Last Blog Post

All right.. what is something that you are doing differently because of something in this class..  Have you used a technology outside of class projects? have you changed how you looked at something? Has your perspective changed at all? 

Let me know what if anything changed and how you can continue anything positive in the future.

How about you all just reply here as a comment..?? whatdaya think?


Dr. CUllen

Professional Development - What's the Point?

So I am making you create a professional development plan when most schools are freezing their pay scales - what value do you see professional development offers you as a teacher? a person? A parent? A Professional?  What can you be your intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to stay current?

What do you think?

I read this posting about a study that came out at the turn of the  year on Internet use? Do you agree with the author? Do you think that children's internet use could be compared to adults?

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2374493,00.asp

find a novel use for a new technology and share with the class

Go online and find a novel use of a new technology for the classroom.  A repurposing of an existing technology. ie.. some teachers use Twitter to send homework assignments to parents every day. What other general use technology might you repurpose for classroom use. 

(suggestion: go to google.com and search for more.. there is a blog search) and search for a name of a technology and the word classroom..  Discuss if you think this is a good idea or come up with an idea of your own.

Ferpa and Classroom Wikis

This recent post in another's blog http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-with-technology-articles/ferpa-and-social-media/ discusses the issues of the Family Educational Rights Protection Act. Which protects students' privacy when it comes to academic records.  Read the article (and perhaps refer to the links on what is FERPA at the bottom) and develop a plan for having students share content in online format like blogs and wikis.

Too much?

We will not do a blog discussion this week because the Cyberbullying discussions were a little overwhelming.. Check back next week.

Snow days

As the weather is looming, I wonder, how could schools be using technology in more meaningful ways to avoid snow days?

Here is an article about one school that is doing this.  http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/technology/school-district-turns-snow-day.html

What kind of skills or training might teachers need? What about the digital divide?