Cedo535: Week Five

As this class comes to a close, there is so much that I'm thinking about and planning on taking back to my class. I thought Richards chapter 9 did an excellent job at summarizing all the things that I need to plan for as I update and lay out my curriculum this year. Actually, he seems to summarize all the things our classes have been emphasizing up to this point; that, as teachers, we need to be role models and collaborators in showing our students how to work with Web 2.0 tools and that we need to prepare them for all the various tools they will be utilizing in their lives. Obviously, the Internet is not going away anytime soon, so we have to stop delaying their progress. This is what frustrates me the most. I am so ready to switch things up in my classes and begin utlizing all sorts of Web 2.0 tools, such as video sites, blogs, Nings, Wikis, graphic programs, podcasts and screencasts, but how do I then justify my curriculum when the standards for my school were written almost nine years ago? There's where the real frustration lies, I think. Even if teachers are ready to move, the state is not. I'm glad the NETS are there, but I'm not sure I can model my curriculum solely off of them. Anyone have any advice?

Cedo535 Week Four Social Networks and Podcasts

Finally... A week where I feel like I actually might know what I'm talking about. This week's material was informative and a great review for me. As one who loves to "tinker" on the computer, the minute Louie introduced applications, such as Nings and Social Bookmarks, I was on it immediately. I am in the middle of creating my second Ning for the group that went to Rome. On the last night of our trip, everyone was talking about sharing emails and contacting each other. I couldn't resist and opened my big mouth to say, "Why try to email everyone to stay in touch? How about I create a Ning where we can all go and share pictures and chat and write our thoughts about our experience?" Of course no one had heard of Ning, but they were all immediately in love with the idea. So just the other day I created the Ning and sent the invites out. I would love for any of you to visit and offer suggestions. www.romepilgrims.ning.com. I purposely created an open site for anyone to join. Let me know if you think I should add or change something. As I have mentioned several times, I also created a Ning for my 5th and 6th graders. I'm happy with how it is evolving, but I do have to remind students to go there. They're not in the habit of automatically logging onto the Ning. After inviting a couple of other teachers to take a look, the language arts teacher is now wanting to use the Ning for her class, so now I am trying to "branch out," creating new pages for each class. So I am thrilled with how this Ning thing is catching on. I know had I just showed the teachers what a Ning is, they would have nodded, said, "cool," and never looked at it again. Actually creating one and inviting them has made all the difference. I did the same thing with Delicious. I created accounts for each grade level and then showed the students how to get there. The teachers didn't have to do anything and now the third grade teacher is adding to the class Delicious bookmarks. Yeah! I'm thinking of using the same approach to introduce podcasting. The more I do for them, the more likely they will use the application, and I constantly hear about all the fun and interesting projects that teachers are doing but that only end up in hard copy form. It would be cool to just have a whole gallery online of work and information.