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Susan's Bullitt Blog
Monday, February 15, 2010
Friday, August 28, 2009
Work Summary
Normally I turn in a weekly summary to my boss documenting what I have done and worked with teachers on throughout the week. Since August and the beginning of the year has been crazy busy, I decided to do it in narrative form for the month. Just thought I would post it here in my blog!
Narrative TIS Summary for August 2009
Susan Jenkins
Susan Jenkins
The beginning of the new school year, 2009 – 2010, started with us “hitting the ground running.” New construction, new teachers, and new technology have made for a month of putting things together and a whirlwind of teacher training.
Out of all of the construction the two newest building are on my schedule, so assisting with computer set up, Activ Board Training, etc. were all a huge part of my TIS duties during the month of August. The month began with a week of professional development holding all day “Technology Refreshers” and/or Activ Board trainings for Pleasant Grove, Roby, Mt. Washington Elementary, and Overdale. This week also consisted of the annual New Educator Orientation where the new teachers in the district are trained on our Acceptable Use Policies and accounts created for them.
The week of August 10th brought the opening day and students’ first day of school. I met with many teachers to begin helping them get set up to use the technology available in their buildings. During this week I met with teachers at Eastside Middle School to discuss SMART Board and Voice Thread, Old Mill to train on the use of the projector, and Brooks Elementary to discuss various technology skills. I also attended the Instructional Coach meeting to get up to date on what is going on with the Student Learning Department in preparation for MAP testing. This week also consisted of a meeting with our SuccessMaker representative, Joshua Brown, to discuss getting the program ready for student and staff use.
The week of August 17th was spent with more technology setup and software installs for the ActivBoards at the new elementary schools. I was also able to meet with Kindergarten classes at Mt. Washington Elementary to model the integration of the new ActivBoards in that building. The rest of this week consisted of meeting with various teachers to set up SuccessMaker, Study Island, Teacher Websites, etc.
During the week of August 24th, I worked with a teacher from Eastside Middle School on two different days in going over various possible ways of integrating the CPS clickers into her Math instruction. I also worked with various grade level teams at Roby on training them in the ActivInspire software. On the 26th my co-worker and I attended the Region 4 TRT/TIS meeting in Henry County and listened to a presentation by John Halligan, who had lost his son in 2003 due to cyberbullying.
The school year has gotten off to a busy but smooth start and I am excited about the possibility of the teachers in our district this year.
Susan Jenkins
Saturday, August 15, 2009
New School Year--- 2009-2010
Excitement, nerves, stress, unknown....Those are just a few of the emotions on the roller coaster of staff, students, and parents this past Tuesday as we all began a new school year in Bullitt County, Kentucky. Construction is the huge thing on the radar in our district and y es, it is an inconvenience to everyone involved. Many staff and students are going to be in the midst of it for the majority of the year or more. However, to see the faces of the students on Tuesday in our two newest buildings (Overdale and Roby Elementary Schools) was priceless. I visited both on that first day and asked students what they thought, especially about the modern technology tools in their new classrooms. Some comments I received were "Good!!" with a huge excitement level in the pronunciation. One parent friend on my Faceboook said that her daughter thought Overdale was "as big as a hospital and looked like a mall in some places!"
Yes, there is still on going construction happening at six of our schools. Yes, parents are frustrated and were all over the news concerned about safety of their kiddos. Yes, teacher have minimal tools at the moment in a few schools. Two more new schools are process to open next school year. However, after we all suffer through this temporary inconvenience I am looking forward to the day in the VERY near future that Bullitt County Public Schools is a leader in technology, making us a top leader in student learning!
Here's to making it smoothly through our first week back!
Susan
Yes, there is still on going construction happening at six of our schools. Yes, parents are frustrated and were all over the news concerned about safety of their kiddos. Yes, teacher have minimal tools at the moment in a few schools. Two more new schools are process to open next school year. However, after we all suffer through this temporary inconvenience I am looking forward to the day in the VERY near future that Bullitt County Public Schools is a leader in technology, making us a top leader in student learning!
