Week 8 Blog

I tend to use as many online communication tools as I can. My current principal is not one that requires online usage by students and staff. He is very "paper friendly" and thus, doesn't focus on technology as much as past administrators. My students don't have as much access to computers as other students in the country. With this in mind, I try to assign lessons to my students to be completed at home. In a previous poll of my students all but two of my 190 students had a computer and internet access at home. Many of them have their own computer. The webquest I created for this class is one I will assign over the winter holiday. My students will learn and will bring back a knowledge of Newton's Laws of Motion without the required in-person lessons. Because the end of semester tests will be given the week after we come back for winter break, my students will need the additional time to learn and study. 

I have begun using Edmodo in my previous classroom. I liked the ease of use but I didn't find my students capable, at their level, to upload word documents. I did find they liked talking with their peers about school related topics. I find, in my technology explorations, that I learned that their are many more elementary technology type websites. Although given these, I find there is much information that can be shared within the classroom.

In this classroom, I learned the most by writing technology explorations. There were many more than what I learned. I would have chosen to complete more of these instead of blogs like this one. Reflection works but only if its something learned at the moment. For myself, I like technology and use it frequently.

There are many things I plan to incorporate into my classroom. First, I plan on using several of the technology explorations in my room. Like I have mentioned, I have used programs like Edmodo and the Microsoft suite in my classroom. I haven't assigned a webquest to be completed at home but will be doing this prior to the winter break. The powerpoint I created has already been used in my classroom.