interesting. She shared many tips and experiences from her first year of the 1:1 laptop program with 110 freshman. I was initially interested because it's a science based high school and I know that the Detroit Science Center plans to open a similar school in 2008. The actual conversation was really about technology use and didn't really discuss curriculum much... which I should have expected! There is so much to be done with technology and this school sounds amazing! The students will really be ahead of other students in this way. I would like to share the info we learned with the folks at DSC in some way - probably through the Science Docent program that we were using at DuPont.
The progress of our Point/Counterpoint group is that we hope to use an I-movie format to capture various uses of MySpace plus get Liz's set of articles as reference.
Speaking of DuPont, my old boss got a mention in the Detroit News in an article about Paint Colors! Check it out - do you think that Brown is really a luxury color? Hmmmm...
Friday, July 20, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
80's Gal Moves Another Step closer to 2007....
Movin' a 80's girl into the year 2007 continues... this week's lesson: facebook!
I now have a facebook account as part of our group project for Ed Tech to present the pros/cons of "social networking" in schools. Pretty fun stuff I'd say! I was totally impressed with Jon's ability to get a wiki started (love the t-shirt pic), and I'm kind of sad that by the time I get to his facebook account he's probably cleaned it up....
I have found the the blogs I visit from the other MACers vary in content, but you do learn a little bit more about your classmates this way. I think the post/comments works a bit like email that you just don't visit everyday. My family has checked in on my blog - but not posted comments because they need a gmail account - so they have just sent me emails to my main account (which seems to sort of defeat the porpose of blogging?).
I liked checking out wikipedia today - I've never even been to that site before (like I said. I'm an 80's gal). I'll definetly use it again, and check it out w/ my kids when they ask me those tough questions. The jury is still out on using the group wiki - I tried to add a page just now, but forgot how to do it (Jon makes it look sooo easy!)
On a personal note: I just got another digital camera, so I will be adding photos to my blog soon!
Ciao!
I now have a facebook account as part of our group project for Ed Tech to present the pros/cons of "social networking" in schools. Pretty fun stuff I'd say! I was totally impressed with Jon's ability to get a wiki started (love the t-shirt pic), and I'm kind of sad that by the time I get to his facebook account he's probably cleaned it up....
I have found the the blogs I visit from the other MACers vary in content, but you do learn a little bit more about your classmates this way. I think the post/comments works a bit like email that you just don't visit everyday. My family has checked in on my blog - but not posted comments because they need a gmail account - so they have just sent me emails to my main account (which seems to sort of defeat the porpose of blogging?).
I liked checking out wikipedia today - I've never even been to that site before (like I said. I'm an 80's gal). I'll definetly use it again, and check it out w/ my kids when they ask me those tough questions. The jury is still out on using the group wiki - I tried to add a page just now, but forgot how to do it (Jon makes it look sooo easy!)
On a personal note: I just got another digital camera, so I will be adding photos to my blog soon!
Ciao!
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Hey! I got some nice comments back - thanks MAC folks! And I agree with Bob that Space Invaders is "as good as it gets" - of course I do remember the excitement when our family got a PONG game (oooh that really dates me!)
Another example the the upcoming / increasing digital divide:
My 7 year old son was telling my 22 year old cousin about our "old fashioned" 50 disc CD changer and comparing it in size to an I-Pod Nano.... "It was this BIG and an I-Pod is so tiny!" - what will the future of technology look like for a child born in 2000? I can't imagine!
Another example the the upcoming / increasing digital divide:
My 7 year old son was telling my 22 year old cousin about our "old fashioned" 50 disc CD changer and comparing it in size to an I-Pod Nano.... "It was this BIG and an I-Pod is so tiny!" - what will the future of technology look like for a child born in 2000? I can't imagine!
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Week 1 blog post
I am kind of proud that I actually know how to post something on a blog now. I generally don't spend much time "surfing the web", since it was not regarded as a useful tool at my job and I have very little time at home for such activities! But now since it's an actual ASSIGNMENT I guess I have to do it! Fun at school!!!
I started prep for the 6/29 class by reading the assigned articles, and right away I started to get excited about this class. As one of the "older" students, I do see a divide between my use of technology (for work or entertainment) and that of the post-college set of students. I am eager to learn about classroom technology for teaching as well as organizing lessons and connecting to parents at home. For me, the articles sort of set the stage and piqued my interest in the topic of blogging, which I had never tried. When I went to some of the Teacher blog sites, they seemed to often be more like journals for educators to reflect on their concerns, strategies and ideas. Some sited posted interesting reading lists or web links. I did follow some web links and realized that you could spend literally hours in this environment following your "stream of interest" - something I would enjoy doing but do NOT have time for now! Some blog sites seemed more interactive and I saw replies. I thought that the international blogs were very powerful in connecting students in a "real" way to each other from remote locations (awesome tool for social sciences / world languages).
When I visited the classroom blogs, again some were more like journals and "one way" communication from the teacher to the students. Others had students scribe and I saw some student use. During class a couple were mentioned that I did not yet visit, which sounded more interactive. I thought that reviewing blog sites from other science teachers would be a great way to get ideas.
In the classroom, setting up the blog was much easier that I anticipated. I liked Liz's pace and informal style. It's great to have facilities where 28 students can all follow along on-line! I guess that shows my age again!
Jeff's portion of class was thought provoking in that different MAC students all shared great ideas about classroom technology they would like to use - and some of the most simple devices (i.e. overhead projector, cassette tape player) were agreed upon as some of the most useful. It will be interesting to see what the real classrooms offer and what budgets within our teaching assignments really mean.
More later....
I started prep for the 6/29 class by reading the assigned articles, and right away I started to get excited about this class. As one of the "older" students, I do see a divide between my use of technology (for work or entertainment) and that of the post-college set of students. I am eager to learn about classroom technology for teaching as well as organizing lessons and connecting to parents at home. For me, the articles sort of set the stage and piqued my interest in the topic of blogging, which I had never tried. When I went to some of the Teacher blog sites, they seemed to often be more like journals for educators to reflect on their concerns, strategies and ideas. Some sited posted interesting reading lists or web links. I did follow some web links and realized that you could spend literally hours in this environment following your "stream of interest" - something I would enjoy doing but do NOT have time for now! Some blog sites seemed more interactive and I saw replies. I thought that the international blogs were very powerful in connecting students in a "real" way to each other from remote locations (awesome tool for social sciences / world languages).
When I visited the classroom blogs, again some were more like journals and "one way" communication from the teacher to the students. Others had students scribe and I saw some student use. During class a couple were mentioned that I did not yet visit, which sounded more interactive. I thought that reviewing blog sites from other science teachers would be a great way to get ideas.
In the classroom, setting up the blog was much easier that I anticipated. I liked Liz's pace and informal style. It's great to have facilities where 28 students can all follow along on-line! I guess that shows my age again!
Jeff's portion of class was thought provoking in that different MAC students all shared great ideas about classroom technology they would like to use - and some of the most simple devices (i.e. overhead projector, cassette tape player) were agreed upon as some of the most useful. It will be interesting to see what the real classrooms offer and what budgets within our teaching assignments really mean.
More later....
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