Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas

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Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Evaluating GAME Plan Progress

During the summer our supervisor has allotted 5 in-service days for the members of my department as well as 3 other new teachers to the county. I will be leading those in-service days in order to accomplish the following:
  • organize and share our handouts, tests/quizzes, and notes. We will be posting our work on our Share Point site for all tech teachers in the county to use as they see fit.
  • reviewing some software programs such as Windows Movie Maker, Google Sketchup, and Photostory, in order to integrate them into our curriculum.

I am still trying to maintain contact with authorities in the county about the use of blogs. Right now it is tough just due to the amount of work that goes on at the end of the year (graduation, exams, final projects, etc.)

Questions:

  • How can I persuade the higher ups to let us use blogs in our classroom?
  • What blogging sites would be the best and easiest to use if I could only gain access to certain ones?

4 comments:

  1. Hi Michael,

    Wow! That is amazing that you are becoming such a teacher leader! Is that someone else's job or is it fine for you to slip into this role?

    It is tough to start something new at the end of the year. Can you show the higher ups some sample blogs to persuade them of their usefulness? Use some of ours to show how we collaborate and share ideas. That is invaluable.

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  2. Michael,

    Have you heard of this site for blogging?

    (http://landmarkproject.
    com/blogmeister/)

    I have the directions - I will post them to your discussion post as an attachment if it will allow me to.

    I have looked into using this because you as the teacher have to approve all the comments. That was one of the requirements that was provided to me.

    Additionally - I was at a workshop this week and one suggestion was to assign students a username that was first and last name first initial followed by the order of their class schedule - for example
    Abby Smith Language Arts Math Science Social Studies would have all user names/blog posts under aslmcs which would not be identifying in any way.

    Hope that helps with your discussions - Good Luck

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  4. Hi Michael,

    Our school gives students the opportunity to blog via individual teachers' homepages on our school's Share Point site. Actually, it is more like a discussion board. However, students can create their own pages on a teacher's page if it is set up for them and from here, they can create their own discussions. Many teachers including myself are doing this because our school will not allow students access to social networking sites on the Internet. Actually, my principal allowed my Walden blog to be unblocked at school, so I can work on it there, so that is pretty fortunate!

    Finally, that an incredible opportunity for you to review those software programs through in-service. That is what our school needs!

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