Here's to making it smoothly through our first week back!
Susan
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Pocketing the Planet
I am linking you, today, to a guest blog post that I did on the Promethean Planet website. For those who may not know, Promethean Planet is the site that teachers are able to access in order to find lessons and resources for their Promethean ActivBoard.
Follow the link to see my posting: http://www.prometheanplanet.com/blog/?p=1386
Enjoy!!
Susan
Follow the link to see my posting: http://www.prometheanplanet.com/blog/?p=1386
Enjoy!!
Susan
Friday, July 10, 2009
Some Resources I Have Recently Discovered
These are some resources that have been shared with me by various colleagues on my Twitter PLN. Great resources that I will definitely find a use for this coming new school year!
Promethean ActivStudio and ActiveInspire Training flip charts.
FREE -- Teaching Resources and Lesson Plans from the Federal Government
More than 1600 federal teaching and learning resources organized by subject: art, history, language arts, math, science, and others -- from FREE, the website that makes federal teaching and learning resources easy to find.
This is a list of Ning Sites for collaboration in various content areas.
Top 50 iPhone Apps for Educators OEDb
Top 50 iPhone Apps for Educators
Bullitt Co. Public Schools Technology TIPS
Training and Reference information for Bullitt County Teachers.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Tech Integration: From a Child's Point of View
I am home from my wonderful trip to Washington, DC and had a great time. I met many great people of which I will speak about in various upcoming posts. I want to start with one of the sessions that stood out the most to me that I hope when I take it back to my colleagues they will feel the same way!
At NECC this past week I had the awesome opportunity meet an eleven year old teacher. Yes, I said eleven year old. Her name is Adora Svitak and she is a very talented writer at this young age. Yes, she is gifted in this area, but she has been totally encouraged by her parents and tutors to pursue this interest and grow in her passion. As I sat and listened to Adora speak about writing and integrating technology, her vocabulary blew me away. Not like some "nerdy" kid trying to show off with big words, but just like listening to another colleague speaking to me in a PD or PLC meeting. Adora travels the country conducting writing workshops for teachers and students. What could be more motivating to kids than hearing it straight from someone their own age?
Adora's grasp of technology use both in her day to day writing and in her presentation skills was also amazing to watch. She was brought to NECC this year by Promethean, one of the premiere Interactive White Board manufacturers. Just watching her use the ActivBoard and student response system in her presentation to us again blew me away. I hope her message from the child's point of view can be heard by teachers and administrators. She talked about the wonderful engagement and defferentiating opportunities that are available through the use of these interactive tools.
Her goal in life is to inspire kids to love reading as much as she does, and to let them know it is the basis for whatever they may be interested in. Through her writing workshops kids and teachers alike are able to hear from a child's perspective the importance of engaging instruction.
Take a look at Adora's books that are listed on her website http://www.adorasvitak.com/ when you get a chance. If you have not seen or heard her speak search YouTube for Adora Svitak.
I've included an interview that was done this week with Adora by one of the local DC TV stations. Toward the end of the interview she references that she will be speaking to a group of teachers at 3:45 that day. I was fortunate enough to be in that session and was given a copy of one of Adora's books and got to meet her briefly!
More NECC posts to come soon!
Susan
At NECC this past week I had the awesome opportunity meet an eleven year old teacher. Yes, I said eleven year old. Her name is Adora Svitak and she is a very talented writer at this young age. Yes, she is gifted in this area, but she has been totally encouraged by her parents and tutors to pursue this interest and grow in her passion. As I sat and listened to Adora speak about writing and integrating technology, her vocabulary blew me away. Not like some "nerdy" kid trying to show off with big words, but just like listening to another colleague speaking to me in a PD or PLC meeting. Adora travels the country conducting writing workshops for teachers and students. What could be more motivating to kids than hearing it straight from someone their own age?
