My Final Blog?

I'm questioning that this will be my final blog. I started this class by saying that I didn't like blogging and I just might have changed my mind. I realize that I have read a ton of blogs over the past few weeks and I realize that some of them are pretty darn interesting. Go figure.
This class...wow. I'm still trying to digest what we learned in the first two or three weeks, but everything that we learned in the PAST two or three weeks helped pull some of those things together.
At times, I have thought that we covered too much material and at other times I see that we needed to cover at least that much. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I guess it must have been a dilemma making the choices of just what should have been covered in the class. I wouldn't have wanted to miss anything. I feel like I at least have knowledge of what my choices are and Iassume taht I can narrow it down from there.
I hope, I hope, that I follow through on the ideas that I have gleaned from this class. It could be easy to just fall back on the "old" ways of doing things and I think it would best to move forward!

Presentations

Presentations are not my forte, but I think that teaching students HOW to present is a tremendously important thing to do. I don't want them to be a self-concious as I am about doing them! I can see them being a part of assessments in my class and I would love to be able to support my students in learning how to be a good presentor.
I remember being awed by the first Power Point presentation that I saw and I was even more impressed when students started doing them. They were eye-catching, creative, and fun. A HUGE improvement over the most dull presentation ever invented ...the overhead projector! Now they seem a bit more mundane and boring... kind of like the video "Life after Death by Power Point".
I wish that I had seen some of the presentations that this class did ...I heard that they were great!

Podcasts

I thought that podcasting was a lot of fun. I like using them for my own personal use (listening to them mostly) and I saw some great examples of how teachers have used them in their class rooms ...and used them well. I have to think that they may have had some use as a tool for assessment in my class room, but with videos so easy to create and publish ... I wouldn't use a podcast. A podcast might be a better way to leave an assignment for your students, you could really explain the assignment in detail verbally as oppsed to writing, but I would cringe to hear my own voice! So I think I would use them only as a source of info, use them with a RSS feed, but would move towards Youtube as a better place for my student assessments.

Marvel

With all of the wonderful information out there on the internet, it's sometimes hard to remember that we all can be so fooled by misinformation. Adults as well as kids can be fooled if they are not careful. Following some of the thoughts of others in the class, I think that we should probably teach some internet tools to our students. Maybe a class in the 6th grade (I would assume/believe something sooner, but I'm not sure when) that would teach how to use Marvel, how to recognize reliable sources, how to sort out the information. Marvel should be available as a primary source, somewhere that kids can access it easily. I also think that as teachers become more aware of the "good" and "bad" out there, they can step in and create teaching moments around those resources. The internet isn't going to go away (but what WILL replace it?), so we can all help each other identify reliable content. Plagerism will and always has been a concern, let's continue to make that a part of what we teach.

Wikis

Well, as usual, everyone in this class has come up with tremendous plans and ideas of how they will use wikis in their classrooms! And, as usual, this all really makes me wish that I had chosen to be a classroom teacher so that I could implement everything that we have learned in this class so far. Or maybe I would like to be a student again in a classroom that used wikis? I won't use wikis in my classes, I may change my mind as I have some time to reflect on other people's ideas. I think that they need to be monitored frequently and I don't see that as something that would work well for us. As I have said, I could see them working across our district as a way to brainstorm and communicate amongst the Phys Ed staff.

The Continuing Google Site Adventure

Google Docs, Google Sites....the two areas I want to do the most work in and think will benefit my teaching the most....and I can't seem to be able to do either with any degree of success. They would allow me to teach with no paper and pencils and to allow my students to explore and share more information about any topics that were related to class (or not related to class for that matter). Last week's class time was great to get a good start on Google Sites and I really appreciate the time and help that we were able to receive from Steve and Connie. Maybe I need a remedial Google tutoring class, above and beyond the dozens of website tutorials? I haven't given up yet. I continue to enjoy the RSS feeds the most of any of our previous topics, they are easy and I am the most informed Red Sox/Celtic fan in the universe!

