Remember that for your final PTP projects, you need to 1) SHOW us what you learned in a way that we can see it, 2) REFLECT on the tool on your blog, and 3) discuss IDEAS for how you would use the tool in your teaching, at a level specific enough to attach to educational standards, or at least specific activities and assignments so we can see clearly what you would do.
Website: https://sites.google.com/site/promotingliteracy/
Video Pitch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fVN3QOeARM
***Song citation: Artist: Arthur and Yu; Title: "There Are Too Many Birds"***
SHOW: The easiest way for me to show you my final project is to watch this voicethread. (it is quite a handy little program isn't it?) My microphone isn't the best, so I apologize that my comments are solely text instead of video or voice. Here is the link: http://voicethread.com/share/1945088/ It will take you through my project and show you the different technologies I incorporated into my website. Or you could watch the video pitch on youtube (the link is above) which is another quick run-around of my project.
REFLECT: In preparing for the IIC competition, I really didn't know what I was getting myself into. Even though it was a lot of work, I feel that I really learned from it. It was really interesting to see how other teams approached their problems as well. It made me realize that there is "more than one way to skin a cat" and that using technology to solve problems in the classroom is one of many ways. I don't think there will ever be a one-size fits all type of technology, so I was eager to see how different technologies would work together. Diigo was a great program to research with and Google sites and Google groups were so user friendly. Especially with the rate of access to technology growing within schools, it makes it necessary for teachers to be familiar with new technologies. I had a professor once who remarked that he was a digital immigrant, that he was still having to learn the ways of new technology, but that we, his students, are digital natives. I really liked his metaphor because it made the connection really apparent in my mind. Even though my generation is considered "digital natives", the students that we will eventually teach will be even more familiar and advanced with technology that we are! That is both scary and exciting.
It's exciting because of all the new opportunities for learning and growth through this new technology, but it is also scary because of all the bad things that come with it as well. I read somewhere once that ethics are slower to adapt than technology is. So for example, even though people have the technology to eradicate entire cities, the ethics or the moral foundation adept enough to handle such a question hasn't adapted yet to the times. So while we can send videos and pictures all over the world, does that mean it's OK to produce pornography? Of course not. Just because we can, doesn't mean we should. This is something that we as teachers are going to face. Technology is ever changing, and we will have to try to stay on top of it, but even more importantly, we have to equip our students with the critical thinking skills and moral foundation to think through new technologies and help the ethics to catch up.
IDEAS: Like I mentioned in my voicethread, I would really like to incorporate Diigo into my classroom so that my kids would have to use it. I think this is really useful as so much is online, particularly when it comes to research that Diigo is a nice program to use to keep track of sources, comments, or quotes. Whenever I do assign a research paper, I'd like to include diigo as one of the requirements in the rubric.
Other ideas, well, definitely the Google sites. As soon as I get my own classroom, I am totally making my own website. I like the versatility and usability that Google offers. I know it isn't as fancy as some of the other website publishers out there, but for me, it works just fine. I'd rather have a website that looks decent and that is easy to use than a complex program with a really cool website. Teachers are busy enough as it is. The easier Google makes it to use its programs, the better.
I like the voicethreads program, even though I didn't incorporate it into my final project, I can still see a lot of possibilities with using it in the future in my classroom.
Lastly, I like the idea of using a blog as an authentic audience for my students. To make writing really enjoyable, there has to be a purpose to the assignment more than just the teacher. By publishing the students work, if only to a blog, still gives the students a broader audience than just me. It also allows the parents to see their children's work and to be involved in the learning process.
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