Adora's grasp of technology use both in her day to day writing and in her presentation skills was also amazing to watch. She was brought to NECC this year by Promethean, one of the premiere Interactive White Board manufacturers. Just watching her use the ActivBoard and student response system in her presentation to us again blew me away. I hope her message from the child's point of view can be heard by teachers and administrators. She talked about the wonderful engagement and defferentiating opportunities that are available through the use of these interactive tools.
Her goal in life is to inspire kids to love reading as much as she does, and to let them know it is the basis for whatever they may be interested in. Through her writing workshops kids and teachers alike are able to hear from a child's perspective the importance of engaging instruction.
Take a look at Adora's books that are listed on her website http://www.adorasvitak.com/ when you get a chance. If you have not seen or heard her speak search YouTube for Adora Svitak.
I've included an interview that was done this week with Adora by one of the local DC TV stations. Toward the end of the interview she references that she will be speaking to a group of teachers at 3:45 that day. I was fortunate enough to be in that session and was given a copy of one of Adora's books and got to meet her briefly!
More NECC posts to come soon!
Susan
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Packed and Ready to Go!
Well as I sit here on Saturday afternoon I think I am packed and have remembered everything for my big trip to Washington, DC for NECC (National Education Computing Conference). This is a great opportunity to meet colleagues (educators and other technology users) from across the country to talk and share what is going on in other school districts. I am looking forward to bringing back some new knowledge to my co-workers and the the teachers I work with here in Bullitt County.
My goal is to try to blog my experiences each day either in the afternoon/evening or during a particular session I may be attending. I'll do my very best to update as much as possible. However, if I don't get a chance to blog I will defintely be "tweeting" my experience on Twitter. You can follow me there: @ssjenk6. My Twitter updates are also synced to my Facebook at www.facebook.com/ssjenk6!
Everyone enjoy the weekend!
Susan
Friday, June 19, 2009
KYSTE Wrap-Up
Okay, I got a little lazy last night. Seeing as how I didn't get home until almost 11 p.m. after a night at the Louisville Bats game with the KYSTE group, I hope I will be excused from updating my postings for KYSTE Day 2!
Another wonderful KYSTE conference is in the books. As I have said over and over: What a pleasure it was to be able to host it here in Bullitt County. A lot of work but a pleasure to host! It was eye opening seeing the behind the scenes action and duties that go into planning a conference such as this and Kudos goes out to the KYSTE Board for their hard work. It was a pleasure meeting and working with all of these great Technology Educators.
I attended several great sessions. One, in particular, that I enjoyed was one on on collaborative tools, especially Twitter. Many of you know, and some have their great fun with it, that I have become quite addicted to Twitter. What a wonderful way to share resources in a professional learning network format. @ujdmc, @techyomy, and @sburton along with @jdscio via Skype presented this session and what a wonderful job they did. Each of them spoke about how they have incorporated Twitter into their day to day job duties as CIO's and tech administrators, etc. These guys also showed the organizational benefits of Google Reader which I didn't know a great deal about. Many other collaborative tools were presented also.
I also had the opportunity to sit in a newly formed user group meeting with some people from Meade County and Madison County to talk about and share ideas about the V-Brick Ethernet TV system that we have recently installed and plan to get more fully off the ground with teachers this August. More about this in another post.
There is so much I could write about here and will probably end up taking each topic one by one and doing a separate post about it throughout the next several days. Much easier that way. So, readers, keep an eye out for future posts on some new resources I have from KYSTE including the collaborative tools, V-Brick Information, and some Microsoft Teacher Resources.
I am looking forward to another week off upcoming and then Sunday the 28th I am off to our Nation's Capital to NECC!
More to come soon!
Susan
Another wonderful KYSTE conference is in the books. As I have said over and over: What a pleasure it was to be able to host it here in Bullitt County. A lot of work but a pleasure to host! It was eye opening seeing the behind the scenes action and duties that go into planning a conference such as this and Kudos goes out to the KYSTE Board for their hard work. It was a pleasure meeting and working with all of these great Technology Educators.
