Phwew. It's been a while since I've blogged, but we had a really good day today. 'Technology as a tool' was reinforced in my mind as we discussed matters in small groups. We need to move teachers towards using technology more, but give them the credit professionally to find their balance (hopefully in using technology more)

And a good afternoon with the Digital Citizenship. Like a teammate said, digital citizenship could more forcefully be represented as 'citizenship' alone; the principles that underly good citizenship in any setting underly good 'digital citizenship'

Ciao.

United Streaming

The website works very well. The benefit of using the streaming is the ability to preview the sections before hand with students, then show them specific sections. I'm using this extensively with the Grade 10s to help them develop chronological thinking as they do classwork.

I did a little 'critical evaluation of websites' lesson with the students (a motivational set, really), and they were amazed by the waybackmachine site and the analysis of the martinlutherking.org site.

Today's Blog

Final exams are winding down, so amongst the correcting, planning for Semester 2, and assisting all the staff with updating their marks/classes/info, I found a little time to write this quick note:

Updates since last time:

1. I'm starting Information Processing on Monday... Grade 10, 11, and 12 at the same time (as we mostly do, I suppose). I'm setting up a Moodle course to handle the assignments, etc. This should reduce/eliminate paperwork for handing in assignments, etc.

2. To do this, I've added my PowerPoint presentations to SlideShare (www.slideshare.net) for easy web access. The content/webpages/lessons in Moodle allow for embeddable slideshows. Quite handy. SlideShare rules! I'm going to get students to use this feature, too.

3. To prevent 'editing' others' work, students will be creating PDF files using an online PDF generator. (www.pdfonline.com)

4. Student portfolios will include:
- WIKI -- for notes and uploaded work (like online slideshows)
- BLOG -- for personal journal/reflection
...... I'm still debating whether to use Edublogs or ClassBlogMeister. Being able to view blogs before they go online (as with ClassBlogMeister) may appear "anti-Internet", but for my students, this may be necessary...

I can't wait for the whiteboards to come in!

Joy of Technology

Today, I found out that another teacher on staff, as part of a PLC, has obtained her own notebook-webcam-microphone setup. As we talked about the potential for WizIQ, Skype, etc, etc, a student walking by noticed our "joy of technology". This was the same student who responded on her own to a discussion thread in my http://hacklscience10.wikispaces.com arrangement, and who said "I read all the posts that are there".

I think the 'joy of technology' is contagious...

Teaching from Afar

So I found myself in a dilemma this Tuesday/Wednesday... how to plan/teach without actually being near the building.

With the death of my wife's dear Grandma (which is why I missed the first online meeting we'd scheduled as part of a technology learning committee), I found myself in Maidstone, SK trying to plan/teach a class in Spiritwood, SK (close to 2 hours away).

Online content worked out well. Emailing plans appeared to work. As I move towards implementing wikis and Moodle into the course delivery, this should make such unplanned events even easier.

1st Message, 2nd Time 'Round

I admit it. I've lost the original blog listing. But that's OK. I've made another.

I guess 'bookmarking' sites really IS a good thing :)

The Focus? The Focus!

So as I've been thinking about (but not writing on) blogs, I've wondered to myself: 'what should the focus of this blog be'? I've run across enough out-of-school-scope blogs to know that not all blogs are worth reading. Kind of like 'to the making of many books there is no end'. Random thoughts (like this one, I suppose) may give insight into the thoughts at the moment, but some pre-thought needs to be entered.

The result? The focus! Using technology to further enhance Chemistry/Physics/Science 10 processes.