Google Sites

I am so glad that we will have class time tomorrow to get some hep with Google Sites (and I hope Google Docs!). So far, these are the two areas that I have looked forward to learning about and looked forward to using professionally. Yet I am stuck. I can usually figure things out pretty well but I look forward to some guidance Tuesday night. I think that Google Sites is the perfect tool to bring technology into the Phys Ed classroom. We don't have a lot of ways to do that in our small time frame and in such a hands-on environment.

Google Docs

Here I am at the part of this class that I was most looking forward to ... and I am finding myself a bit overwhelmed by all of the information so far. I know that really getting into the work and doing some more hands on stuff will be good, I 'm really looking forward to it, but I'm stuck. I keep trying to remember Rick Romanow's demonstration ...it was great, but I keep reminding myself that he also was overwhelmed at first and look how fantastic he does now! So, I'm going to try to play/work in Google Docs some more and hope that I will figure it out.
I have a lot of hopes to use Google Docs for tests, quizes, and other boring record keeping work. I can also invision introducing new activities with documents that kids could use to read more info, watch videos, and write comments or answer and ask questions. I would also like to do their assessments in Google Docs ...I think that they could produce some better things that me!

Delicous

So ....even though I can't clearly see how Delicious would fit into my teaching right now, I am open to it being a tool that I could use if I do eventually get my students in a classroom setting. I have stated that I don't like the idea of sharing my favorite sites with others, but duh...I could keep my lists separate. I don't have to share everything, what I use with kids can be public and my things can stay private. I'd love to have them search for relevant sites, I'd guess that their searches would be more efficient than mine. I've never done anything like this with a class and I would be very interested in the dynamics of it.

RSS in my classroom

I've had a blast using RSS over vacation, as a matter of fact, I just got distracted for the past 20 minutes or so reading everything. I had to quit when I remembered that I had to do this!
I have streamlined the feeds that I've subscribed to as many of them can overlap. I haven't even checked out all of the places that I know I will find interesting feeds.
I don't see how I will use RSS directly with my students, it's not something that I would have them do in class. What I would do is try to get them to follow something that they were interested in, to stay current on a topic, sport, activity, etc. I hope to find some good fitness sites that are relative to middle school age groups. The ones that I found so far are not very active or exciting. If there aren't a lot of things out there right now, I'll bet that there will be in the near future!

Portaportals

I'm most comfortable doing technology and less comfortable talking about technology. When we started reading about the Portaportals I had one up and going in the next five minutes. I haven't gone back to work on it, but it was fun to think of all of the links I could come up with to include on it.
This is something that I could add to my website (that I haven't touched in a year) so that my students could connect deeper with a topic we covered in class or explore other aspects of fitness or skills that were not covered in class.
It isn't terribly exciting, but it's easy to set up and easy to access.
Did the people who came up with the name not realize how hard it was to say Portaportal without refering to those green and blue buildings? Excuse my immaturity, but everyone had to at least think that...

Blogs Since the beginning of Blogs

Reading through the different examples of bogs, I was impressed with how they seem to have evolved over the bast few years. No longer are they just a singular rant with endless repetitive responses. Now they seem to have more content, more information, more links, more attractive formats, varied ways they are being implemented, and so forth.
It appears that writing on a blog can be both formal and informal, but I think that informal writing is more of what I would be looking for in any application that I might use in my classes. We do very little writing in Phys Ed class and this would be a first experience for writing to be a part of our classes at all! Yet I wouldn't want kids to hesitate to respond or comment if they were worried about their writing to be judged in any way. Maybe that would change over time.
I think that blogging can contribute to greater learning because kids will have an opportunity to hear more ideas from more peers, to contribute more thoughts than they ever would have time to do in a classroom where time and opportunity are limited.
How Does blogging affect the WAY we read and write?