ISTE Unplugged!

I was bummed that I was not able to attend ISTE this year. Our PD budget has been slashed. I did find this link though to ISTE Unplugged which offers the opportunity to participate in ISTE presentations through Elluminate video conferencing. I used Elluminate for PLP sessions, and love it. This morning I was able to watch a presentation by a Twitter acquaintance, Paula Naugle, on Edmodo. I found out a few new things about Edmodo I didn't know:

* In Glogster, you can go to a link that says "Edmodo this Glog" and it will paste it directly into your Edmodo! Students don't have to mess with embed codes - They can send their glogs directly to Edmodo. :)

* There are Communities in Edmodo you can join where you can meet other educators and discuss uses of the tools. I haven't explored many, but there are subject areas as well as Glogster, Discovery Education, ISTE, etc.

There are lots of great sessions at ISTE Unplugged you can be a part of - Just another way to get free PD! :)

Wordle Fun

One of the challenges for me this year is to come up with lots of NEW things... Since I am looping with my class, they've seen all my old tricks! This means new icebreakers at the beginning of the year, etc. While on Twitter, I caught a chat about ideas for the beginning of the school year (have I mentioned how much I LOVE Twitter?!). I just wrote a blog post about the power of the Twitter hashtag... :)

With my new netbooks in the room, I have so many options! One of the teachers I follow posted a link to an activity she does with Wordle. This is a great "About Me" activity that combines Wordle with a blog post. I started learning about kidblog.org last year, and am setting up blogs for my students. This will be a great way to break out our netbooks the first week and have some fun with the kids. I love that teachers are so much more transparent these days, and are taking the time to post these activities to Google Docs for the rest of us. It wasn't that long ago that teachers kept their great ideas to themselves! I have to remember to return the favor, and work more transparently myself this year...

Connected Kids

As I prepare for next year, my focus is to bring some of the web 2.0 tools I am learning about into my classroom. Today I purchased a web cam for my classroom, and visited Skype In The Classroom. I created my profile and entered a project, hoping to find classes who will participate. I hope it works! I will also tweet a link to my project, and hopefully get the word out so I can give this a try. I've also found a page of authors who are willing to do free Skype calls, so I'm picking a book we can read as a class, and will hopefully schedule a session where we can talk to the author! My goal is for my kids to understand the power of being connected, and how web 2.0 tools can help to connect them to people around the world.

Google - My Maps (aka Mrs. Grayson's Summer Adventures!)

First "new tool" experiment: After seeing Eric's intro, I decided to try the My Maps feature and send a map to my students (since I'll have them again next year) of where I'll be traveling this summer. Next year as we study "States & Regions" I can see them choosing a state or region to map and identify capitals, natural resources, historic sites, etc. with a short narrative about each. I know I would have more fun doing this than writing a report!


View Mrs. Grayson in a larger map

Making Connections

Just a quick post here to capture my initial thoughts as I begin the process toward my master's degree. This blog will serve as my portfolio for the course, Learning in a Connected World.  To be honest, this course is one I didn't expect to bring great growth, since I have spent the entire last school year in a professional development program that helped me create a PLN and explore web 2.0 tools. Silly me. The course hasn't even technically begun yet, and I am already learning... 


Amazingly, I've already gotten some great ideas for next year. One idea shifts a process I have been using, creating pencasts with a LiveScribe pen for students to watch at home if they were struggling with math homework. After watching an Alan November video for the class, I've seen a way I can shift this and have the students create their own tutorials in class. The other idea involves Google Maps, which I have used countless times, and yet never seen or heard about the "My Maps" function where you can create a map with place markers and narratives, link to websites, or add pictures... Suddenly I'm thinking of how my students can create maps as we study States and Regions this year in Social Studies.


Needless-to-say, I'm getting excited about the learning ahead, and about making connections and learning from my classmates.