BYOT

This is a video I found from CNN about the idea of BYOT: Bring Your Own Technology.
This is a topic that my superintendant brought up in a meeting about online classes that we are going to be offering at the school next year.  It is an interesting concept.

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Has anyone gotten this to work for them?

Best GROUP COLLABORATION SITE!

Have you been to the website Enter The Group http://www.enterthegroup.com/  yet? 

If you are unfamiliar with this website I recommend you check it out!  I spent an hour today transferring my files and information for my theatre cast that I had spread out between e-mails, websites, Google Calendar and Facebook and created a central space where I can post polls, files, calendars, chat or e-mail members and post assignments.  It is the most comprehensive group tool I have found to date.  Oh, and did I mention it’s all FREE? :) 

Technology to check out - Microsoft Office 365 & Live Meeting - To the Cloud

Windows Live Meeting is part of Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Lync Online software that takes advantage of cloud technology to bring people together from anywhere in the world.  In a Live Meeting presenters can upload just about anything on their computer to share (PowerPoint’s, E-mails, Spreadsheets, Videos, etc).  There are even interactive whiteboards so everyone in the meeting can write their ideas as though they were there live.

 

If there are several people in a conference room participating in the meeting, a tool called Roundtable can be purchased as a single camera/speaker/microphone system that sits in the middle of the table and projects a panoramic view of the conference room for others to see. 

The entire meeting can also be recorded for those who could not make the meeting.  This software seems to cover most everything one would need to host an online meeting or study group.  One downside is your company or school would have to have the software and a cloud setup.  I do not know the cost of the plan for schools, but for a small business it costs $6/month per user. 

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/plans/small-business/im-online-meetings.aspx#fbid=75hMkJNeIp0

Week 3- Teachers and Facebook

This week we are talking about Facebook and where do we draw the line as teachers.  This is a debate that has been going on for a while and continues to cause heated arguments amongst people.

Some think a teacher should be fired for friending a former student who is graduated and over the age of 18.

Some teachers think its okay to friend all of their current students.

Where is the line and how do we know when we have crossed it?  Should it just be up to administrators or the school board of that particular community to decide?  Our assignment this week was to read an  Article about a teacher who was suspended after making a Facebook comment about her school.


After doing discussion posts this week, I found a great article that I have shared below that pretty much sums up how I feel about the subject. An article every educator and administrator should read

I personally believe that with Facebook, as with everything else that we do, that we just need to use some common sense and be professional about it.  I personally am not friends with students current or former on Facebook, but I still am able to utilize Facebook by communicating with students through theatre groups we have set up.  On the group page I can post links, schedules and answer student questions in a much more efficient manner than calling every student, sending passes for them or waiting until our next club meeting.  At the same time, they cannot see my profile and personal info and I cannot see theirs.

Week 2 of EDU 651 - Wiki's, blogs and twitter

So this week we learned about wiki's, blogs and twitter.  Although nowadays wiki and twitter are staples in our everyday speech I really did not know much about them until this week.  Up until now I had been content with my blog that consisted of only photos and my Facebook profile for keeping in touch with my friends.

Wiki's
Did you know that wiki is actually short for the Hawiian wiki wiki which means easy? (Richardson  55).
It turns out anyone can create a wiki about anything - like a blog.  The difference is anyone can read and write and edit a wiki. How great for class collaboration?

Twitter
I still have not quite gotten the hang of Twitter yet... It is less likely that I will use it in my class as opposed to blogs and wikis.  I think my first tweet actually was posted multiple times because I could not tell how to see if it went through or not.  I think I will need to ask some of my students to show me how they use it.  Sometimes our students or people who have grown up with more technology can come up with ideas to use it that would have never crossed my mind.



Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press. ISBN: 9781412977470

Here we go...

I have never been one for journaling or blogging... my diary has 3 year gaps between entries...sad, I know.

But the time has come to document what I know, what I am learning and ways I can use it.  I am currently getting my Masters of Arts in Teaching and Learning with Technology (I have posted a link to the program below for anyone who is interested) and there is so much information that I cannot possibly keep track of it all.  So my hope is that this blog will help me document my resources, findings and "ah ha" moments and hopefully those of you reading will gain some knowledge from my adventures.  So, here we go...

Teaching & Learning with Technology Masters Program