Can't believe it has been so long since I have blogged and that we are already 4 weeks into our school year. (only 5 weeks until vacation : ) ). I have decided to rename my blog. I am still most definitely "hooked on technology," but that is just part of my quest to never stop learning (I know that sounded like an NBC commercial). I explained to my nieces and nephew over the summer that teachers have to keep taking classes and learn new things if they want to keep teaching. They were fascinated by that.
I have been immersed in lots of technology since I have been back at work. I won the SmartBoard at the DPS Technology Fair in March (that was a great day).It is the only one if my building so I am sort of a pilot class for Pearsontown and my students are my guinea pigs. I spent a lot of time during my short summer break taking advantage of every online training I could find (The SmartBoard website has done an really great job with that)and practicing different things I learned. There is even an iPad app for SmartBoard training that is quite useful too. I love the Smart Exchange part of the Smartboard website. There are thousands of SmartBoard lessons of all kinds of topics that are ready to use. I have also learned how to generate my own interactive lessons and am having fun trying out my skills on my students. We have a lot of fun using regular old websites on the SmartBoard too.
I am planning to link my iPad to it as well so that if I have an overly active student he or she can sit at the table and still interact with the SmartBoard. I think a simple software download on my computer will do the trick.
I am also loving my iPad for use with my students. I loaded it up with over 90 apps for kids (many are ideas I got from the list of apps DPS put on the iPads that are being used at WG Pearson and other schools) and take it everywhere I go in the building. I am a resource teacher and serve quite a few of my students in their regular classrooms. I bring the iPad with me and let them do an activity on it when they are done with center work or just have some downtime. I bring along a set of headphones too so we don't create a distraction if we want to have the sound on.
In both my classroom and others I have used it to look up images of things my students are not familiar with (such as corrals and rakes). I love doing that this way because I can pull up the image holding the iPad so only I can see it and then when I am sure I have the image I want, turn the iPad around and show the student the picture(s). I have been able to use one of the apps I have (Montessori Crosswords) for giving practice spelling tests to my students.(The app has a really neat moveable alphabet that we use for that.)
Now on to Google Apps. My department at school has been using a shared calendar via Microsoft Outlook for several years. We have loved it for scheduling meetings etc. I have been thinking though that it is time to upgrade it to a shared Google Calendar. I started playing around with the idea the other day and discovered that DPS was actually ahead of me on this one. My school is a Google Apps pilot school this year. I knew that but didn't realize things are already up and running. In my playing around the other day I discovered I already had a DPS Google account-wow!
I checked with my Tech person at school and got the full scoop. I haven't quite figured out the calendar accessibility yet but have been checking my email on my new account and of course checking out the other apps. I am becoming quite fond of Creately. I got a little distracted by the interactive Christmas cards I found on it but I am finding lots of neat templates to try out at school.
I have also been collaborating with another tech challenge participant on a Google Doc over the last several weeks. It is a pretty neat thing to be able to do and I have found lots of neat resources in the process and of course gotten lots of ideas from her too.
Coming next time: Stumbling upon "Stumble Upon."
