Technology Medley

Happy New Year! Like most folks, I am thinking about setting new goals for the coming year, or at least for the remainder of this school year. First and foremost, I plan to post articles here more regularly. The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas was filled with exciting things happening in classrooms at both schools, and I just didn’t have any extra time! However, I promise to do better. So, here are a few goals I have set for myself:

1. Post an article here at least once each week, hopefully even more often.
2. Create a database of activities that will assist classroom teachers in planning lessons using the laptops and the computer lab with the software that we have available in both schools.
3. Strive to ensure that every student has the opportunity to use the laptops in their classroom at least once before the end of the school year. (This includes kindergarten!)

So, what are your goals for using technology in 2008? I’ll list a few suggestions to help you get started:

1. Bring the laptop cart into your classroom. Invite me in to assist you and the students the first time or two, until you are comfortable with them. You will be amazed at how quickly the students learn to use the touchpad!
2. Learn to use a piece of software in the computer lab that you haven’t used before, such as TimeLiner, Scholastic Keys, or Kidspiration. I have handouts for most the the programs we own, and I’ll be happy to send one your way.
3. Have your students create something of their very own on the computers and save their projects to the K drive. That way, we can plan a way to combine and share their projects on the school web site.
4. Be adventurous! Begin your own blog, or set up student blogs using ClassBlogmeister.
5. Take lots of digital pictures. Upload them to a photo sharing site, and send the site address to folks with whom you would like to share the pictures. You can also share your pictures through a class website or blog.
6. Have students write their own newscasts and record them to use as podcasts.

I hope you see something here that is of interest to you! Please let me know how I can help you use technology as we work together to prepare the children for their future.