Needless to say, I’m humbled, impressed and anxious to redo my plans! A simple poem we have been writing in third grade to publish as an mp3 will now be a slideshow presentation with narration. A drawing activity will now become a writing challenge between classes.

One of the tech teachers has created a wikispace just for links and lesson plans and others’ ideas so that we can all benefit! I love the sharing that’s going on. It can only make for better lessons for the students. Someone else can take an idea, enhance it, share it, and I can read it and use it without having met the person.

I have finally been able to submit to iTunes. I did it twice since I didn’t name the podcast correctly the first time. I ended up using podomatic instead of feedburner to submit. I have accounts in several places now, but I think I’ll delete feedburner and archive.org. It was much easier to use podomatic. The podcast is listed on the right side of this screen in two different formats. I’ll eventually eliminate one. I’m excited that I finally got this far! I’m looking forward to creating more. Once one has been accepted, I think it’ll be easier to do the next ones. Itunes hasn’t reviewed it yet, but I’m hoping it’ll be published there soon so parents can subscribe.

I have enjoyed looking through a lot of blogs, but I subscribed mainly to some tried and true ones I already knew about. I like Kathy Schrock’s things on Discovery. I’ve enjoyed watching her tweets (and Leslie Fisher’s) about their new iPhones. They keep me in stitches–talk about kids in a candy store!

There was one for 1st & 2nd Grade that I’m going to watch carefully in the upcoming year. I didn’t find too many elementary blogs, but this one looked like it would have some info I could use.

Cool Cat Teacher’s site has piqued my interest since joining wikispaces. She does a Flat Classroom Project that was highlighted. Well, many years ago, when I first graduated college, I was a kindergarten aide in Westwood Schools, Camilla, GA. I was only there a year before I joined the faculty at the public school there. So I’ve been interested in following things at that school.

Due to AETC, NECC and this online class, I have subscribed to so much lately, I am not sure what is what. I will say that del.icio.us is probably my very favorite thing. I had Ikeepbookmarks.com, and have just added it to delicous. Del.icio.us is SO much easier. I love the tagging. Then, I read about diigo, and wonder if I should try it. I’ve decided to let it go for a while. It’s kind of like buying a computer…the minute you do, there’s something better out there. Oh well!

The beauty to me of all this, is the fact that after our class is over, we will be able to go back and tweak all that we’ve gleaned to suit our needs. Yes, it’s overwhelming at the moment, but as we settle into the school year and working with the kids once again, we will find which things work best for us. Thank goodness we don’t have to be proficient in 6 weeks!!! I’ve always thought I was pretty tech savvy, but mastering edublogs & rss, etc. has shown me that I don’t need to be too smug! (I am still one of the tech queens at my school, but that could change any day too!) We will always have learning opportunities. I try to tell that to my students–that we never stop learning just because we graduate!

That’s it from the lab for now!

I am having some difficulty with edublogs in getting things to look just the way I want them quickly. I actually created this in April 2008 for use with my classroom, but preferred the wiki instead. I had a ton of files to upload and couldn’t figure edublogs out quick enough to get it done. It’s something I will definitely play with this year.

I really want to allow my students to post this year. I’m currently looking at gaggle.net & ePals for school accounts. I will need to upload around 500-600 names when I do this, and am looking for an easy way to do it. Most likely, I’ll create a document with Word or Excel using STI to do it. I’m also looking at permission documents at other schools to send to parents to get permission to do all I want to this year. Our county policy only lists internet use and email use–I want student work, pictures and voices added to my policy (no last names with anything.) When I uploaded all the files for the wiki last year, I had to go through each one to make sure they never said their last names or used them in their file names. It was really time consuming, but a necessary thing because not everyone followed the directions. Imagine that!

I would love to use blogging as a Q & A tool to begin with in order to get the students to write. I would start with a question such as “What was your favorite thing you did this summer?” or “What would you like to learn in computer class this year?” and see the responses. I guess it would be like a journal activity. Eventually, with the 3rd grade book project, I’d like to post a book slideshow, and have the students write positive feedback about it. (Just for their classmates.) As I learn more about edublogs, I figure I’ll learn how to best incorporate files. I’m looking forward to the correspondence with students.

I have a draft copy of the new COS for technology, and this is what it’s all about–digital tools, collaboration, etc. I’ve really got to get with the program!!!

In the coming weeks, I plan to show off some of our students’ projects we’re working on in my lab. I’m really working on this for the next school year. I want to do a project every nine weeks to show parents.

Bear with me as I learn new technology!