Delicious is gone!

Well now that I finally learned how to use delicious I found out today that Yahoo! is going to get rid of it. The date has not been set, but evidently delicious will soon be a thing of the past. Here is the link to the story. If you look at the commnets there are people explaining how you can save all of your bookmarks to other places on the Internet.

Click HERE for the story

Wiki vs Google Docs

Does anyone have experience using both of these? I use wikis a lot in my classroom and was wondering if google docs would be a better choice. Wikis are safe, pretty secure and I have ultimate control, which I like. I also like that there is a history so I can always see who did what on the wiki and when. The biggest problem with wikis is that students can NOT edit at the same time. Information is easily overwritten and many times is lost if students are editing the same page at the same time. The article we read this week said that this was uncommon with wikis, but I can assure you it is more common than they think in a classroom setting.

I think the biggest strength of google docs would be that students can edit at the same time. The scariest part for me as an elementary teacher of google docs is that I will lose a lot of control and I am not sure if parents would be OK with all of their students having a google account with their own email etc.

For now it seems wikis are good for elementary and google docs may be better for secondary and higher education.

"Should Laptops Replace Textbooks"

This is a survey being taken on Edutopia right now. Right now laptops are winning by a pretty large margin. I am on the side of laptops replacing textbooks. To be honest in my elementary school, we only use textbooks for Social Studies and a little bit of reading. I think laptops have more up to date information, they allow students to access way more information than any textbook ever could and it will teach them and prepare them to use the tool they will be using once they are out of school and in the real world. What are your thoughts?

My dream is to have a one to one laptop ratio before I retire. There are so many things students could accomplish if they had their own laptops... not to mention the amount of paper it would save!

Project-based Learning

I am sure most of us in the program do at least a good amount of project based learning. I am also sure some of them have not gone as well as hoped. I do still know teachers out there that do not see the value so this is a great article for them to read.

I have a co-teacher who wanted to be a principal a few years ago. The other day he said to me " Once we get back to basics I will be a principal" I didn't say anything, but in my mind I was thinking...he just does not get it! We will never be going back to kids sitting in rows and listening to teachers lecture all day. We will always have technology and group work in classrooms. He like many teachers think project based learning is a passing phase and maybe they are secretly hoping that it is, because let's face it. It is harder to be a teacher these days than it was even ten years ago.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/project-based-learning-not-giving-up-suzie-boss?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EdutopiaNewContent+%28Edutopia%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

When is there too much of a good thing?

So I am doing my homework this morning and I am realizing that I have 10 different windows open. I am searching articles, posting blogs, updating my wiki, checking my social bookmarks and yes even reading facebook every now and then for fun! This week we are learning about Ning, facebook and social bookmarks, and as a teacher I have to say it is both amazingly helpful and amazingly stressful to find the time to keep up with all of these sites! I do love technology and I am all in when it comes to technology in education. I also believe that it is amazing how much information can be shared between educators. I am just wondering at what point it will become so much that it will take away from my teaching??

Ning in the Classroom

On the site "The Professional Learner" I found an article or a blog (It is getting kind of hard to tell the differnce anymore!) about his experience using Ning with his students. I have no experience with Ning yet, but I like the idea of giving students a space to create groups and collaborate! I am not sure facebook is the best place to send my students for school work, so I like that the teacher described ning as a "closed" environment that is like facebook.

http://profespringer.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/using-ning-in-the-classroom-to-create-a-learning-community/

Just a Thought on Conferences

This is mostly for elementary educators, but could apply to all. I just finished up my conferences this past week and in the middle of them I once again started wondering why we do them the way we do. Why do we have this two day marathon of conferences when teachers are tired and the conferences are back to back so we can barely catch a breath before the next one starts. I only have 23 students in my room. If I could start meeting with parents one on one sometime in November and have them wrapped up by December I think I would be much "fresher" for each conference. I would feel more prepared and I would feel like I can give the parents the time and attention they deserve. I could have one or two a day before or after school. I would be able to block off more time if I felt it was needed for a specific conference or less time if I felt it was needed. I would not be rushed or exhausted. The fact is that there are some parents I do not need to meet with because I had already met with them a few days earlier at an IEP and they still feel obligated to sign up for conferences so they don't look like a bad parent. I also have those kids that are just awesome and all we do at the conference is sit there and chat about other things. It is nice to catch up with and meet parents and I believe conferences are an important part of what we do. I just think the structure is not the best it could be.