I attended several great sessions. One, in particular, that I enjoyed was one on on collaborative tools, especially Twitter. Many of you know, and some have their great fun with it, that I have become quite addicted to Twitter. What a wonderful way to share resources in a professional learning network format. @ujdmc, @techyomy, and @sburton along with @jdscio via Skype presented this session and what a wonderful job they did. Each of them spoke about how they have incorporated Twitter into their day to day job duties as CIO's and tech administrators, etc. These guys also showed the organizational benefits of Google Reader which I didn't know a great deal about. Many other collaborative tools were presented also.
I also had the opportunity to sit in a newly formed user group meeting with some people from Meade County and Madison County to talk about and share ideas about the V-Brick Ethernet TV system that we have recently installed and plan to get more fully off the ground with teachers this August. More about this in another post.
There is so much I could write about here and will probably end up taking each topic one by one and doing a separate post about it throughout the next several days. Much easier that way. So, readers, keep an eye out for future posts on some new resources I have from KYSTE including the collaborative tools, V-Brick Information, and some Microsoft Teacher Resources.
I am looking forward to another week off upcoming and then Sunday the 28th I am off to our Nation's Capital to NECC!
More to come soon!
Susan
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
KYSTE Day 1
The Kentucky Society for Technology in Education Conference (KYSTE) is in full swing! We are so fortunate to have the opportunity to host this gathering here in Bullitt County this year. Monday and Tuesday consisted of a lot of room set up and preparing and it all came together today at 11:00 when everyone started rolling in, visiting the vendor floor, and having lunch. The first activity of the day consisted of lunch and a Keynote Address by a representative from the Kentucky Secreatary of State's Office. He reminded us of what is out there that our students face online each and everyday. Teaching them to be responsible citizens online is just as important as teaching them to be responsible citizens in all aspects of life. Trey Grayson's office is willing to come into schools in Kentucky and conduct assemblies for students on the Prevention of Cyberbullying.
After the lunch and the keynote, the sessions began. My co-worker and I presented our presentation on the use of the eInstruction clickers in various formats. I talked about this in a post a few days ago. The session went wonderfully with good participation and discussion of the uses of these in various aspects in different schools and districts. Our Kentucky eInstruction reps, Keith Frank and Matt Wheeler supported our session so for the last session of the day we went to support their presentation. Click Here for a PDF version of our presentation. We used this PPT to guide us through the various sites as we demonstrated the various uses of the clickers.
In the last session for today Matt and Keith stepped out of salesman mode and just conducted a wonderful discussion with group about the basic aspects of equipping a room to connect students and teachers to the outside world to enhance instruction and learning. Great job to these guys.
We ended the day with a luau in spite of the storm. The food had to be moved outside but the skies finally cleared and we were able to go outside and enjoy some music and karaoke.
Looking forward to Day 2 tomorrow!
Have a great evening!
Susan
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Wordle
Yesterday I talked about our upcoming state KYSTE conference (www.kyste.org/conference) and shared the description of the session that my co-worker and I are presenting on the use of the eInstruction clickers for day to day instruction.
Today I am playing around with a cool site called Wordle (www.wordle.net). Wordle allows you to take a passage of text and arrange the words randomly with the keywords being highlighted. A wordle is a nice introduction to a lesson or an ending to a lesson in order to summarize key points. Very visually engaging for students.
Here is the Wordle I created for my KYSTE presentation: (Click on the small image to see larger version.)
Give Wordle a try for something that you might be planning whether it be a lesson for your students or a presentation for your peers.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Susan
Today I am playing around with a cool site called Wordle (www.wordle.net). Wordle allows you to take a passage of text and arrange the words randomly with the keywords being highlighted. A wordle is a nice introduction to a lesson or an ending to a lesson in order to summarize key points. Very visually engaging for students.
Here is the Wordle I created for my KYSTE presentation: (Click on the small image to see larger version.)
