An English Summary of Learning

My guest blogger is a teacher who is in the basement of our school (yes I know that does sound bad but she's OK, the chains don't hurt her;)  When I talked to Mandy she told me she did not have a lot of positive things to say but I said good, lets tell the truth, and be honest.  So here it is.  I'm proud of how she keeps on trying technology.

My experience with technology has not been so great. My first experience with technology included video taping students acting out their character skits. The camera battery died. Students then suggested I use my Iphone to record these skits. That part worked out well. Initially I was quite disappointed because I really wanted to video tape my students and they were looking forward to watching themselves. 

I have used the document reader several times. However, setting it up can be time consuming because I have to move the desks in order to connect my laptop (cords not long enough and not enough space on the trolly that the document reader sits on). I am hesitant to bring the Ipads downstairs to the basement for two major reasons. First reason being that it is too time consuming and a hassle bringing them down. I have to go through 2 floors with separate elevators. Secondly, the wifi connection is very weak down here. So I would hate to go through the hassle of getting the ipads down here and then the internet not working. Students in the past have brought their own laptops or have tried to use their ipods; and have constantly complained about the wifi connection. Myself I have my laptop plugged into the direct internet connection. I am also making good use of Facebook to update students on homework, assignments or announcements I may have. Students have been responding well to this idea. I am finding that students are responding well. They are using this venue as a place to ask questions--and if I am unable to answer questions, students are answering questions for each other. Students are able to use Facebook to engage in discussion and collaborate with each other on certain projects/assignments :)

An English Teacher's Journey of Learning.

Guest Blogger - @msfree1:  

In Sept I began my journey with adding more technology into my lessons.  I began by creating Live Binders for all my classes with links to websites and pictures that I use from time to time.  I also have used it to post student work.  My goal with this was to eventually add my lessons and Word documents so that I could share ideas with my colleagues and students, however as time went on, I never got around to fulfilling this goal.  The reason being I ventured to conquer more technology uses in my class, such as document readers, Twitter and Blogging.  I feel comfortable using the document reader with my class and will continue to do so.  Live brain storming, editing and assignment explanation are some of the ways I utilize my document reader.  In terms of Twitter, I began tweeting homework for my students, but now I find myself mostly following other educators from around the world to help broaden my knowledge about education.  My students used Twitter during a character assignment that they were really engaged with, and I will do it again.  The one goal that I started but didn’t get into as far with as I hoped was blogging.  I have only done two posts and my goal was to write a post every month, but somehow between teaching and everything else the time got away from me.  So now my new goal with writing blogs is to do one every month and maybe start blogging with my classes, especially with Writing 12, but this will happen next year.

On a Note of this Blogger's viewpoint:

@msfree1 is being extremely modest with her accomplishments.  She has had a number of great ideas that you can see on her blog - http://englishsullivan.blogspot.com/.  She has used twitter for quick assessment - asking questions of book characters online, students asking each other on the plot, she has used a number of iPad apps, but soon discovered that if you do not have an email account on the iPad the teacher cannot assess the learning at a later date. She's had successes and failures but always, she goes back to trying the technology to engage the students.  @msfree was the first to embrace Livebinder at our school, and she has collected a number of web sites and assignments with her English Department, to have a centralized area of work.  She has also held a couple of workshops in regards to Livebinder and has the staff developing their own work.  If you don't follow her on twitter, I suggest you add her to to list, she's a fantastic teacher!!!