Summer rest is over - time to think about next fall!

June 11, 2008

It is summer time. School is out for my students - 5th graders; however, I am already finished resting and starting to wonder and worry about how to do my best work with my students next fall. As a user of different technology tools in my classroom, I get curious about what's out there that I can realistically (both financially and managerially) bring into my classroom to become a part of our learning atmosphere.

I've had some successes - eChalk with a dropbox for homework had glimmers of success, using the tv to view computer-based software or websites worked pretty well, and I'm a huge fan of Tom Snyder-based software that is interactive, motivating, and linked so well with standards.

Of course, failure has happened, too. The procedure we follow in our district takes time to get software approved and then loaded on our classroom computers so the FASTT Math software I had personally purchased one spring was not available for student use until late into the following fall of the next school year, the virtual fish tank was highly entertaining but I had more trouble than I thought I would linking it to my Mixtures and Solutions science unit, and some of the Youtube poetry slam sites I used had trouble streaming which puts a damper on things in any classroom.

This summer, I am spending my time learning Web 2.0 tools on my own and then trying to see how I can bring them into the classroom. I have determined that these factors will help guide my energies: Is the Web 2.0 tool: reasonably priced - preferably free? ...easily manageable as I have a lot of mandated testing to do and reports to fill out...safe for my students....able to enhance what I already do in the class?

(I'm already excited as a techie who works at our local hospital told me that they had figured out a way, with a California teacher guy's free shareware, a Wii remote control, and an infrared pen, to create a digitized whiteboard screen. I get to see a demonstration later this week so more on that later.)

So that is the focus of this summer blog - What I find out about Web 2.0 tools and how I can adapt them to the real life setting of a pubic school elementary school. If you have ideas, feel free to comment. Let's share and steal ideas so that all of our students get the most out of what is out there.

from the land of blogsphere,
kas