Try Blogging?

A fellow TRT in my district shared with me an email that she sent to her whole staff about blogging during the summer months as a way to try blogging.  What a great idea!  Here are the resources from her email:

Traveling anywhere this summer and want to keep a personal record of your experiences?  Try Travellerspoint, a personal travel diary that you can share with whomever you want! 

If you're not sure about a travel diary, per se, you could also try the Travel Blog system, which allows you to keep updated by email or mobile phone.

Sounds like a great way to get into blogging, if you've never done it before! If you try it this summer, please come back and let us know!!

Blog Posts to Check out!

Here are some links for your enjoyment!

1. Take Students Around the World with Virtual Field Trips
    ISTE'S NECC '09 Blog
2. Virtual Field Trip Planning Kit
    Free Technology for Teachers
3. April - National Autism Awareness Month
   Talking Smartboards and Much More!
   This post has some great tips on raising awareness for autism!

It's my spring break this coming week!  I hope to catch up on writing some posts about the projects I've been working on and get those posted.  So be on the lookout for those!

Happy Friday!

Here are some exciting posts you should check out from Free Technology for Teachers! I'll try and read some other blogs this week and get some different ideas from around the web, but these 3 are great ideas!

1. Animated Web Search Tutorials
    Free Technology for Teachers
   This looks like a great idea to help students get the most out of researching on the web.  Students want 
   quick answers and sometimes get caught up in searches that don't lead them to more specific information
   on topic areas.

2. Mac for Beginners
     Free Technology for Teachers

3. 20+ Ways to Use Flip Cameras in the Classroom
     Free Technology for Teachers

TGIF!

It's been a long week working on Glogster posters!  I'll be writing more about that later, but here are some blog posts to peruse during your weekend.  Happy Friday!

1.  Creative Exercises for Artists and Art Students
     Free Technology for Teachers

2. Putting Tech in Phys. Ed - Google Maps Bike Routes
     Free Technology for Teachers

3. Turn Your Spreadsheets into Word Clouds
     Free Technology for Teachers

4. Top 10 Reasons Communicating on Computers Impacts Quality of Writing
     ISTE Connects

Happy Friday!

Here are some great blog postings from excellent teachers and technology integrators.  Check out #10 for sure!

1. Game Based Learning with Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics
     Trails Optional
2. Flixtime: Another Worthy Animoto Alternative
    NCS-Tech

3. The Great Wordle Crisis
     The Whiteboard Blog

4. NOVA on Hulu
    Free Technology for Teachers

5. Big, Huge, Free Presidents Timeline Poster
    Free Technology for Teachers

6. Auto-Captioning Available on All YouTube Videos
    Free Technology for Teachers

7. How to Embed a Map into Blogs and Wikis
   Free Technology for Teachers

8. How the Web Works - A Slideshow from the BBC
    Free Technology for Teachers

9. Top 50 Things You Didn't Know You Could Do With Google Maps
    Virtual Hosting.com

10. How To Teach an Old Dog New Tech, Part 2
       ISTE Connects Blog

Friday blogs

Here are some blogs you might like to peruse this weekend...

1. Create Critical Thinkers Using Databases (and Spreadsheets)
     ISTE'S NECC '09 Blog

2. Learn Something New Everyday
     Talking Smartboards and Much More

3. The Trick to Image Fill
     TeqSmart

4. Teaching Commenting Skills
     The Edublogger

5. What Happened the Year You Were Born?
     Talking Smartboards and Much More

And I couldn't resist-if you need a smile, check out this photo on Technology Times!!

Friday Again!

It's been a quick week, only being back in school for three days.  Here are some education blog posts from around the web that you might enjoy this weekend!  Happy Friday!

1. Using Voicethread for Writing Ideas and for Peer Marking
    EDTE.CH 

2. Where Do You Live?
     iteach
 
3. 25 Best Sites for Free Educational Videos
     Technology Times
    
4. Finally! A SAFE, easy way to show and share YouTube videos in school!
    Welcome to NCS-Tech

Happy Friday!

I've been out of work for pretty close to two weeks due to the incredible amounts of snow we've been getting.  We broke the record of 54.4 inches back from 1889 and the new record is now 54.9 inches.  But I'm still glad it's Friday!  Here are some education blog posts from around the web that you might take a gander at this weekend!  Happy Friday!

1. Why podcasts haven't revolutionized education...yet
    ISTE Blog
2. Notebook files to share and a second post to share
    Talking Smartboards
3. Top 10 Web 2.0 sites for educators
    Teach 42
4. Smart Notebook 10.6 Parts 1 and Notebook 10.6 Part 2
    TeqSmart
5. Student Blogging Challenge
    The Edublogger
6. Around the World
    Trails Optional
7. World Maths Day
     NCS-Tech

Visit These Blogs!

