Technology in the Education Arena

This could be my last post of the year on my blog so I wanted to thank the blogging community for all the great blog posts.  I have only entered the world of Web 2.0 this past summer but I can’t begin to say how much I have learned.  I subscribe to about 20 blogs in Bloglines and feel like I get a new education every day.  There are some days when I feel like I have to stop reading all these blogs because I am learning so much and there is not enough time in the day and I am so excited about all these new tools I have discovered. 

My favorite blog is Vicki Davis’ CoolCat Teacher Blog.  She is truly inspiring and sometimes I wonder if she has time to sleep.  Her blog contains so much good content — education, technical, and motivational.  Thank you CoolCat.  Recently she posted about Microsoft Photo Story 3 (a free download).  Well, that day I downloaded the software, found an ambitious teacher (Mrs. Gal) in second grade, and we just finished our movie project yesterday — Holidays Around the World.  The children researched their country, wrote about their country, and we then used the audio feature in Photo Story to record each student’s writing on their country.  Thank you Vicki Davis for pointing this project out and thank you Mrs. Gal for taking on this project during this busy time.

I found another ambitious teacher in third grade who was working with her students on expression in voice and fluency when speaking.  We thought – let’s do a podcast.  The children took this on as an extra assignment and wrote down their thought/memory of the holiday.  We then used GarageBand to record their audio and turned it into a podcast.  Thank you Mrs. Thonus for your hard work in creating “Holiday Memories.”

Again, thank you to all who have contributed to this great community.