Wiki-Walk-Through

Because I've never used wikis before taking this technology class, I've been wondering what is going to make me use them in the future. I know they are "the thing" to do, but I don't want to simply force a concept unless it is going to truly benefit my students and be a natural enhancement to their learning experience.

I was so thrilled to take the "Wiki-Walk-Through" on www.teachersfirst.com. There were many practical and specific examples of ways to use a wiki to benefit students. Even with very simple wiki activities, students have the ability to learn how to collaborate with a larger group of people. While many people complain that computers isolate children, this format is a way of bringing them together. After looking at many of the specific examples of math and science activities, I realized that wikis can be an amazing way of keeping children connected at home.

While I have children in front of me, I prefer to keep them engaged with the other people in the room. However, when they are at home and want extra help, encouragement, inspiration, or ability to connect, this gives them a great opportunity to keep working with their peers even when it's necessary to stay at home.

One final revelation I made regarding wikis is that they can help a child who HAS to be out of class due to travel or illness. My mother, a teacher, once commented that during one semester she did not have a single day with 100% attendance. With issues getting in the way of a child's ability to attend class, the wiki can be a way to bridge that gap and maintain learning, regardless of time or place!

Use Technology with Care

I've always heard that people need to be careful where they get their information from, especially when using the internet, but I assumed that common sense would be sufficient in determining what sources to use. After going through the process of evaluating a website, I realized that smart use of technology extends beyond common sense. When looking at the usefulness or integrity of a website, a deeper look can reveal background and history that is important to consider.

I chose to look at the website www.abcya.com in order to evaluate it for reliability and usability. This is a website that is geared towards learning games for children from grades K-5. It has an extensive selection of fun computer games that will reiterate age-appropriate concepts in reading, math, and more. While It was easy to navigate and fun to use, I was completely surprised by its history. I had heard the name before, but I assumed it was connected with the television station since PBS has a website for children filled with learning games. In fact, the name has nothing to do with the tv station, but instead it was created by a teacher who wanted more resources in his classroom. If I would not have taken the time to look into that information, I would have written off the site as one focused on promoting a more commercial approach to learning. Instead, I found that this site came straight from a teacher's personal background. This was an important and exciting piece of information, because to me, a teacher's experience is the most valuable resource when looking for additional learning material for my children.

Through this exercise I discovered a real value to evaluating websites. Not only are there a lot of great details that would be missed without proper evaluation, but also reviewing the website did not take that long! It was a relatively short process during which I discovered how current the information was through the copyright, where the source of the information was coming from, and how user-friendly this information would be to me, my students, and even my students' parents at home. I plan to continue previewing websites in this way so that I do not use inadequate websites for my children or pass up great websites based on an inaccurate assumption of its contents.

Connecting to Other People's Teaching Techniques!

Kids don't come with a manual. Whether you are a parent, teacher, or kid yourself, everyone realizes that fact at some point in life. In the teaching world, the best thing that you can do is build a network of resources. What better resource than other teachers that have creativity or experience in a particular field? I happen to love music and have taught it for years. After a bit of searching I found http://www.pitchhill.com/blog and fell in love. This blog created by Shelley Tomich does a great job of showing different teaching techniques for teaching singing based on the Solfége system.

There were a number of aspects of this blog that were especially helpful and user-friendly. First of all the Shelley categorized her posts based on grade and topic. So if I am looking for ideas specifically for 1st grade, I can go directly there. Alternately, if I want specific tips on teaching tempo or pitch, there are similar links for that as well.

Another neat aspect of this website is that she does not assume prior music knowledge of the viewer. She incorporates numerous images to illustrate her teaching techniques and even provides a video to demonstrate for the reader her "Cup and Rhythm Stick Activity". You can tell from this picture of her classroom that Shelley is passionate about what she does!

What I Need: Course Expectations

Lost, uncertain, and petrified would be three excellent ways to describe my comfort with technology up to this point. As my bio indicates, I've spent ten years in the teaching world, but I've spent every one of them avoiding technology. I would always have my husband create or fix anything I needed to use. I am now attempting to grow in such a way as to gain confidence and independence around computers and technology in general. I'm currently enrolled in a technology course (TPTE 486) at the University of Tennessee in order to help me reach that goal.

In my class I'm hoping to gain a number of things

• First, and most important, I want to lose the personal assumption that everything on the computer is too hard for me to figure out on my own. When little children can successfully use technology, I know that I have no excuse.
• Next, I want to learn important terms and jargon. Words like "wiki" and "blog" have been two such words that have been a scary mystery up to this point. (Obviously, since I'm currently creating "posts" in a "blog", I've already gained a lot in just a couple of short weeks.) There are so many thing going on out in cyber-world...I don't even know what I don't know!
• Because I'm looking to use my new technological savvy in the classroom, I am excited to learn classroom-specific ways to integrate technology into my upcoming career. Not only do I believe that learning tools for the classroom will be helpful for me in teaching, but also I realize that to properly equip my students for their own futures, I need to connect them with the modern advancements that they will use in their own lives.
• Finally, I really want to be able to use computers and the internet to collect a personal record of resources that I can access at any point in time. I believe I have heard about some kind of internet "cloud" that saves information. I want to be able to record and save my findings so that I will have long-term resources to access beyond this class. My short term memory will most certainly not be as reliable as some computer device or program.

I can't wait to go on this semester-long journey. It has been a long time in coming! While there is a lot of personal fear associated with this process, I know that it will pay off in the end. I feel that in life, major accomplishments worth doing are not usually easy. This is going to be one of those things. Whatever I find out, though, I will be sharing it here with all of you.

Now it's time for me to figure out a thing or two...

Wish me luck!