Suzanne Friedman

Wow!  I can’t believe it is over.  I definitely learned a lot of useful information from this class.  I would love to start using a blog or wiki in my class this year.  I could definitely imagine posting podcasts of the students explaining what they learned in class that week.  Lucky for me, two other members on my team have also taken this class.  I think if we support each other, we can achieve the impossible.  I think this course will help guide me during my one hour of “Tech” class during the week.  I am very excited to see where the year ends up!  Thank you for all of the information.

I just spent a little time exploring pageflakes.  It is a great tool to use when organinzing all of your information on one particular subject.  It can also be used as a home for your students to be able to go on and access useful websites or find out what’s happening on the calendar.  I just can’t figure out when you use a wiki, a blog or a pageflake.  I guess as this year starts, I will figure it out.

I spent some time exploring on the Web 2.0 classroom.  I didn’t find that much stuff that particularly pertained to me.  I’m sure one has to continually go on there (like the reader) to get the most out of it.  Then I spent time watching the videos about Twitter.com.  I tried to go on Shelly’s twitter site but was blocked because I am on a school computer.  I think that the 30 Ways to use Twitter was very useful.  I would love to find a way to make my students and parents respond using twitter.  One of the activities that I enjoyed was “Short but sweet.”  There were a few other ideas that I liked but felt they would work better with older students.  I do think Twitter could be used in the classroom.  There are so many tools out there, it’s hard to always know what is the best “Thing” for the activity.

I am finally back at school, sitting at my computer.  I found a great website called My Wonderful World to use when teaching geography and global concepts.  I just spent ten minutes getting this computer all set up with delicious.com and then tagged the site.  Now that I am back at work, I think I can keep checking my reader and continue to tag every useful site. I am excited about what I have learned and am ready to use it.

I actually think Google Docs is one of the most useful tools I have learned in this class.  As soon as I was introduced to it in the beginning I used it in my personal life.  I just created a spreadsheet to use as a sign up sheet for a party I was having.  I listed all of the foods I needed and emailed the link.  Everyone signed up and I didn’t get any additional emails.  It was great and I would use it again.

In the classroom, I could see using it to help collaborate on some ideas with other teachers.  We could send out a unit guide and let everyone add their ideas during the preplanning time.  Also when finishing the unit, we could go back and add anything that would be useful for next year’s planning.  I could use it with the students and have them fill in a K-W-L chart for homework.  Also, it’s a great tool for different grade levels to use when determing what activities they are going to do for a particular holiday.  For example, we could send a spreadsheet out where each grade level chair fills in what art activities the students are going to make.  That way not everyone is bringing home a matzah cover every year for Passover.

Youtube.com is one of the easiest websites to use.  There is very little you can’t find on there.  I used youtube during the year when trying to show the students real chipmunks when doing a writing assignment.  Today I found a nice video on the Trail of Tears which I bookmarked for future use.  I also found an interview with Sharon Creech, an author we will study this year.  For fun, I watched a video on how to make a blueberry pie and also how to solve a rubrik’s cube.  I need to start using youtube as a way to answer some of my own how to questions.  I didn’t really care for Teachertube.com.  I felt there were too many ads and I had more difficulty finding something pertaining to my classroom.

I had a relatively easy time making the podcast on Garageband.  Unfortunately, it was a little too easy.  I added photos to go along with my story but I didn’t know you couldn’t upload those to the podcast.  I did have a lot of difficulty in uploading the podcast to podbean.  The first time there was no volume.  The second and third time, it stopped uploading after 43%.  I now realize it wasn’t saved as an mp3 file.  I think if I had to do it again, it would go much faster.

I could use podbean.com as another way for students to publish their writing.  Why not have them make a podcast of their final story? Or even have them do it as an introduction to a story.  They could also do it as a part of a book report (why should you read this book.)  This is “1 Thing” I could use in my classroom.

I don’t know how useful podcasts would be in my classroom.  One that I could see using was Grammar Girl.  Several times this year, questions came from my students regarding grammar rules which I couldn’t always answer.  Possessives were very challenging along with using commas in a series.  I definitely would try to find the answer using grammar girl and letting the students listen to the podcast.  I know they would enjoy hearing the answer this way.  One thing I didn’t like about some of the podcasts is that they start with an advertisement.  Sometimes you just want to get to the point.  I could see the benefit of podcasts when looking for a specific thing.  I don’t know if I would listen to them daily.

Library Post was fun to play on.  Of course I had to look up the most recent book I just read, The Irresistable Henry House. I read the reviews and surprisingly, not everyone shared my views.  I loved the book and would recommend it to others.  I think I could use this website in my classroom when choosing a book for a literacy circle.  It’s a great way to find out several people’s opinions on a book.

I enjoyed my time exploring Delicious.  I think this website will come in handy at work.  Often people are sending emails with links to useful websites but not necessarily at the time I am teaching the information.  I think this will help me organize the websites so that when it is time, I can easily access them.  Please check out the various math websites I tagged.