Technology Action Plan

As we all know, as teachers, our everyday lives and our professional lives are often entangled.   (Just look at how we are spending our summer taking this class.)  Such is the case this summer with me.  My everyday life involves working on next year’s school schedule.  While this dampers vacation plans some, it does offer me a good opportunity to begin using some of the web 2.0 tools in a professional manner, thus giving me a jump on implementing my action plan.

First, I plan to do more electronically, saving paper.  Google docs is the perfect tool for this.  Instead of printing documents for distribution, I am going to save them in Google docs and share them with the appropriate people.  I have also recommended to the principal that we use Google docs to share the schedule with the staff instead of printing it.  The fact that, if appropriate, we can collaborate on the document after sharing it, makes this tool even better.   My plan is to work with my team of teachers to create and share documents where we can manage students academically and behaviorally.  While I have been on teams that have discussed this in the past, I did not know how to make it happen.  With my new skills, this is one of my high priorities.  Additionally, as one of my summer assignments is to begin the distribution of lockers, I have already started this practice.  Instead of emailing out the list, requiring the teacher to complete it and email it back so that I can share the information with the administration and security, I am in the process of creating the lists in Google docs.  I intend on sharing these with the teacher, the administrators, and security.  This will simplify the process and ensure everything is completed in a timely fashion. 

Next, with all of the practice that we have had this summer with our blogs, I plan to start a blog for my classroom.  I feel that it will offer me the best way to post important information for both the students and the parents.  I believe that I will be able to post homework assignments, at least weekly if not daily.  I have found that posting is very quick.  If I make it a habit to post the information during my planning time each day, it should take less than 5 minutes and will be very accurate.  This will allow parents to know what was assigned and take away the excuses.  It would also allow students who were absent to stay on topic of the material and not fall behind.  Through a blog, I believe that it will improve my communication with parents.  There is so much useful information that I would love to communicate with parents, but I just do not have the time or resources to contact each parent separately.  This will help to solve that problem.

Moreover, as we learned about wikis, I thought that was the cure; however, I am no longer convinced.  I like the idea of collaboration and will spend this year practicing with wikis and asking more questions of our test coordinator/orchestra director, who is an expert at wikis.  I would like to incorporate wikis into at least one project or activity this year.   While I just have not figured out how that will work, I am hopeful to find a way to utilize wikis for my year-end project.  This project requires students to work together to present one of the MSA standards.  This past year I moved into the digital world by including PowerPoints for the first time.  My plan for this year is to find a way to incorporate wikis use into this project.

Finally, I think diigo may be one of my big saviors this year.  I know that in the past I have spent hours searching for just that perfect idea to use in my classroom.  This involved scanning many websites that were either not the right information, not appropriate, or, worse yet, not even related to my search.  By joining groups on diigo, I am able to see the websites that others have already accessed, possibly used, and liked enough to bookmark.  I can also see their comments, which may assist in lesson presentation.  Therefore, my plan is to join diigo groups this school year that are related to my content.  This may involve middle school math, algebra, pre-algebra, or other appropriate topics.

In essence, my plan for this year may not be very specific, but I believe that it is very ambitious.  I will begin by using Google docs to share information with my colleagues.  I will also start a classroom blog to post important classroom information, work to incorporate wikis into at least one project this year, and join diigo groups related to my curriculum. 

Social Bookmarking

As teachers, we say that we do not want to reinvent the wheel, but as teachers in individual classrooms, we often do.  We are often left to our own devices to develop the best ideas to educate our students.  However, through social bookmarking, we do not have to be on our own any longer.  Each of us has experienced the long Internet searches to find just the right information or ideas.  Now, as part of a group, we can see what information other people with similar interests have found and saved.  This can greatly reduce the amount of time we spend sorting through all of the irrelevant information available on the Internet and give us more time to tend to all of the other pressing tasks of our day.

