Thing 1 and Thing 2

I'm participating in 23 Things so I can learn more about ways to use technology in education. I'm a teacher-librarian, so I want to be able to share what I've learned with the staff at my schools. I hope to learn some easy and practical ways to use technology as a tool to teach more effectively to todays students.



Thing 1: What is Web 2.0

In the article "A Day in the Life of Web 2.0" the description of the teacher's blog and it's interactive use by other teacher, students, parents and even administrators is a wonderful illustration of a professional learning community.
In the example of Ms. L.'s use of a classroom blog, her communication with students is both open and interactive in ways that most likely would not occur in face to face classroom discussion.
Mr. P's use of a wiki for collaborative work is intriguing as is the use of podcasting classroom discussions and posting them so all of the school community has access to them.

The video "Pay Attention" was excellent. We teachers spend so much time talking attention deficit behavior of students - these are students brought up in the digital age and yeah, they are probably digital learners. We have to recognize this and use technology to reach our students. Love the keywords used- create, engage, Rigor, Relevance, Relationships.
I would like to explore using podcasts with students.



Thing 2: Blogging
The blog was very simple to set up. I especially liked the video about blogs by Common Craft. www.commoncraft.com/ They are wonderful, simple, easy to follow teaching tools. Great for staff development.