Give Wordle a try for something that you might be planning whether it be a lesson for your students or a presentation for your peers.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Susan
Friday, June 12, 2009
Week off Ending; KYSTE Coming
Well my first week of summer break is about to come to an end. It has been a good one and I've gotten caught up on cleaning and some other chores. We are working next week, but it won't be too much work really. We get to host our state tech conference here in Bullitt County. The KYSTE (Kentucky Society for Technology in Education) Conference is coming to North Bullitt High School next Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday the 17th, 18th, and 19th.
More information about the conference including session offerings, accomodations, etc. can be found by visiting the KYSTE website at www.kyste.org/conference.
I am looking forward to the presentation my colleague and I are doing entitled "Why Raise Your Hand When you Can Click a Button." Here is the description that I included in my presentation proposal:
More information about the conference including session offerings, accomodations, etc. can be found by visiting the KYSTE website at www.kyste.org/conference.
I am looking forward to the presentation my colleague and I are doing entitled "Why Raise Your Hand When you Can Click a Button." Here is the description that I included in my presentation proposal:
This session will cover the versatile uses of student response systems. Using the eInstruction CPS "clickers", the presenters will show how to go beyond manually typing questions into the CPS software by using questions from various places to check student understanding of concepts. CPS clickers can be used within Study Island, ThinkLink (Discovery Education), History Alive, any other document or website that has questions already created, or even a question right off the tip of your tongue. These are wonderful opportunities to engage your students with bell ringer activities and common assessments and gets you out of grading papers all evening. Other uses of the CPS software will also be shown including attaching KET Encyclomedia/United Streaming clips within a question as well as the use of Examview.
I'm sure it will be a wonderful conference as always! If you are an educator join us if you can! Then after KYSTE comes the trip to DC for NECC..Can't wait for that!
Susan
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
M.I.A.
I've been a little MIA (Missing In Action) on this blog lately! I see that my last post was at the end of March. Since then we had Spring Break and then the whirlwind started with testing and the end of the school year. I kept in touch through Twitter, so if you follow me there or on Facebook you know that it's been a busy ending to the school year.
Taking care of seven schools with Technology Integration is no small task. I do love my job and wouldn't have it any other way. The highlight of the month of May was helping several teachers with slide shows to present to their class, end of year programs, etc. I am proud of all of those who I helped and some who did much on their own. The pride I see in a teacher's face when they learn a new way to use technology is golden! Many teachers "graduated" from the old inserting pictures in PowerPoint and fighting to make the music work to the easier MS Photostory program. Some even tried using Windows Movie Maker. Not only did some teachers try to attempt making Photostories themselves, some even collaborated with my co-worker and I came up with projects for the students to work on. What a perfet project for students to help keep them focused after testing is over.
I am now enjoying my first day off for the summer. I am off this week and then will work next week for our state Tech Conference (KYSTE).
I hope to blog a little more often now that summer is here. I definitely plan to blog when I take my trip to Washington, DC at the end of this month for NECC (National Education Computing Conference)!
Happy Summer Break!
Susan
Taking care of seven schools with Technology Integration is no small task. I do love my job and wouldn't have it any other way. The highlight of the month of May was helping several teachers with slide shows to present to their class, end of year programs, etc. I am proud of all of those who I helped and some who did much on their own. The pride I see in a teacher's face when they learn a new way to use technology is golden! Many teachers "graduated" from the old inserting pictures in PowerPoint and fighting to make the music work to the easier MS Photostory program. Some even tried using Windows Movie Maker. Not only did some teachers try to attempt making Photostories themselves, some even collaborated with my co-worker and I came up with projects for the students to work on. What a perfet project for students to help keep them focused after testing is over.
I am now enjoying my first day off for the summer. I am off this week and then will work next week for our state Tech Conference (KYSTE).
I hope to blog a little more often now that summer is here. I definitely plan to blog when I take my trip to Washington, DC at the end of this month for NECC (National Education Computing Conference)!
Happy Summer Break!
Susan
Monday, March 30, 2009
Spring Break & Breathing Earth
Well, I am enjoying a week off for Spring Break. The past few weeks at work have been crazy busy, but in a good way.
