Global Stories Emerging

This week, I am embarking on my first digital experience with students and a Wiki. Students will be posting stories of fictional characters who live in Latin America. The stories culminate several weeks of online research and pre-writing activities. Interestingly, I decided to start this project with just one class of 24 students. When I presented the Wiki and the digital process for this project, some students became anxious. Out of 24, only 11 wanted to actually use the Wiki. The remainder wanted to revert to traditional writing ie. a word document.

I am still working with the students but I feel that I could use a technology specialist to assist me in my quest to teach those students with less confidence in the digital world. I want this project to be not only a learning process but also a memorable one for the students. My goals for learning about Latin America have already been met. I am now anxious about the quality of their writing and whether they can create digital masterpieces....

Some of my students will probably teach me in this process and hopefully as the year progresses, my anxiety will dissipate some.

Investigating Twitter

Wanted to see the global impact of Twitter since I recently joined and have been extremely curious. Seems like a place for people to create an inbound buzz about their policies or businesses but seems less user friendly for social networking compared to Ning or Facebook.



It would be interesting to analyze whether Twitter's ranking around the world is dependent on cultural norms. Why, for example, is China ranked in the 300s when Indonesia is ranked in the top 20?

Animoto

Created an Animoto video that could be used as a preview to my class study of Europe. Tried to embed so we'll see if it shows up...

These videos are fun to create!

Launching Research

Am starting a new research project today that I have never tried with students. Although I am only working with 3 of my 5 sections on this project, I am still curious about how well the students will do. Today, I am introducing a note taking strategy, reading short excerpt from a similar assignment, and reviewing the project guidelines.

We head to the library armed with note taking skills and the laptop cart tomorrow....I have added a link of the sharetabs that I created for students to access the information easier. I am hoping that this streamlines their research and avoids the mindless google searches that some students end up getting mesmerized with during laptop and library computer use. I also plan to encourage the students to use at least one book, but it is a hard sell when they see some of these websites as a "mecca" of information while the books are often dated.

South America Project

During the upcoming vacation, I hope to finalize my South America project. While I have figured out the assignment, I have not figured out which form of technology that I want to utilize with my one class. I had considered using a class blog or Wiki to post information, but I feel that I know very little about what the advantages or disadvantages would be to one over the other. Alternatively, I don't know if I should consider Moodle as an option although I have not used it at all. Thus, I hope to find the time to try to set up a sample site and work with it to determine the effectiveness for my 7th grade class.

I feel like technology will increase some of students' interest and that it may make this project easier for some students, but I feel like there is so much additional work to it for me. I am also worried about student access to technology if I cannot secure the laptop cart for more than a few days....

Overwhelmed

Phew! I started a new project this week and I used a video that I created as part of the hook. I am also having the students use the laptop carts but I wish that I had consistent access to technology. It makes it so hard to only use it periodically. I also tried to sign out the carts again in a month and they are all already booked. Ugh! Am hoping that I can figure out an alternative.

21st Century

Want to incorporate a wiki and a classroom exchange with another country into my curriculum. I am not sure how to manage it all or how I will assess it. Some people have created some clever movies, but I am not sure how I would use that in the classroom. Seems like something that my students might create or that I might create for my own amusement.

Australia

Back in the classroom again...am wondering why I would blog about my classroom. This is obviously different than my classroom journal because it is public. Who really wants to know about my geography classroom?