With respect to my first goal of “facilitating and inspiring student learning and creativity by promoting student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes” I have been researching possible blog hosts that will work and be allowed in my school building (ISTE NETS-T, 2008). Admittedly, I am most comfortable with the host I am currently using, blogspot.com, and have found that visiting the blogs of current and past colleagues at Walden University has given me new ideas as to how I might use a blog with my middle school classes. The next step for me is to meet with the technology “guru’s” at my school for information regarding the feasibility of setting one up for each class. They are my most valuable resource at this stage. We have had a recent change in district-level administration that may afford new opportunities within this area, so I am anxious to speak with our “resident experts.” I would very much like to set up both a threaded discussion format, as well as a drop box, like the one we work with at Walden, to be able to evaluate student work and offer feedback electronically. With continual attempts to upgrade computers in our large school, not all machines have the same software, so printing not only consumes paper and ink, but is not always a fully accurate representation of student work if, for example, they have created something in Excel 2007, but must print on a machine with 2003.
As for my second goal of “engaging in professional growth and leadership by participating in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology and improve student learning, I am in the process of seeking out local and global learning communities dedicated to improving student learning with technology application (ISTE NETS-T, 2008). With respect to this goal, currently, my work at Walden; following colleagues’ blogs, keeping up with the many excellent resources and submitting my final NINE eportfolio artifacts to finish this program by April 25 is all the professional growth I have time for outside of what my school dictates. I have, however, bookmarked several excellent web resources that I look forward to getting back to throughout the summer.
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In regards to having a blog that your school will be using, I highly recommend collaborating with your tech "gurus" because it is quite simple for them to set up a blog on the school's server. Our technology integrator set up a district wide blog site which is linked from the home page and then when a teacher wants to specifically get an account, they just set that up. On my community of four teachers, three of us are blogging with our students and we find that it's a great way for us to communicate as well as the students to communicate and discuss things. If your school does set up a blog, make sure that there are privacy settings that meet your needs. For example, I allow anyone access to read the blog, but to post on it, they have to have a school email address set up as a user. This way, parents can see what's going on, they just can't write anything. Students can write thins, but we of course as teachers have the say as to what may or may not get removed. Happy Blogging!
ReplyDeleteTHANK you for some sound, practical advice, Katie! I am ON it! I appreciate you taking the time to guide me!
ReplyDeleteEva