Amy Fett's Blog

It was interesting to read the articles describing comments and what is and is not appropriate as a comment.  I know so many people (myself included) get very casual with comments left on personal blogs or websites such as facebook. 

I have taken 2 online courses through Grand Valley.  One course had everything done on Blackboard, the other was a Ning our prof created for that class.  It was very difficult for me to get used to leaving comments for everyone to read and I often think about every word that I am writing to make sure it all makes sense and says what I want it to say without saying too much.  A major part of being a part of an online community is the comments and discussion that takes place as a result of a posting or other comments.  It is important to leave comments for others in the community as well as keep up on reading the comments because there is a lot that can be learned from others.

I already  had a Google account set up, but honestly it has been so long since I have used it I had to reset my password because I forgot it.  I really like the idea of the Google docs and the first thing I thought I could use this on is the recipe books that I am working on with my third grade students.  I thought this would be perfect because I could have them work on these at home using Google docs.   Reality set in though when I realized that they needed to have an email address so this would not work.  Bummer.  I am going to try to use this more though because I find myself emailing documents between places and this would make life so much easier.

We have a summer cottage that we share with several families and using something like a Google doc (or a wiki) we could communiticate better about who is going to be there what weeks during the summer and what needs to be bought before the next person visits.  We have been looking for something like this, now we just need summer to get here so we can try this out.

As far as Google Maps go, my first thought was what makes this different than Google Earth.  Google Earth is more set by pictures that people take.  I have looked up my street before on Google maps and it is pretty interesting that there are no houses on our street.  Our houses are around 10 years old.  Once I went to the street view though all the houses were there.  It also included the car parked in my neighbors driveway.  It almost seems like it is giving too much information, but I will have to play with it  more to see what else it is capable of.

I have thought about using Google Earth and now I can use Google map as well when I work on  community.  It was very interesting to me to see how big Wolf Lake really is when I looked at it on the map.  The school is right around the corner from it yet I have really not even been by it.  I think the students would have fun looking at pictures of the school community.

 Since my husband always takes all of our pictures every family picture is posed.  I wanted to have a candid shot so we had some fun one day while raking leaves.

 Brian couldn’t resist these pictures of the girls!  You just have  to love the beautiful fall weather we have had this year.

 This week has been crazy at our house with both girls getting pink eye.  Thankfully Brian has been able to do some work at home.  He left his computer for a minute and came back to find Molly ‘working’  at his computer.  Of course the camera was ready for another picture!

I am always looking for new educational websites to use in the lab.  I have one that I have used as a resource since I started in the lab.  She changes her website every month to match the themes or holidays within the month.  The website is www.computerlabkids.com .  Mrs. Cannon is the teacher behind the website and I have emailed her with questions I have had and she is very quick with her responses.  Even if you are not a computer teacher she has tons of resources on this website.  Check it out!

http://www.classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=51141 and http://kdgroom102.blogspot.com/ were the two blogs that I really liked.  I am sure this is due to the fact that I am a lower elementary teacher and these are both kindergarten blogs. 

Both of these blogs were fun and interesting to read.  I like the fact that the KinderKids Blog had a separate page for each of the students to post their individual work in addition to the  main page that had classroom news and events going on.  One thing I noticed with both blogs is they were fairly random with their postings, they were not set to post one time a week, instead making a post when they had something happen they wanted to share. 

I was impressed with the amount of time that seems to be put into each of these blogs.  Both included pictures, videos and student work.  I would think at this level most of the work would have to be done by the teacher and that is the impression I got after looking at them. 

I love how the Kindergarten Tales blog had a link to odiogo.com so students in the Kindergarten class could independently listen to the different postings about their class.

After reading this article I am still left to wonder about Blogs in an educational setting.   I have heard from others that when I get into other ‘things’ in this course I will have a different perspective on blogging in school.  I have a personal blog for things that happen in my family, but wonder how many different places  teachers need to post happenings in the classroom.  Teachers in our building are encouraged to update their website as well as send newsletters home for parents.  Would a blog be another place for parents to have to look at to find information? 

Our principal does post questions on occasion on a blog for teachers to respond to.  It is nice to be able to make a comment and read other comments about the topic.  It allows all teachers to express their thoughts, even those that do not typically talk in a meeting with the staff.

In one of my grad classes I was talking with a 2nd grade teacher who has used a blog in her class for a year and the students love it.  She will either post a question and the students will individually respond to it and/or she will have student ‘reporters’ who will write a couple paragraphs at the end of the week about what they did at school.  The students love it and the parents love to read and make comments about the posts.

I wish I could have a more positive opinion about blogs in an educational setting and hopefully my opinion will soon change.  Last year I tried to use Gaggle email with a third grade class and it was like pulling teeth to get them to write more than one sentence, and that was writing an email to their friends!  If I did start a blog I would like it to be something that is student centered, but my time each week with the students is limited and I don’t know where to find the time to include blogging.

While watching this video clip I was thinking how much fun it would be to use technology in my classroom in these ways.  I teach computers at the Lower Elementary so I am using computers everyday.  I find that I use Microsoft Office for most of what I do and after watching this I wonder what I can do to expand on what I am currently doing.  In the younger grades the students do not have the cell phones (but what a fun assignment to text someone in a different country!) and I often think that podcasting would be fun, but more difficult to do with the technology I have available. 

A goal for myself as I go through these ‘things’  is to really look at what I do and try to apply each to my lessons in the lab.  My students need to know basics about the computer, but there is so much out there that I also need to implement with new technology as well.