This past week was crazy! Lots of stuff going on at home - sick toddler, sick me, some other not so fun stuff - and tons to do for school too! I was definitely feeling the tension of a four week summer course catching up with me.

My group continues to do well. I think we all work really well together, and every one's always there to help each other out. This week we were lead by Kayleigh and we created an awesome PPT on constructivism.

There was a lot to read/watch this week. I really enjoyed Steve Downe's video on PLE's. A person's Personal Learning Environment is kind of like their own personal toolkit for the web. They can keep important items (blogs, sites, documents) at hand and share them with others. By sharing what we feel is the most important to us with others, we all benefit by learning through each other. By becoming experts on what 2.0 tools are available to us we can help out future students develop PLE's of their own - this will keep the great "circle of learning" alive and pushing forward! Without even realizing it - I have created my PLE on my dashboard. I love Windows 7 and my new laptop. I have really taken advantage of the dash and having all of the items I need for my PLE right at my finger tips! :)

We also read about the different teaching models: Behavioral, Information Processing, Social-Interactive, and Personal. This was a review for me from last semester - a welcome one! Good teaching will incorporate all of these models. The student should learn the basics, understand them entirely, interact with their peers to expand their knowledge, and then reflect on what they've learned metacognitively. Bloom's taxonomy has a no fail method for teaching your students this way so that they will really gain an understanding of what you have taught them.



Our personal assignment this week was definitely a fun one for me:) I love creating, and this week we were asked to create a poster for an event. Last semester I learned how to create a review/quiz on Power Point. I thought it might be fun to have night where teachers could come together and learn how to create these for their students. I have created some for the class' I have observed and the kids really love them. It makes reviewing SO much more fun and memorable!

Big week behind us, but and even bigger one ahead I think :) I can't believe this class is almost over already - it went SO quickly!