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!

These are a few of my favorite (new) things!

This week was all about exploring new technology for me! Along with learning about all of the great tools Google has to offer, I also created a slide show with Picasion, started a new Wiki with my group, and finally bit the the bullet and registered for Twitter.
I really love creating the slideshow of all of my "digital firsts." It's funny to think that about 6 months ago I had no clue about what most of those things were. When I sat in Dr. Smirnova's class last semester it all seemed like a foriegn language, and now I was the one facilitating my group's project and teaching them how to create a wiki - pretty neat!
I'm a pretty private person so the idea of twittering and blogging never interested in the least bit, but now I can see the advantages they hold in the field of education. I would love to carry a current blog for my class as a teacher. As a parent, I know I would love to be able to log on and read my daughter's teachers' blog about what had been going on in their class that week/day/month.
To sum it all up - I had a good week! My group is working together fabulously, meeting went great (minus some connection problems on my part), and our first major project looks really awesome!
Hope you enjoy my own Picasion creation!! :)


Create avatar

Computer literacy is the knowledge and understanding of computers and their issues.
Information literacy is knowing how to find, analyze and use information; being able to gather information from many sources, decide what is relevant and then being able to organize it in a way to help the reader male decisions/take action.
Integration literacy is the ability to use computers/other technologies combined with a variety of learning strategies to enhance students’ learning; matching appropriate technologies for the students’ learning objectives.
All three are different forms of literacy for the 21st century learner. Computer literacy is the basics of it all, the backbone. Information literacy can be seen as the student’s role/responsibility, while the teacher must provide the Integration literacy. As the teacher, we must guide the students to meet our objectives with the appropriate technology and teach them proper information literacy in order to succeed in the 21st century.
With the help of Professors like Dr. Smirnova I hope that I know that I will be able to transition from information literacy to integration, and provide my future students with the best 21st century learning environment!

You Google? iGoogle!

So, I thought I knew a lot about Google and all it had to offer – boy was I wrong! I’ve used Google to search the web, pictures, scholarly articles, and have used G-mail, Google docs and G-chat. All of these tools have been extremely useful to me in past classes and in everyday life. After taking the Google tutorial I learned that there was a lot more Google had to offer.
I immediately downloaded Google Chrome, Side wiki and set up my iGoogle home page. It’s definitely a lot to take in and get used to, especially during a crazy week at work. I love my iGoogle – my little frogs play during the day and roast marshmallows by the fire at night :). It’s awesome to open my internet explorer and have all of the tops things I normally sort through to be right on one page. It saves me time, which is a HUGE thing and it’s fun to look at.
I’m planning to explore Google Picasa a bit more, along with a lot of the other tools. Picasa seems like its right up my alley – I have hundreds of digital pictures and definitely need a better way to organize and order prints. I've learned a lot about Google this week - but I'm not done yet!! :)

I'm back in the saddle again.... I'm back!

Don't mind the title - I love Aerosmith:)
But, I am back on the saddle - the Grad school one that is! After a nice month off, my first ever summer course and online course at MSMC has begun. It's nice that it's with Dr. Smirnova because I know the kind of quality work she expects, and she has already taught me to be familiar and comfortable with Moodle.
This class should be fun - it's called Literacy and Technology. I'm really interested to learn about more ways to incorporate technology into the classroom on a daily basis.
In the first week we were broken into groups and asked to create a card representing our group. Our group started with four people, then went to five, and then six at the very last minute! Everyone seems really cool and like they'll be willing to work together for the best possible outcome. We came up with a really nice finished product for our first weeks project. We named ourselves the "Lit Tech Sextet," and our motto is "Teaching tomorrow's professionals." We had a nice little meeting via Gtalk before our first WebEx experience on July 1st. I think I'm really going to like WebEx, but for the moment I'm still a little partial to Illuminate.
WebEx was confusing in that the slides Dr. Smirnvoa was showing weren't going along with her lecture. Everyone was also a little confused about how/where to post their group's card, and a lot of people were having microphone troubles. I like the visual aspect of WebEx, and I'm sure that with time it will group on me, and we will all become a little more comfortable with the program.

Plan for next week : Get in touch with my group ASAP, figure out a good time for everyone to meet and discuss the work ahead, try to get google docs going with everyone and read read read!

Now what do I do???

I'm done! I'm done! I just finished my last item for my Curriculum class!! Everything is submitted and I reviewed everyone elses work.... So..... now what do I do? For the past few months I haven't done anything much but work on this class :) I don't think I'm even going to know what to do with myself tomorrow night! Hopefully a couple nights of lazing around are in my future.. and I'm not generally one to "laze.. " around!

Time to spend lots of special time with my daughter, husband, friends.. paint the house, paint some rooms, the shed.. garden, garden, garden... clean the basement.. and train our newest addition - Charlie the puppy!

Think I can fit it all into 4 weeks, before the summer course starts? SURE! :)

Children learn and remember at least as much from the context of the classroom as from the content of the coursework. ~ Lawrence Kutner

I took pictures in order to best describe Mrs' L's classroom setting. There really is a magic behind it!:) I can see how it could take years to perfect the best possible setup for everything. Like my Grandma always said, "There's a place for everything, and everything has a place!"




Supplies for the students - easily attained at the front of the classroom, adjacent to the teacher's desk.







"Positive Thinking Area" - students can take out a book to read here, pick up work they might have misssed when they were out of class, and meet for their reading groups.







A bird's eye view of the "U" shape desk set up.








A table set aside for any students who are having difficulty with the task at hand. The special education teacher will give any of the students exrtra guidance here when they request it. Many students took her up on the offer - it was great to see students so comfortable in their classroom that they weren't afraid to admit they needed that extra little bit of help!








One of the many colorful bulletin boards Mrs. L has. This is all about different descriptive words to use in their essay writing for the ELA exam. They are working hard on the different parts of a descriptive essay right now.










The "U" shape set up that Mrs. L prefers for her classroom.








This bulletin board is behind the teacher's desk. It is entirely devoted to the class' schedule. There are several students in the class that need that schedule to get by every day. One of the boys, who has Turrets, cannot get through the day without it.











A bulletin board displaying a summative project the students did at the end of a unit of cells.









The students view of the front of the classroom, chalkboard, and teacher speaking.