Wednesday

My brain feels like it is experiencing a cave-in, so I know you are too. Three days of awesome discussion and sharing have led us to myriad engaging experiences and "ah-ha" moments. With so much to digest in such a short time, you may be feeling overwhelmed. Remember to take it one step at a time. Avoid the urge to try all these new things at once. KISS...Keep it super simple.

Tonight's Homework

* Read chapters 6 and 10 of our text.
* Select one chapter to summarize on your blog.
* Read your classmates' summaries and comment
* Work on your mini-lesson and independent hours 

** Make sure you have a google name and password for tomorrow's class

Tuesday

Wow! Today was such an exciting and packed day! I enjoyed seeing the enthusiasm and excitement as you explored blogs and Twitter. You had some great ideas for using these tools in your classrooms. Although we didn't get time to create any rubrics or scoring guidelines, we were able to discuss relating the assessment to the educational goal related to the tool's use.

Tonight you have a few assignments:
1. Complete your blog creation, write your first post, and upload to our class wiki.

2. Read your classmates' blogs and comment on each.

3. Create a new wiki for our class at wikispaces.com

4. Read Chapter 8 of the course text, post a short summary here along with your thoughts .

Web 2.0 how-to for educators

Gwen Solomon and Lynne Schrum wrote this book to explain how to use current educational tools and discuss possible future trends. Chapters 1  (Blogs) and 2 (Microblogs-Twitter) discuss the what, when, where, how, why and who of blogging and microblogging. Summarize the chapters' main points and reflect on how these tools have impacted your classroom in the past, and how they might impact your classroom in the future.

Welcome

This blog will serve as a course repository for our thoughts and discussions on integrating technology into the elementary and middle school Language Arts classrooms. Sometimes our posts will be philosophical, sometimes they will be instructional. Hopefully they will be thought-provoking as we all navigate these new waters in education.