A week has passed since I attending the Google Conference in Dubai, and my head is still buzzing with ideas of how I could use what I learned next year within my classroom. So many ideas were discussed during the conference that my mind continues to come up with new ideas. But the goal of the conference was to pick one thing and become good with it. Do not try to do everything, you might be only setting yourself up for failure. But picking that one item is the hardest choice. The options are endless so where do you begin?
I am currently playing around in my head with the idea of using Blogger with my kids. Each year I have had my students keep a reading journal about what they had read for homework. Each month I take the time to make a new journal for them that has the perfect layout and gives them structure so they know what to do. We talk about summarizing and how we do not need to include every little detail but enough for the reader to understand what happened. We have even talked about reflecting about what we read: what do you think might happen next, which character was your favorite and why, how would you change the ending of the book or if you were to write the sequel to the book what would you right. Why couldn't my students do the same task just within a blog? It seems easy enough, all I would have to do is get my students set up within the blog at the beginning of the year, teach them how to use it, and then let them have fun with it.
But using technology is not just about using it, it is also about using it safely. One of the lectures that I went to was about internet safety and how to teach students how to be safe on the Internet. By the end of the session, it still was not clear on how to do this without close supervision of what the student is doing while online. So now it comes down to not only training the students about safety but also training the parents how to help their child and how to make sure that they are safe.
My other thought was to have my students at the beginning of the year begin a digital portfolio. Currently, with the help of my mother, I am looking to purchase a bunch of Flip Video recorders. They are the easiest way for anyone to record a HD quick video. At the conference there was a show case of students who displayed their work that they were doing in class. I had the chance to sit with one girl and we looked at her digital portfolio and it was amazing. Everything from videos to writing pieces were saved online, organized by subject. It was all there and she was so excited about sharing it with me. Now this too would take a lot of time but I feel that the students would then really take ownership of their work since the work is being displayed online. Honestly who wants to post something that is not showing their best work? The biggest challenge with this project would be getting enough computer lab time to create it all.
Blogger is something that I am decently well acquainted with and I feel that I would be able to do this with my class. Come to think of it, these two projects could easily be put together. One blog with multiple tabs across the top (Reading, writing, science, social studies and math). The reading element could be their daily blog about what they are reading, science could be videos about the labs we have done, writing would be publishing their writing pieces, math could be having them answer a daily/weekly math problem related to what is being taught in class and social studies could be a space for show presentations that were created in class and reflecting on what is being taught in class.
So the conference was not just about blogger. We also got to see how Google Docs would make team projects a lot easier. Google has created their very own Microsoft type documents. You can create a regular "Word" document, spreadsheets and even a presentation. One person creates the document and then shares it with their team members. From there, everyone has the ability to edit the document on their own time. Everyone from the team can be editing the same document at the same time with each person having their own curser and own font color. This way the teacher can see who has done what part and if everyone did their equal share of the final product. The school that we visited said that they have all of their work done through Google Docs and that the students are trained not to delete anything. Just in case there is a way to go back within a document to see when it was edited and to retrieve any data that had been deleted. Every step of the way the document is saved.
Another popular tool that I learned about was Youtube and how you have the chance to create your own videos right online. Youtube has an editor mode where you can upload your videos, use music, splice it all together and create home movies without ever having to download a program. It looks just like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker and is as simple as can be. The video gets uploaded right to youtube and can be saved as a private video.
Technology is moving at such a fast pace these days and this conference was so eye opening. My school might not have wireless or multiple computers in a classroom, but still all of the above mentioned projects can be done and it has made me even more excited about next year.
I am currently playing around in my head with the idea of using Blogger with my kids. Each year I have had my students keep a reading journal about what they had read for homework. Each month I take the time to make a new journal for them that has the perfect layout and gives them structure so they know what to do. We talk about summarizing and how we do not need to include every little detail but enough for the reader to understand what happened. We have even talked about reflecting about what we read: what do you think might happen next, which character was your favorite and why, how would you change the ending of the book or if you were to write the sequel to the book what would you right. Why couldn't my students do the same task just within a blog? It seems easy enough, all I would have to do is get my students set up within the blog at the beginning of the year, teach them how to use it, and then let them have fun with it.
But using technology is not just about using it, it is also about using it safely. One of the lectures that I went to was about internet safety and how to teach students how to be safe on the Internet. By the end of the session, it still was not clear on how to do this without close supervision of what the student is doing while online. So now it comes down to not only training the students about safety but also training the parents how to help their child and how to make sure that they are safe.
My other thought was to have my students at the beginning of the year begin a digital portfolio. Currently, with the help of my mother, I am looking to purchase a bunch of Flip Video recorders. They are the easiest way for anyone to record a HD quick video. At the conference there was a show case of students who displayed their work that they were doing in class. I had the chance to sit with one girl and we looked at her digital portfolio and it was amazing. Everything from videos to writing pieces were saved online, organized by subject. It was all there and she was so excited about sharing it with me. Now this too would take a lot of time but I feel that the students would then really take ownership of their work since the work is being displayed online. Honestly who wants to post something that is not showing their best work? The biggest challenge with this project would be getting enough computer lab time to create it all.
Blogger is something that I am decently well acquainted with and I feel that I would be able to do this with my class. Come to think of it, these two projects could easily be put together. One blog with multiple tabs across the top (Reading, writing, science, social studies and math). The reading element could be their daily blog about what they are reading, science could be videos about the labs we have done, writing would be publishing their writing pieces, math could be having them answer a daily/weekly math problem related to what is being taught in class and social studies could be a space for show presentations that were created in class and reflecting on what is being taught in class.
So the conference was not just about blogger. We also got to see how Google Docs would make team projects a lot easier. Google has created their very own Microsoft type documents. You can create a regular "Word" document, spreadsheets and even a presentation. One person creates the document and then shares it with their team members. From there, everyone has the ability to edit the document on their own time. Everyone from the team can be editing the same document at the same time with each person having their own curser and own font color. This way the teacher can see who has done what part and if everyone did their equal share of the final product. The school that we visited said that they have all of their work done through Google Docs and that the students are trained not to delete anything. Just in case there is a way to go back within a document to see when it was edited and to retrieve any data that had been deleted. Every step of the way the document is saved.
Another popular tool that I learned about was Youtube and how you have the chance to create your own videos right online. Youtube has an editor mode where you can upload your videos, use music, splice it all together and create home movies without ever having to download a program. It looks just like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker and is as simple as can be. The video gets uploaded right to youtube and can be saved as a private video.
Technology is moving at such a fast pace these days and this conference was so eye opening. My school might not have wireless or multiple computers in a classroom, but still all of the above mentioned projects can be done and it has made me even more excited about next year.
