New Blogger

It has been a fascinating and overwhelming experience to just BEGIN to learn about WEB 2.0 and all the 21st Century "tools" that our children can use to learn.  I've decided to take one new tool out of my teacher, Rich Kiker's, toolbox, at a time and see if it would work in my classroom.  I will attempt to try each one in some way or have the students use them in varying degrees.  I do feel fortunate that our District and principal have already begun to slowly teach us about these "tools" at In-Services, Staff Meetings, and bi-monthly Professional Learning Communities, however, we would need a summer-long workshop and then some to really wrap our hands around the vast amount of technologies out there.  I thought it was hard enough to find time to balance between my Wiki, website, Edmodo, and Twitter, but now I am just realizing there is so much more!  Also, my Wiki was very limited so I am excited to update and transform it into something that will be more readily used in the classroom.

I do intend to implement a few of the publishing/presentation programs in a few weeks.  My students will pick one to present their book report.  I think this is a great way to see how a few programs work and let the kids explore at home and in school as to which program fits them best.  This will be a lot of self-directed learning, as I will be learning at the same time, but I think this will be a valuable experience since our 21st Century kids could always use more problem-solving practice.

Well, this is my first OFFICIAL BLOG ENTRY that I have posted.  Feel free to comment!