STC August 4th 2010

Classroom in Technology was very informative. Adam discussed several sites he uses to keep the kids involved, including Glogster which is blogging with a poster effect. I could use that in my classes. He also uses many Web 2.0 tools that I am just learning about and I thought the applications were informative and useful.





Blended Delivery is most likely the future of learning and the session with Anne Meadows showed me how to get involved in the online techniques. She mentioned Xerte as the available free software to create a self paced lesson on specific topics for the class. Keeping open communication between students and other students as well as with the teacher.



Using cell phones in the classroom. Three websites that will allow cells to be used as transponders can be effective and useful, specifically for immediate feedback from students to get a good idea on whether concepts were learned. In addition, the google SMS site can provide a lot of immediate information that can be used in the classroom.



Lunch was good today. My unlucky self was not chosen as a freebie winner. Maybe better luck tomorrow.



Google Your Classroom: Jamie explained lots of ways of going paperless in the classroom. The idea of keeping forms, assignments, calendar dates, etc. available to students would be great. And using the "cloud" to store documents, then giving students or specifc coworkers access to your documents can be a huge timesaver. The downside might be keeping up with status of each document and keeping updates in a timely manner.



Organizing the cloud: Various methods of getting organized following Merrill's Wisdom, that is:

• Stop trying to remember everythink


• Swap filing cabinets for scaffolds


• Redefine organization as search

GradeQuick software- great ideas on using so many of the selections. I use adding footnotes, hiding some grades when showing another student their grades, marking exemptions, and using the ** in a few different ways. I hadn't used fill the current column or the various short-cut menus. Ideas on managing the gradebook were really good. Also, lots of great discussion on what's really going on out there with GradeQuick.