- How effective were your actions in helping you meet your goals?
- What have you learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice?
- What do you still have to learn? What new questions have arisen?
- How will you adjust your plan to fit your current needs?
I did receive an email from the woman at ePals answering my question about the SchoolBlog account I created last year. As I feared, the site has been changed, and although I could have continued to use the site for the remainder of the school year, my Director of Technology, thought the email was "junk mail" and never notified me; I therefore missed the deadline for opting in to the freebie year. With that being said, I was able to explain my dilemma to my tech director who kindly suggested I "experiment" with a blog and wiki site available through our Moodle site. I'll be the "guinea pig."
I've learned a lot about perseverance through this project. When something doesn't go as planned, the best thing to do is reach out to others and ask for advice. Evaluate the advice you received and take a detour. Who knows, maybe using this suggestion will be easier for my fourth graders since it's all on our own network. They already have login names and passwords so we won't have to worry about creating unique usernames and passwords for other public sites.
Since I've taken a detour from my original plan, I have scheduled a meeting with my Director of Technology as well as our Technology Coach for tomorrow morning. Together we will work through this new tool available for classrooms. I am hopeful that my efforts will meet the district expectations so others are able to benefit from using blogs and wikis as well.
New questions: Will the public be able to comment on our blog and wiki posts or only others within the district? If it isn't a public site, am I able to at least invite parents or other administrators who can write back and forth with my students? Is there a way to get students from the high school involved? For example, if we are blogging about rocks and minerals, receiving feedback from a high school student would be very inspiring to a fourth grader.
Since my meeting is scheduled for tomorrow, I'm not certain how I may need to modify/adjust my current plan. I'm hoping that some of the questions I've posted will be answered and that someone will agree to join me in this adventure!
Kristen,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you are taking all the right steps towards the goals you've set in your GAME plan. I really like your idea about trying to get the students from the high school involved. I am at a K-12 school and the high schoolers come visit the younger grades quite often to help with various projects and such. My students love interacting with them, asking them questions, and hearing about what they do in high school. I think that your students would benefit from having high schoolers respond and offer information on their wikis and blogs. I look forward to hearing how your meeting went. Best of luck with everything!
Kristen,
ReplyDeleteIt is great to hear that you are recieving so much support from the technical directors in your school district. It sounds like you have been very proactive in trying to integrate technology into your classroom and others in your school. Since there are so many teachers with a lack of training in technology, it is importnant that we share everything we know and learn. You have developed some interesting questions that will definetly be helpful in finding the answers to. It is great that you were able to connect with another teacher using ePals. Hopefully your Director of Technology will be able to find a way for your students to use blogs and wikis publicly so that they can communicate with other students around the world. I feel your desire to have someone join you in the adventure of integrating technology in your school. Since I am the only person focusing on a degree integrating technology, I seem to be the only one with helpful knowledge to get us started. Now that we all have connected through Walden, we can continue to support each other in the future as well.