More Pics from Montshire Trip last year!

Wow,  check our these great pics from Amy N. (Olivia's mom) that I just received!  Hope you all weatherd the "hurricane" well, see you soon at First Day Hooray!  Wait until you see the classroom this year...I moved my desk too!!!!   Mr. B

http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc35/ctdoula/3rd%20grade%20field%20trip%20to%20Monshire%202011/?albumview=slideshow&track=share_email_album_view_click

Wednesday comments

Have I hit the "wall"...yea, a few times and finally broke it. In fact, I may have hit 2 or 3 walls. This morning was a classic "oh no!..... What happened to my web site"? It was resolved by learning how to switch it over to an edu account, but also I put in a new web address...take that, web gnomes! As a learner this week, and probably always each day in some way, I felt the crush and disappointment briefly of time wasted by redoing work I thought was done. But, it helps to know we have our own deadlines of sorts for completing our work here. Quite unlike a typical classroom setting, where we have a time frame and then must move along to complete a year long curriculum.....Yes, I can feel for the students when they just can't grasp what we need to knoe for moving along... Every year I try to alter something about what I do in the classroom.....kind of have to...each class is a different group with different needs...I'm tired.

tech4edu: Tuesday 7/6/10

Web quest topic is solar system for 3rd grade students.......not a specific focus as of yet. Students will be asked to learn about the planets, but would be doing assorted activities once they gathered some information.
Tasks may include their weights on other planets, animal adaptations if there were animals on each planet, among others. A possible product would be to complete a section of a class wiki or web page about the plnets and our approach to learning about them...we will see.

The first day in Tech4Edu Class

Well, it went fast. my blurry eyes have refocused, my web sites are ready to be worked on some more, and I've twittered, blogged, webbed, photoed,and all of that. Lots of new stuff learned, lots of new stuff to learn, lots of ideas for the class next year...and lots to do!!!!! I felt comfortable doing many of the activities today, plodding along at my own speed but completing a lot.....very relaxed atmosphere and lots of helful folks as well. Nice to learn from each other. Mike

class week plan

Well, I have many ideas for my work during the class week at the college. One of my big things is how to use technology to support 3rd graders who are still working on reading and writing skills at variable levels. I would like to develop a site in which I can communicate with parents either in a blog way or newsletter about what we are working on in the class each week. But, I also want the site to be a pathway to many other subjects/activity areas/links.....lots to think about and lots to learn about to better develop these ideas. I also have some concerns about the time demand to keep the site active and alive during the school year.........Mike

Yup, so you got here I see! Ok, so the pictures I have put on this blog.....nope, didn't make them myself, but somewhere in them maybe there's a name or credit...did not really look too closely. I think we assume if it's on the net it's open for use by anyone......how will this be monitored when there could be millions of users out there. I remember the music companies going after people who downloaded song after song, and the few that were brought to trial or fined for thousands of dollars....and yet there's so much stuff out there now...how can it be monitored? I suppose the best we could do as educators is to continue to suggest that students give some sort of credit somewhere when they use other people's work, pictures, media, etc. I guess I can credit the creators (or the graphic artist(s) of the Cloudy with Meatballs movie with the picture, but the other computer came off a google site I think.......maybe there's a credit on it somewhere, best I look soon. I'm thinking that whatever you use in whatever format, if a piece of the original work is intact then we are done with downloading or using anything else we see.....Orwelian? Mike B. Not feeling too philosophical at this time of night...

tech tools/apps

What would I like for tech tools/apps for my classroom/work? Hmmm, definitely a class set of committed computers (like 20), Elmo with projector, classroom printer, may even think a Smartboard may be fun to have. Dragon speak for kids who need assistance getting work on computers, digital camera/video camera......the list goes on. Apps? Learned a bit about Google Apps a few weeks ago at a workshop......not sure how to pull it together yet. Probably set up a class website with student access and work, assignments maybe?, resources for classwork at least...sometimes needa direction myself. I guess using the current curriculum outline would guide me in this area.