CEDO535: Week 3 - RSS, and Flickr, and Google Sites OH MY!

I learned a lot more about RSS this week and will be able to carry this on to my school. I started a blog where I will share tools, how-to's, and other technology-related ideas with my peers, students, and community. I added my RSS blogroll to my blog so others can use these resources and see where I get all of my great ideas from. I think it would be great to show other teachers how to use RSS so that we can incorporate this technology into their (and their student's) research. In fifth grade, students do a research report. This would be a great way for them to research without even doing the work! It's like cheating, but in an awesome way. This is a great blog I read about RSS in schools. You should check it out- and read the comments!

Charlie on Couch

Charlie
Originally uploaded by Sarah Shagam

Charlie Up Close

Charlie
Originally uploaded by Sarah Shagam

Cheddar in Sock Monkey Bed

cheddar
Originally uploaded by Sarah Shagam

nyc

nyc
Originally uploaded by Sarah Shagam

My Side of the Wedding Party

wedding13
Originally uploaded by Sarah Shagam

Justin & I

wedding11
Originally uploaded by Sarah Shagam

viola

viola
Originally uploaded by Sarah Shagam

sky

sky
Originally uploaded by Sarah Shagam

love

love
Originally uploaded by Sarah Shagam

Charlie's First Bath

charilie first bath
Originally uploaded by Sarah Shagam

Our Honeymoon at Disney

justin me disney
Originally uploaded by Sarah Shagam

Fat Pumpkin

Fat Pumpkin
Originally uploaded by Sarah Shagam

Cheddar

Cheddar
Originally uploaded by Sarah Shagam

Napping Pumpkin

Napping Pumpkin
Originally uploaded by Sarah Shagam

My new school blog

I've started a blog for school! Come see it!

535 Week 2: Wikis!

I have thoroughly enjoyed this weeks activities! My eyes were opened to the possibilities of using wikis. I'm no longer skeptical of my students using Wikipedia, which I had always thought of(wrongly!) as an unrealiable resource. I have a wiki page of my own and a pbwiki page. This week have learned a lot more about effective ways to use wikis in my classroom and I now feel like I can use these sites to their full potential.

I am working on making a collaborative pbwiki site for my fourth graders to use for a group project they do towards the end of the year. I am also working on making my wiki site better for me and for my students. Right now I just use it as a place for links and resources, which is good, but the next step is to use it to keep parents informed on what we are doing in the classroom. I am considering using a blog for this, but I might just use my wiki. I like the idea of parents and students being able to comment or ask questions via the blog. I could have them join my wiki for this, too. I will just have to work with both and see which I like better.

(Image from teacher-share.wikispaces.com)

Motivation

How do you motivate students to do something they don't want to do? My summer school classes are full of kids who "hate" to type. Some of them can literally stare at their fingers for 45 minutes instead of typing. NO amount of prodding, helping, etc gets them moving. I want to light a fire under their tushes to get them moving. Right now I'm watching one student. He has typed seven words in THIRTY MINUTES. SEVEN for gods sake. How can you just sit there and stare off into space for THIRTY DARN MINUTES. I'm so frustrated with this group. I love to do my part to help struggling kids in summer school, but this year may be the straw that broke the camel's back..no more summer teaching for me!

Blog This!

This week's work got me really excited about blogging! I want to fill my head with as much knowledge and experience as much as I can before school starts so I can hit the ground running with a classroom blog next year. I am exploring different blogging tools to figure out what is right for me and my students. In my search I found this great website about blogging in schools. I am exploring EduBlogs as a possiblity for creating my blog. Here's my blog so far, with nothing on it =P but it's a start, right?!

I'm also excited to learn more about Wikis. I have a wiki that I use with my students that needs to be improved greatly! I can't wait to make this more useful for me and my students.