For today's blog post I wanted to share a website that I found interesting on twitter post I saw earlier today. It is called "Breathing Earth." I am linking you to a blog post that describes the site and you can visit the site from there. It is a great source for research in geographical studies for students. Check it out here: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/03/breathing-earth-interactive-map.html.
Those who are on spring break..enjoy your week off!!
Susan
For today's blog post I wanted to share a website that I found interesting on twitter post I saw earlier today. It is called "Breathing Earth." I am linking you to a blog post that describes the site and you can visit the site from there. It is a great source for research in geographical studies for students. Check it out here: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/03/breathing-earth-interactive-map.html.
Those who are on spring break..enjoy your week off!!
Susan
Monday, March 23, 2009
Do You Tweet?
Some of you reading this post are going to know exactly what I'm talking about and have been tweeting for a long time. However, some of you are going..tweeting?? Has she gone Cuckoo? A few posts back, I spoke of Web 2.0 tools and Twitter is one of those tools (www.twitter.com). 
Twitter is another social networking site. Basically all it is--
is status updates, called "Tweets". I've seen a lot of people "Tweet" when they are on a trip or at a conference for their job or whatever. If you sign up on Twitter.com you can then download the Twitter application on Facebook and when you update through Twitter it updates your Twitter status as well as your Facebook status. I also just recently discovered Twitter for the Blackberry (Twitterberry). This way if I get an urge when I'm out and about at work I can now post a "Tweet."
Twitter is an excellent way for educators to share ideas and resources in a safe forum. Twitter is more of a professional social network, but people in all areas of work and entertainment use twitter to follow their favorite updaters! With Twitter, you sign up for an account and create a profile. You then find people to follow and people to follow you and share ideas through "tweets" or @replies!
Take a look and check it out!
Have a great evening!
Susan
Monday, March 16, 2009
Pictures from KidsFest
You read about the KidsFest adventures demonstrating the Wii and Wii Fit. Here are the infamous pictures!
Christie and Me playing baseball.
Tennis
Bowling
And now for the Hula Hooping
More Hula Hooping
Christie and Me playing baseball.
Tennis
Bowling And now for the Hula Hooping More Hula HoopingSunday, March 15, 2009
KidsFest
On Saturday Bullitt County held its annual KidsFest. I had been there once before a few years ago and walked around with my nieces and nephews. This year I had the opportunity to work in our booth for Bullitt County Public Schools. We featured our technology department this year which I am always proud to "show off!" Ha, ha!! Am I a little biased there, sure!!
Anyway, I was so proud of all of our schools who participated whether by being there to present student technology projects or by sending in videos of student technology work to display. We had one elementary school who had an interactive presentation on Digital Citizenship. The STLP (Student Technology Leadership Program) from Cedar Grove had forumlated questions and visitors to the booth were able to correctly answer them to win a Hershey bar. This got our word on Digital Citizenship out to the parents and kids of our community.
Maryville Elementary school had some wonderful Windows Movie Maker projects where the kids took on the character of an American Historical figure and told about their life and times. Mt. Washington Middle School and Nichols Elementary also sent in some wonderful videos of their morning broadcast programs as well as other STLP projects in their buildings.
The highlight of the day, though, I think was the presentation by our PE teacher from Bullitt Lick Middle school that highlighted her use of the Wii and Wii fit in her PE classes. Ms. "Y" as she is known has read all the research and has made the Wii and Wii fit a wonderful asset to her teaching. With FMD students it has been a wonderful way to help teach motor skills and eye hand coordination. It has also been a wonderful incentive for the regular ed students for attendance and academic performance.
I even was able to get in on the action with the Wii. Since we were protecting the equipment we did not allow the general public to play with the Wii we were using so my co-workers and I became the demonstrators yesterday. If you end up seeing pictures or video of me on the Wii fit board hula hooping, please don't laugh. Chalk it up as an "educational demonstration!" And hey, I got my workout in!
