Annette’s Space

Several years ago, I created a web site titled Great Web Sites for Educators for an education course.  Every so often I think about updating it but never get very far. 

Presently, I am gathering Smartboard Resources k-2 for my Professional Development project and wondering how I can create a useful document for teachers in my building to use.  Now that I have a Wiki Space, I am going to post them there and see if this is a more useful format. 

Since my district has blocked most of the web sites that we have used, I have submitted a request to unblock all of them.  I have not gotten a response yet but I am hopeful.

 I may not understand all the possibilities that Web 2.0 can provide but I am working toward it.

I was very impressed with McCullers’ Weblog. The students’ writing was good and they gave thoughtful responses.  I was a third grade teacher for a few years and found it difficult for eight year old children to write with feeling on paper.  Some of the time, they were luckly enough to use a Commodore 64 computer with our dot matrix printer but usually it was paper and pen.  It was also very tedious to edit with a student then have them would rewrite their work.  Even though they knew what corrections needed to be made they wrote the same words in the same order again and again.   Usually the final project was not their best effort but a correctly spelled and neatly written version.  I think that word processing has taken some of the problems out of editing ones work.  I personally am thankful for every one of these benefits and I think that I am a better writer due to this technology.  Most students are very happy to share their work with anyone who will listen. When they are proud of what they write, I believe that they put more effort into their work.  Blogging allows students to have a wide audience, even a world wide one, to listen to what they have to say and even give them comments or feedback.    I also was curious why there were only a few students with their own blogs.  Was it a parental permission issue?

The last few days have had many weather related issues.  I have given thanks that I was in a mostly warm and dry place.  White Plains had over 8 inches but nothing compared to the people in Mamaroneck or Manville NJ.   I cannot imagine losing all ones possessions. 

This week I took a wonderfully informative Web 2.0 class.  Today I spent time, due to a snowstorm, looking at all the web based products that were introduced as I tried to better understand how to use them.   

I also viewed an intro to a flickr demo provided by Jeff Utecht.  flickr remindes me in some was of Google Earth which I presently am exploring with my class.  Both look to be great educational tools.

 Only in today’s environment can someone give a effective lecture about a product so that others can better understand how to use this tool both educationally and personally.  The fact that we do not know each other and we are very far away geographically does not influence the learning process.

The way of the future will hopefully have people effectively teaching/facilitating others not dependent on geography.  What a concept!

Yesterday, I went to a tech conference that was energetic and informative.  Having taken 3 days in Jennifer’s Web 2.0 class, I was able to understand what I was seeing.  I am looking foward to trying some of what I have learned this week.

I throughly enjoyed watching the”Did you know…” video.  It certainly gave me something to think about.  We also watched the “Web 2.0 in under five minutes” video.  It gives one a glimmer of what is possible now.   Unfortunately, the Web Educator Blog is blocked in my district.