This video is making its rounds on the internet. I saw it on Chad’s blog. Not only did it get me thinking… It reminded me of every student I have taught in the last 10 years and how proud I am of all of them.
1 comment November 19th, 2008
Recently, I made my way to Jody Davidson’s classroom at Hand Middle School to work with her students. The students were creating podcasts and wanted to incorporate a little handheld technology. I showed Ms. Davidson and her students how to use iPods with microphones. Of course the students were pros at manuevering through the iPod menus but many of them had never used the voice memo or recording functions. We quick to figure out how to pause the recording instead of stopping and starting over when someone got the giggles or if they needed to think a little more about what they needed to say.
By the end of class, 6 groups created the beginnings of what I like to call “Literacy Talk” podcasts. The students turned in the iPods and I got to work on editing the student’s conversations. With a little editing, the students lost the um’s, ah’s, and music was added to add a little flavor.
The Literacy Talks covered topics such as what makes students excited to read, how do they choose a book, and what happens when they are forced to read. It was a great way to express how they felt about reading. Podcasting is a great way to get students engaged in the learning. Think about it… students go through the writing process from brainstorming to writing a final product. Although you don’t necessarily want students reading from a script they have to prepare what they are going to talk about. Students are also publishing their work. There is a sense of anticipation and nerves with how will I sound? Will I be able to communicate a clear message? With interactive lessons like podcasting we are reaching students on so many levels and preparing them for the world outside of school.
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2 comments November 18th, 2008
I am at SC EdTech in Myrtle Beach, SC this week. If you read my last post you know I am a little discouraged with technology integration or my lack of passion so I am hoping that being at this conference will inspire me. Am I expecting to sit in a session and see the light to eternal ed tech happiness? No, but I want to leave here feeling like I CAN do something new or WANT to do something new. So I am holding this conference up to high standards this year.
More than anything… I am in need of serious face-to-face Personal Learning Network. My PLN helps me through the tough times and I am so lucky to have them physically around me for the next two days. This is where I will find my inspiration and I thank them all for being that inspiration when I need it the most.
SC EdTech fill me up because I am almost on empty!
1 comment November 5th, 2008
Steve Dembo’s 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger has arrived at the perfect time. I haven’t been blogging much lately because I seem to be losing my inspiration.
At work, I am feeling as if my hands are tied and we can’t try anything new because it uses those evil words of ’social networking,’ ‘open source,’ ‘freeware,’ or the possibility that some child MIGHT do something wrong. We can’t expect to prepare students for the world of no filtering if we keep our filter so locked down that most everything is blocked. My department gives lip service to “educating the teachers and students how to make good choices on the web” but we don’t do anything to back it up. So the few of us who are out there training teachers are limited in how we train. I get so tired of certain groups dictating for the masses and being censors. I might even be ok with it if those groups were up with the latest technologies/tools/integration trends. With this I have lost my passion to look for anything new. Let me continue to train on SMART Notebook software, Inspiration, TimeLiner, and Microsoft Office. I don’t want to search or even try something new. That doesn’t make me happy.
Recently, I read Jeff Gidden’s post There are None So Blind and he wrote what I was thinking. And this made me think for the same reason Jeff continues to blog, I need to as well. I need to be setting an example for those around me.
With that it brought me to Steve Dembo’s Better Blogger challenge. So how am I doing on the challenge? Day #1 update my About page. Done. The only problem I have is my widgets won’t edit or let me update them. If you have an edublogs blog and you can help please email me (maryann.sansonetti@gmail.com). It only says I have 12 widgets and if I try to change them it deletes them and I have to start all over.
Day #2 Play in Traffic: Take a look at your blog traffic. I took a look at my Google Analytics and my blog traffic is during the week. Most of the traffic at this point has been redirected from my previous blog. As I am blogging on this site longer my statistics will become more detailed. I will keep track of them.
Day #3 working on it… check back…
So anyway, thanks Steve for challenging me to take a look at who I am as a blogger and want to be better!
3 comments November 3rd, 2008
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