It was a nice day! Looking forward to getting together with my sister and cousins today.
Have a wonderful evening!
Susan
Anyway, I was so proud of all of our schools who participated whether by being there to present student technology projects or by sending in videos of student technology work to display. We had one elementary school who had an interactive presentation on Digital Citizenship. The STLP (Student Technology Leadership Program) from Cedar Grove had forumlated questions and visitors to the booth were able to correctly answer them to win a Hershey bar. This got our word on Digital Citizenship out to the parents and kids of our community.
Maryville Elementary school had some wonderful Windows Movie Maker projects where the kids took on the character of an American Historical figure and told about their life and times. Mt. Washington Middle School and Nichols Elementary also sent in some wonderful videos of their morning broadcast programs as well as other STLP projects in their buildings.
The highlight of the day, though, I think was the presentation by our PE teacher from Bullitt Lick Middle school that highlighted her use of the Wii and Wii fit in her PE classes. Ms. "Y" as she is known has read all the research and has made the Wii and Wii fit a wonderful asset to her teaching. With FMD students it has been a wonderful way to help teach motor skills and eye hand coordination. It has also been a wonderful incentive for the regular ed students for attendance and academic performance.
I even was able to get in on the action with the Wii. Since we were protecting the equipment we did not allow the general public to play with the Wii we were using so my co-workers and I became the demonstrators yesterday. If you end up seeing pictures or video of me on the Wii fit board hula hooping, please don't laugh. Chalk it up as an "educational demonstration!" And hey, I got my workout in!
It was a nice day! Looking forward to getting together with my sister and cousins today.
Have a wonderful evening!
Susan
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Web 2.0
On Monday's post I used the term Web 2.0 and said I would further explain what I mean by that. Well, let's start by saying that if you are here on Blog Spot reading this you are participating in web 2.0!
By definition, Web 2.0 is a term that refers to a supposed second generation of Internet-based services. These usually include tools that let people collaborate and share information online, such as social networking sites, wikis, blogs, Nings, Message and Discussion Boards, podcasting, vodcasting, photo sharing/tagging etc. The list is almost endless. Another website that I visited recently explained it this way: Web 1.0 was mainly read only. People got on the web and read articles, found information they needed and that was about it. As the web has transitioned over the past few years in has gone into 2.0 which more collaborative. People not only read, but they interact with others. Even ones they may not know.
Teenagers, of course, have web 2.0 tools down to a right arm science. It is as if they have always had these tools at their finger tips and many of our younger ones actually have. We refer to these students as digital natives. They have never known life without web 2.0 tools such as social networking (MySpace, Face, Xanaga, Twitter).
As educators and even parents it is important to understand how your kids learn. They are learning in a very different way than we are used to. It is so important that teachers try their best to move with the transition and work toward teaching students to be good digital citizens in the Web 2.0 world. As the teachers guide their students to be good digital citizens, incorporating these tools into their instruction will definitely raise the interest level and learning outcomes of their students.
Have a wonderful evening!
Susan
Monday, March 9, 2009
Grants, Grants, and More Grants
It's that time of the school year. Budget time and everyone scrambling to apply for the many grants that are out on the horizon. The one part of my job that I am weakest at as I assist, advise, and train teachers to integrate technology into instruction is that of grant writing. There are two grants that I have been in the midst of in the recent weeks. One is for my actual job position itself and the other is for one of our elementary schools to obtain some money to equip their classrooms with projectors and interactive white boards.
As I said, grant writing or writing in general is not my strong suit. I guess that's why I'm a technology teacher and not an English teacher, huh? As you read my blog postings I'm sure you can see that my writing skills are not of the polished sort! Anyway it has been a neat experience to be involved in this grant writing experience. The one we are writing to keep our job position funded is a federal grant called Enhancing Education Through Technology. A fraction of our salary is paid through these funds. I helped write it two years ago and my 2 colleagues and myself are applying again for a renewal. With all the budget cuts looming these are much needed funds for our school district.
