- Are you finding the information and resources you need?
Thus far, I am feeling very successful in accomplishing my first goal. I have reached out to fellow teachers at my school and they have offered me a wide variety of interactive tools which I can implement in my classroom.
- What have you learned so far?
After e-mailing my librarian, I realized that I can use the SmartBoard technology with my e-Beam. This information is important because SmartBoard has numerous pre-made interactive tools and PowerPoints available to implement.
- Do you need to modify your action plan?
At this point, I do not feel as if I need to modify my action plan. As of now, I feel that my GAME plan is going well What have you learned so far? Perhaps after progressing from the planning stage to the implementation stage, this GAME plan might need greater reconsideration as issues arise.
- What new questions have arisen?
\The one area I have questions about regard what other interactive tools and resources are available for teachers. I have asked this question of my collegues, but now I would like to open that same question up to my peers through Walden University.
Katie,
ReplyDeleteWhile searching for technology tools over the past few weeks, I have come across many blogs, websites, and videos that present the most current technologies available for classroom use. Technology enhances and enriches students’ content area learning, and motivates them to become self-directed learners (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009). As educators we must seek out new technologies that are available to scaffold student learning. I am glad to share these tools with you in hopes that you find them as useful as I did.
The first resource is a blog about implementing technology in the classroom. It offers free resources and lessons plans for teaching with technology.
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/
This is a website that lists the top 100 technology tools for learning in 2011. It provides the links to the technology tool and a short summary of what each tool does.
http://c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/2011.html
I learned about this website today while reading Joe Tornburg’s blog entitled BrainFood. This website presents the most well-known instructional strategies used by teachers. I was so pleased to learn about such a useful tool.
http://www.beesburg.com/edtools/glossary.html
If you do not have a social bookmarking account already, I suggest you create an account with Delicious or Diigo. They are both useful technology tools that you can use to save your or share you bookmarks. When I locate a useful website at home that I want to use in my classroom, I just tag it on my Delicious account, and then I can access it on my school computer because it’s all online. I hope you find these tools helpful! Good luck!
Whitney Barber
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Enriching content area learning experiences with technology, part 1. [Webcast]. Technology across the content areas. Baltimore, MD: Ertmer.
Hi Katie,
ReplyDeleteI am so glad to hear that your GAME plan seems to be going so well and especially all the help that you have been receiving from you teaching colleagues. You must be working in a very warm and friendly school!
It seems hard to improve on Whitney's post but I was wondering what grade level and/or which subject area you are particularly interested in receiving tools for?
I have looked at generic websites which provide links to a variety of websites and tools, most of which are either above my students' reading levels (they are only first graders). In my view it is better to get tools that other teachers have used for specific lessons and therefore have experience with.
I can check back here later this week to see if I can help more specifically with what you might be looking for.
With regards to your second goal of creating a class website to communicate with your community, you may find our future assignments on contributing to a wiki very helpful. Have you ever used a wiki before? I feel like a wiki (or to be honest even a blog) are great ways to start a "class website" because a lot of the formatting has already been done for you. It is simple to use, can be open only to the people you invite and there is room to add a variety of other media.
Susan
Katie,
ReplyDeleteFirst off great blog post. I too have asked a similar question about resources and what else I can get my hands on. The first thing you need to look at is the what you want to accomplish from using technology in your classroom? Is it to gain their attention? For that i highly recommend looking into an interactive whiteboard, or cheaper yet is my favorite the MIMIO Pad which your school can get for %299.00. It allows you to do a ton of things on your computer from anywhere in the room and it really helped me become more organized with technology and allowed my students an outlet that they loved. If your question is where I can get information and resources for free? I recommend blogs of other teachers that allow sharing of documents or even joining something like youtube or teachertube to be safer so that students can relate to it.
Anyway I hope these few tips helped you in your search.
Andrew