My family and I went to Battleview Orchard in Central New Jersey this past weekend. It was a lovely sunny day. Fall is my favorite season of all. Time to make and bake apple and pumpkin pies. Yummy.
This reminds me of an ongoing project that I introduced to the elementary teachers a few weeks ago. The Pumpkin Project is an online collaborative project that is authored and moderated by Jennifer Wagner. The project is simple yet fun for the kids to do. Best of all, we will be integrating technology with this particular project for the first time in the elementary level.
Some of the teachers are already registered in this project as of October 6th. I am going to sit down with them and help them create a free educator account in VoiceThread and hopefully go through the tutorial so that they will become familiar with this tool prior to having their students record comments for this project.
They are so excited and so am I. I love online collaborative projects. Too bad we missed the O.R.E.O. Tumble project that ended last week. It was at the start of the school year and as many of you know, that is one period in the school year when you wish it is June already.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
Road to great essays
Our computer teacher was away on a trip so I was the substitute for today. The school purchased a web-based essay writing and scoring software called Writing Roadmap from CBT/McGraw-Hill. It was the 7th graders' first time to be introduced to this software today and I showed them the demo.
The interface is a bit easier for the upper grades to navigate but I have seen the lower grades having quite a difficulty on it. With much practice prior to the actual testing date before the Christmas break, I am hopeful that all students from all grade level will get used to the navigation tabs and prompts so that they would focus more in answering the essay and getting higher marks for it.
Essay topics vary from "My favorite thing" to "Definition of Success" and depending on grade level. The teacher may create his/her own essay topics as well and assign them to the students. If the student does not finish the essay (during practice sessions) during class time, the student may finish the essay at home since everything is web-based. The software provides through a graphical representation a holistic and analytical information once the student sends his/her essay for SCORING.
I am certain that this would help improve the students writing skills not just for the purpose of the actual testing date but writing skills in general. Truly this is an innovative way to help students enhance their writing skills.
The interface is a bit easier for the upper grades to navigate but I have seen the lower grades having quite a difficulty on it. With much practice prior to the actual testing date before the Christmas break, I am hopeful that all students from all grade level will get used to the navigation tabs and prompts so that they would focus more in answering the essay and getting higher marks for it.
Essay topics vary from "My favorite thing" to "Definition of Success" and depending on grade level. The teacher may create his/her own essay topics as well and assign them to the students. If the student does not finish the essay (during practice sessions) during class time, the student may finish the essay at home since everything is web-based. The software provides through a graphical representation a holistic and analytical information once the student sends his/her essay for SCORING.
I am certain that this would help improve the students writing skills not just for the purpose of the actual testing date but writing skills in general. Truly this is an innovative way to help students enhance their writing skills.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Welcome!
Let's get started.
So I am a technology teacher to teachers. The month of September flew by so fast as many would say but in my experience, it was much faster. The month of September was also a crucial month for me being the new technology coordinator of the school. Crucial because I did not want to be someone telling the teachers to use this or that technology and replacing the way they have been accustomed to. I wanted them to feel comfortable with using technology in their classrooms. Most of all, I wanted the teachers to feel comfortable in asking me for tech help.
Of course there were quite a few resistance and others insisting in the old ways. Luckily for me, the school's principal is pro-technology.
Integrating technology in the classroom takes a lot of research. Thanks to a few IT workshop presenters who I kept in contact with, I was able to find great resources to introduce to the teachers. One of whom is Judi Wolf.
I never worked with an Interactive White Board (from Numonics) but being a QA software engineer in my past life, it was a breeze to take the tutorial. I actually had so much fun playing with it and giving the middle-school teachers one-on-one tutorial to use in the 6th, 7th and 8th classrooms. Yes, each middle school classroom is equipped with an IWB. Those are great "bling-bling" (hardware) and make classroom discussions LIVELY.
The elementary teachers just finished 2 of 3 workshops yesterday. After that, they will have another workshop in a couple of weeks or so to refresh their knowledge of SmartBoards! It just keeps getting busier and exciting!
So I am a technology teacher to teachers. The month of September flew by so fast as many would say but in my experience, it was much faster. The month of September was also a crucial month for me being the new technology coordinator of the school. Crucial because I did not want to be someone telling the teachers to use this or that technology and replacing the way they have been accustomed to. I wanted them to feel comfortable with using technology in their classrooms. Most of all, I wanted the teachers to feel comfortable in asking me for tech help.
Of course there were quite a few resistance and others insisting in the old ways. Luckily for me, the school's principal is pro-technology.
Integrating technology in the classroom takes a lot of research. Thanks to a few IT workshop presenters who I kept in contact with, I was able to find great resources to introduce to the teachers. One of whom is Judi Wolf.
I never worked with an Interactive White Board (from Numonics) but being a QA software engineer in my past life, it was a breeze to take the tutorial. I actually had so much fun playing with it and giving the middle-school teachers one-on-one tutorial to use in the 6th, 7th and 8th classrooms. Yes, each middle school classroom is equipped with an IWB. Those are great "bling-bling" (hardware) and make classroom discussions LIVELY.
The elementary teachers just finished 2 of 3 workshops yesterday. After that, they will have another workshop in a couple of weeks or so to refresh their knowledge of SmartBoards! It just keeps getting busier and exciting!
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