The process of writing these grants is tedious as you have to word things just so answer many questions that often seem redundant. We submitted the small grant for the elementary school I mention this afternoon. That was a nice feeling of accomplishment.
In our jobs we all have our weak points. I definitely do admit that my writing skills are that for me. What are your weak areas in your job/career/life?
Have a wonderful evening!
Susan
As I said, grant writing or writing in general is not my strong suit. I guess that's why I'm a technology teacher and not an English teacher, huh? As you read my blog postings I'm sure you can see that my writing skills are not of the polished sort! Anyway it has been a neat experience to be involved in this grant writing experience. The one we are writing to keep our job position funded is a federal grant called Enhancing Education Through Technology. A fraction of our salary is paid through these funds. I helped write it two years ago and my 2 colleagues and myself are applying again for a renewal. With all the budget cuts looming these are much needed funds for our school district.
The process of writing these grants is tedious as you have to word things just so answer many questions that often seem redundant. We submitted the small grant for the elementary school I mention this afternoon. That was a nice feeling of accomplishment.
In our jobs we all have our weak points. I definitely do admit that my writing skills are that for me. What are your weak areas in your job/career/life?
Have a wonderful evening!
Susan
Saturday, March 7, 2009
21st Century Skills
Hello everyone! I wanted to write about something today that is an everyday, bottom line task of my job. I wrote on my Facebook status one morning this week the following statement: "Susan is heading to work...teaching Excel to 4th graders and PPT to 3rd graders today!" I got lots of comments on that one that were both surprised and excited and saying how much things had changed. Yes, things have definitely changed. We have an entire new generation of students of whom third grade and below have completely been born and raised in the 21st century. Even those who were born in the 90's have almost been in a world that is completely automated, web based, or connected in some way or the other.
In the educational technology world, we refer to this as teaching students "21st Century Skills." Those who read my status message the other day saw that I was teaching 4th graders how to make data graphs in Excel for science fair projects and 3rd graders were working on a PowerPoint to present as a study guide for their science unit on magnets.
It is so important that we begin teaching these technology skills including keyboarding, multimedia skills, research, etc. in the elementary grades. There are so many other technology and 21st century skills opportunities out there that if they get the basic technology skills at the elementary level they can cover so many other skills in the higher grades such as web design, and incorporate so many other "Web 2.0" tools. (I'll explain that one in a post for another day!)
Keep in mind that the normal subjects such as reading, spelling, math, science, history, etc. are taught from the very beginning from Kindergarten all the way up so why not incorporate those 21st century skills of technology to prepare our students for the work force they will encounter when they go out into this digital world!
Have a great Saturday!
Susan
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Whew!! Whirlwind!
Wow, it's been ten days since I've blogged, and I was doing so well at keeping up. February was another busy month as I'm sure it was for all of you readers out there. I am glad to be back here on the blog to catch up a bit.
At work we have been busy working on the renewal of our grant that funds a part of our salary. That is due toward the middle of March. Other things at work have been good, but just very busy working with teachers and students as I train them on technology. We even made a video in February to present to the Board of Education. I hope to have a copy of that to post here in the future. Yesterday I moderated quick recall matches for one of our district Governor's Cup meets.
I hope to get back on my exercise plan soon as that has, unfortunately, de-railed with the busy-ness of work. My goal, also, is to get back into keeping this blog up to date!
Enjoy and have a great Sunday afternoon!
Susan
At work we have been busy working on the renewal of our grant that funds a part of our salary. That is due toward the middle of March. Other things at work have been good, but just very busy working with teachers and students as I train them on technology. We even made a video in February to present to the Board of Education. I hope to have a copy of that to post here in the future. Yesterday I moderated quick recall matches for one of our district Governor's Cup meets.
I hope to get back on my exercise plan soon as that has, unfortunately, de-railed with the busy-ness of work. My goal, also, is to get back into keeping this blog up to date!
Enjoy and have a great Sunday afternoon!
Susan
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