Additionally, social bookmarking will improve our personal learning network by providing us with resources, when we need them, to answer the questions that we have.  Often questions occur when there is no one around to help.  Now, through the use of groups on social networks, we can find the answers when the questions arise, which is when we are actually ready to learn the ideas (not necessarily when someone is ready to present the information).

While these reasons will personally help me as an educator and other educators, social bookmarking can also be beneficial to students.  Just as I have questions when there is nobody available to answer them, students do too.  If I create a group for my students that provides links to websites that will assist them with completing homework, students would be able to access the information when they need it, instead of just when I choose to present it, thus increasing learning!  I would like to create groups for my students that will lead them to information regarding both the current lessons and the grade-level MSA topics.  Since we are expecting the students to master both and class time is limited, I think that social bookmarking can be used in conjunction with other Internet technology to assist the students.

Join me on Diigo--leichliter

RSS Feeds

I have never used Google Reader before.  I have absolutely no experience finding subscriptions or anything else related to the reader.  However, after I went through ten minutes asking the computer what any of this was about and receiving odd looks from my roommate as she walked by while I talked to the computer, I was able to figure out how the reader worked.  Once I began to find things to follow and add subscriptions to my site, I noticed that this is something I could really begin to like.  I recognized that, not only was I now accessing new items as they were posted, this was the type of reading that I enjoy.  I have always enjoyed reading short articles and stories as opposed to longer books.  I have a short attention span!  The reader allowed me to subscribe to various feeds that pertain to my interests.  It is like creating my own magazine that includes only articles of interest to me.  So far, I have added 4 subscriptions:

• A Teacher's Education
• Joanne Jacobs
• Class Struggle
• Organized Chaos

Even though my current "magazine" is small, I can see the possibility for growth over time.  Many of these subscriptions can lead me to new sites that are interesting to me.  I found all of my subscriptions by linking from other sites. 

I can envision using this reader to learn about new topics in the future.  I can add subscriptions and find new subscriptions as links on others.  The portability of the reader is just one more positive feature.  I can access my personal "magazine" at home, work, or on the go.

Websites in the Classroom

As I researched the various websites provided to us in class, a few of them stood out as ones that I would find beneficial to use in my classroom.  One of the sites, Curriki (http://www.curriki.org/) offers users a variety of resources that have already been created.  There are PowerPoints, videos, lessons, and activities that represent a variety of grade levels and contents.  The website can be searched by grade level, content, or both.  Additionally, the user can search by key terms.  I began simply by typing Algebra in the search box.  This quickly resulted in a number of topics that are covered in videos.

As a teacher, one of my biggest challenges has always been to not let absent students fall behind in the curriculum.  I think that this website could be one way for me to keep these students caught up with the material.  It is also a good way for students who need a little extra assistance with a topic.  The students can view the videos or PowerPoints on their own.  They can work through the exercises.  Additionally, I like the fact that there are a number of available resources on this site.  Usually, I find that as I am more specific towards middle school mathematics in a search, there are few activities included that are applicable.  This site is different.  I decided to search for games geared towards mathematics in grades 6-8 and found 159 choices available.  Now, while I am sure that not every game is perfect, I am likely to find something that will work for the topic I wish to review with students.

Another website that I enjoyed was ClassTools.net (http://www.classtools.net/).  It is set up to allow teachers to design their own quizzes, games, or activities.  There is a free version that allows you to design activities or access samples; however, one downfall of this site is there is a subscription fee if you want to access the Premium services.  While I have not mastered everything on the website, I am tempted to purchase the Premium service as one of my first attempts at integrating Internet based technology into my classroom.  I want to be able to create activities that I can save and access at any time.  The Random Name Picker is a quick way to randomly call on students with a fun twist.  The Countdown Timer offers a visual way for students to see how much time is left.  Moreover, Twister offers a unique project for students to research famous mathematicians and display the information in cute posters.  While I still have room to practice and master the creation of the activities, I do believe that this website would offer me a way to include fun in the review process, especially as we prepare for the standardized testing continuously throughout the year.  If I can motivate the students to want to learn, they will achieve more.  This website will offer motivation.