I use my Google Reader a lot!  I have blogs on there from everything having to do with teaching and technology, to reading books, to cooking, to fashion, and entertainment. So many, I can't keep up and I need to pare it down.  In the spirit of de-cluttering my reader and sharing resources, here are two GREAT blogs that I wanted to share with you:

Angela Maiers Educational Services - I probably should keep this one on my reader because she does have fabulous ideas; but with literacy and reading. If you're a Language Arts/English/Literacy teacher, you should definitely be reading her blog!!

I Learn, You Learn, We Learn  - Great resources especially for DEN members.

Politics, Blogs, and Education?

Another post I've been meaning to write about for several days and just couldn't find the time...

I was surfing channels on my television recently and saw an ad for an upcoming episode of the Chris Mathews Show. In the ad, Chris Mathews is plugging away at a guest whose opinion had to do with the upcoming presidential election and what bloggers have to say about the candidates. What hit me about this ad, is that Mathews berates the guest as to not having credited sources for the topic at hand. The guest attempts to explain that the blogosphere itself and the authors of these blogs is their source, however, Mathews cuts the guest off and I for one was left feeling that we, the audience, are supposed to think these "bloggers" have no idea what they're talking about.

Now why am I blogging about this? Because I feel that bloggers do know what they're talking about and that Mathews is missing a very large picture to our nation's and our world's future. I found this ad to be ironic, especially because both presidential candidates are using the Internet and blogs and youtube in particular, in ways never imaginable before now. A few months ago, two of my friends, who are very strict democrats, showed me how celebrities were supporting Obama on youtube. I had never really done much with it before and was very surprised to see music videos dedicated to his campaign! There was even one that had cut quotes from his speeches and was put to music! I all of sudden realized that this was going to be a very different campaign. But how could I use this? My head started going into overdrive with ideas for work.

On the flip side, before school ended I had discovered McCain's daughter's blog. She wasn't blogging quite the way I've seen typical blogs, and there were more pictures than I was used to, but she was blogging on the campaign trail and spreading the word.

So basically, the idea I'm trying to get at here is...how is the Internet and bloggers, specifically, not effecting this election and why would someone say that what they are saying on the Internet has no credibility outside the Internet? These candidates are smart...they are going straight at my generation and where they are located the most...the Internet.

I do realize that he is also a journalist and that he may think of "sources" in a different way than I am. I graduated with a degree in journalism and a source had to be reliable. I could see where someone posting on the Internet would not always be reliable. We certainly didn't talk about the impact of the Internet on journalism or other topics, because this problem didn't exist six years ago. Yes, six years ago! We're on a different playing ground now, where anyone can be a journalist in a matter of seconds. I get that...but will others miss how blogs are changing things, just as Mathews seems to have?

In terms of education, we need to think about how to prepare our students for these growing changes. Could elections be completely online one day...like testing? Will they only see political ads on the Internet, instead of t.v.? What if you had the power to just skip them, similar to skipping or closing a pop up window on ads now? Would that change outcomes? What about what our students may write about future elections? Will something they say, change the course of the future?

Another Day

I think I have finally recoverd from the VSTE conference last week. I ended up not feeling so good when I returned.

I've talked with a couple of teachers already about ideas I found at the conference. The sixth grade science teachers and I may have come up with a little something interesting about the water cycle. I'll share more as the project comes together. I also talked with some teachers about using document cameras. I was hoping this wasn't going to be an expensive venture, but I think I'm wrong. Two of the teachers I talked with said they have used them before and would give up their overhead projectors to have one of these in their rooms! That's saying something!

I stumbled across this great blog post today at the DEN and thought I would share. It would be great if we started an educational movement with unitedstreaming. Be sure to check out the comments and add your idea!

By the way, does anyone have material for professional development for blogs they would like to share? I'm developing a session now and would love ideas anyone has. I'm all about not re-inventing the wheel!

Check out this video on document cameras:

Help Wanted

I received an email from my district today which made me realize it's time to start preparing the teachers in my building for SOL reviews. In the state of Virginia, the SOL's or Standards of Learning are the state-mandated tests that are given every May. This email talked about a session for ITRT's and how we can start preparing teachers with extra resources. I think it's a great idea and wondered what I could contribute to the group. Being a second year ITRT, I didn't really realize what I needed to prepare last year, therefore I don't have many resources that I created myself.

While thinking this over, I wondered how blogs could be used as an SOL review resource. Are they even good for this sort of thing? I suppose teachers could put websites that include study guides on their blogs, but could the process of writing on their own blog help students? What about a wiki? What ideas do you have?

So Excited

I'm so excited about blogging this semester! I have very little experience with this, but I have tried to keep a blog before...I think I only had about 4 posts. So this has to be better! I learned a lot from Will Richardson's book so far; three chapters down. I know posts should be short (not so easy for me!) and they should have links and resources of things I find interesting.

I've been trying to set up a training workshop on Google Earth and I found a site I wanted to share: http://www.google.com/educators/activities.html

I found some really great activities, like following the Presidental candidates as they stop for different primaries. I've very excited to get started!