"Meme: Passion Quilt"

"Meme: Passion Quilt" was a completely new concept to me, so I was happy and excited to be tagged by Allison Miller.

If you would like to read more about "Meme: Passion Quilt", here are some great websites!

First of all, I never do chain-letters but I found this quite easy and enjoyable. Plus I was honored by Allison's choosing to tag me. I plan to keep this social networking chain-blog letter going.

So, to follow the rules I have posted a picture from flickr and added a caption!

Presenting Class Blogmeister to My Students!

Now, to answer the question: What am I passionate in 'teaching' my students?

I am passionate in teaching my students to think and create. I have been having my students blog this year to improve writing skills as well as letting the students find their voices. They are encouraged to write their opinions, ideas, and concerns. They are just starting to realize that they can have opinions too. We spend time working on numerous short stories that had been fun to create.

Now for the fourth part of the rules, I now have officially tagged the following people.

Lauren

Kate

Josephine

Joyce

Rachel

If you choose to participate, please follow these rules:

Meme: Passion Quilt rules:

1. Think about what you are passionate about teaching your students.
2. Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
3. Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
4. Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.

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Web 2.0 Tools for the classroom!

Here is a slideshow by Vicki Davis that is excellent in showing what a school district can do to open up learning with the Web 2.0 tools, Horizon Project, or the Flat Classroom Project. A lot of good information !

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Twitter

What an interesting week reading Tweets on Twitter! I have been learning about some wonderful things that I will be sharing in the upcoming weeks. For example, add Gadgets to your homepage with Google Gadgets at http://tinyurl.com/2qrfz3

In addition, here is an excellent article on Google Docs http://www.google.com/google-d-s/whatsnew.html

Twitter

I attended the National Educational Computing Conference in Georgia during the summer of 2007. One of the Web 2.0 tools that I was introduced to was Twitter. Twitter is social networking and micro-blogging put together around the question "What are you doing?"

In 140 characters or less, you post answers to that question. It is instant messaging from your computer or phone.

Once joining Twitter, you build a network of people you would like to follow. I am following people that have many of the same interests as I do. I am learning as much as I can about the Web 2.0 tools, educational technology, and specifically blogging.

Advantages to Twitter:

Everyday, I have a notebook beside me so I can write down any information that I need to look up later. In this way, I am keeping a journal on educational technology and Web 2.0 tools. Most of the time, the information leads to free "stuff" just waiting for me to tap into. For example, here are a few Web 2.0 tools I have been learning about:

voicethread, where you upload pictures and add comments or audio. What is really unique is that you can have others add their comments or leave an audio recording. Voicethread can be used to teach about a specific topic to commenting on family photos. The sky is the limit with this tool.

audacity, If you are interested in making MP3 files, this is a free tool that you must check out.

Social bookmarking with del.icio.us, If you want to be able to get to those bookmarks that you have made at home on your computer from work, use del.icio.us. You can "log in" to any computer, anywhere and tap into your bookmarks.

co.mments,
Co.mments is a new tool for me. I will be able to feed my comments into a reader to keep updated on recent comments made to me. You can read more about this @dswaters

To learn more about technology, here is Sue Waters' homepage:
http://aquaculturepda.edublogs.org

Podomatic is a great place to upload your MP3 files!
podomatic,



skype
Skype has several features, but the one I am interested in is computer to computer Skype calls. I can Skype my girlfriend in Italy for free. I will write later how that turns out.

Well, this is just a few of the things that I have been learning from my Twitter friends.

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Blogging to Encourage Writing!

For years, it has been the teacher’s responsibility to motivate and encourage ALL students to write. Every year students must practice and learn to write persuasive, narrative, and expository essays. Not only do they have to learn the different types of writing, but they have to take a state test that only provides 45 minutes to do the writing successfully. The rough draft to final polished piece must be written in 45 minutes. That is a hard task for anyone to complete!

I feel this is where blogging throughout the year has been encouraging and motivating for students. My students are coming early to class so they can work on the computers and write stories. They want to publish these stories to their blogs. Practice, practice, and more practice makes better writers. How do you get good at something? You practice!

How do readers get better at reading? by reading! Then it is only logical that to get better at writing, we must write more. Practice, practice, and more practice.

I do not have to make my students write. They want to write using word processors, wikis, and blogs. Having an audience to write for is a powerful tool for the classroom. My students are very excited that they have a blog and wiki to work on.





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February 1

My students are really motivated to blog, especially, due to the fact we have been invited to Tech 2008. We will be taking an all day field trip (3 hours one-way) to Springfield, Illinois. The students will present what they have been working on this year while explaining wikis and blogs to representatives, senators, superintendents, principals, board members, etc.

As I have written in earlier posts, we are using Classblogmeister and at the Pritchardpress wiki as our web 2.0 tools so that the students can write and publish their articles.

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