Final thoughts

As the week wraps up and I'm getting ready to fill out my survey for this course, I thought back to early June when we started.  Some of these 'new' items were somewhat overwhelming, but fun to play around with.  I got some great new ideas, not only from Eric, but from everyone else in the class.  So many of you had great ideas and are much better at expressing them and planning out how to use them with your classes.  Thank you all and it's been great working alongside you.  Good luck with your classes this year.

Final project ideas

It has been a good summer in this class.  Entering into the first week, I thought that I was fairly technology-literate.  I quickly found out that there is much I do not know.  Over the last seven weeks I have really liked some of the things we have done... and of course there were a few things that I did not enjoy.

I will continue to work on my computer proficiency and adding new tools into my repertoire.  I want to keep up with my students and how they are using technology.  The more interesting ways that I can present material, the more likely they are to stay engaged and participate.

These are three things that I would like to incorporate next year:

1 - I will construct a wiki for my classes.  In each class I will add a tab for each unit that we are cover.  I will begin by posting an initial question/issue/focus to get the students thinking.  From there, I will ask every student to add a comment, an answer, or additional questions.  My hope here is that they will take ownership in what they contribute and in how much they are learning from each other.  Also, if things go as expected, I should only have to monitor it and they will be learning on their own time.

2 - I would like every student to create a blog and add to it at least once every week.  In this blog, I would like them to post questions, concerns, thoughts, links, videos, and reflection on assignments and projects.  There are many students that should excel at this because of the amount of time they spend with technology.  I think that it will eliminate the use of only a textbook to obtain information, and it will get them interested in looking at their classmates' blogs.  

3 - I do many projects in my classes.  Instead of the standard PowerPoint that students like to do, I am going to introduce them to screencasting and voicethreads.  I am going to ask my classes to use a different presentation tool and make it more exciting for their peers.  My hopes here are that the presentations they do for me are better, and they will become more aware of webtools, which will help them in their academic endeavors.

Voicethread site and expanded PLN

I enjoyed using this site.  It was fairly easy to navigate and I really liked that you can search and see others' presentations.  This is a site I will share with my colleagues, and even my students if they need extra help/information.  I would like to fine tune my skills and include more pictures on the next one that I do.  Also, because my kids are sleeping at the moment, I will work on being a little more exciting in the next presentation.

I am going to continue looking over classroom 2.0 this week to see if I can get new lab ideas for my classes this year.  If any of you teach biology and have fun labs, let me know.  Next on my agenda is working on my final project and how I can incorporate different items from this class.  If you have any exciting input on the project, feel free to share.  

Thanks!

PLN and other thoughts about what I've learned

I continue to enjoy finding all of these new, cool sites to use.  I still feel like I'm a new teacher, even though it's been over 6 years now.  Maybe it's because I haven't settled in and used the same material over and over.  Each year I try to incorporate something new - both for my students and for me!

Knowing about classroom 2.0 and how to use professional development, slideshare, and google reader will make me a more effective educator... I hope.  I'm ready for the school year to begin (sad to say that) so that I can get back to working with my colleagues.  

Over the past week, even though I struggled a little bit getting it going, I really liked screencasting and I hope to use it in the future.  I do use powerpoint presentations often, and I thought that video we watched was funny!  I know I'm not that guy because I've gone to a seminar before about the more effective ways (or less effective) to use powerpoint.  My students get questions within, pictures, videos, and fewer words on each slide... so I think I'm already doing that fine.

Attempt at a 'good' presentation

This is a brief introduction to mitosis. I kept the information to a minimum and I used pictures to help the students identify each stage.  

At the end of the presentation, I included two videos for the students to watch. The first is an animation that has good information and 

the second video is a funny representation of what happens during mitosis.

Enjoy!

Practice Screencast

Mitosis screencast - click this link

I was having some difficulty getting this going.  But, figured it out enough to get this completed.  I would rehearse more and include more info. if this were a presentation I gave to my kids.  I did not go over every step that happens at each phase of mitosis, and I left out some important stuff.

It is slow and I'm not sure why??

You get the idea though...