Professional+Collaboration

=Professional Collaboration = Based on your learning so far in the course, list ideas you have for implementing web 2.0 tools in your classroom this fall. Please include your grade level and/or subject taught. For those not in the classroom, please give your educational roll and how you can use this tool in your job.

Mark (ITS) - I'm currently using blogs to faciltate online student book discussions with some teachers. I have wikis setup for online resources (links) for studnet to access, and also for teacher guides. I'm planning on starting a "green" podcast this next year, starting with the TAG teacher/students. I'm hoping to setup some online courses like this course to offer to my teachers.

Angie HMS Art//Yearbook - I set up a wiki the other day using wetpaint thinking that my Yearbook staff could (and I haven't flushed it all out yet) but use it to edit stories, discuss pictures, and recieve their jobs/assigments for the week. I am open to suggestions if others have them!

Cindy (ITS) - I'm behind in changing over to a wiki so my teachers' resource pages can be interactive and helpful for teachers to use with their students in the classroom. I want to once again encourage my librarians to start blogs for book reviews as well as, book club discussions. I really want to encourage more of my teachers to take an online course like this one.

Bunny (ITS) - Like Cindy, I want to put all the tutorials in one central spot. I had started putting them on my TeacherWeb, but now I think the Wiki format would be the best. I would like to see my book review wikis get used. This will need an introduction at the beginning of the school year when everyone is fresh and receptive to new ideas. I will offer some Web 2.0 training in the new school year. I like Cindy's idea to encourage some online courses. These may need to be "mini" courses, so they won't run teachers away. I wouldn't mind working with others to create these. Anyone out there interested? I plan on ordering microphones for each grade level so podcasting can get started. I will work with grade levels to see how they want to present these.

Julie (ICE)- I would like to to investigate using a blog, or possibly a wiki, as an information resource available to teachers I work with. Either in the format of a book/concept study, or maybe to share ideas and address issues about the new math textbook or just a place to have questions and answers. Hopefully, as I work with teachers I can support the use of technology in their classroom. I can also help support the ITSs, by using sharing my new awareness of these technologies with teachers and encourage them to try some out.

Janet (Math HS) - I changed over the first page of my teacher web site to a blog and I've added the ability for people to subscribe to my pages. Teacher web has issues with having the RSS button (which it normally has) in the format I use, but I asked their tech support and got a work around. Part of my first day survey, particularly for stat kids, will be to inquire about the kids access at home. My intent is to require themn to subscribe and the use the web to post lessons and homework and to use the blog as a way to communicate those things like "remember, precal, there is a test tomorrow and if you are working the review here's a hint for problem 32."

Marnie (Third Grade) - I just returned from Activ08 in Boston and took a class on making my Promethean flipcharts into podcasts. I think this class really helped me to understand that and I would really love to be able to link those casts to my teacher web page so that students would be able to access the charts at home as review or make up. I am going to add a page to my teacher web page dedicated to my class podcasts.

Michele (HS Chemistry) I think podcasts would be great for prelab information on techniques, equipment and safety. I also want to set up a course(class) Wiki for my chemistry students or for all chemistry students at my HS. I also think Wikis would be a great avenue to introduce other educators to technology in the classroom, by referencing existing sites or making our own.

Emily (Elementary Library) I'm looking forward to creating a library blog for book reviews and promoting library events. I've already used wikis for planning with other librarians, but I want to try using a wiki this year to collaborate with teachers on my campus.

Kara (RMS 6th math) I love the idea of using a blog as a way to communicate with parents. Now that I am learning about wikis, I see this as a great tool for students to collaborate together. After seeing Robin's tutorial video that allowed us to see her clicking on various parts of the computer screen, I can't wait to figure out how to do that. Math is such a visual subject, and I know that posting videos of certain concepts and activities from class will benefit both parents and students.

Vanessa (MHS Social Studies) I am teaching World History (sophomores) and AP Macroeconomics (seniors) next year. Given the two different groups, I may use different tools with each of them. I am thinking my blogging might be a good way to remind them of assignments coming up, and with parents so they are familiar with what is going on in class. Podcasting might be a good way to walk them through an assignment, or to review information we already covered in class. I might also be able to use it to replay a lecture, or in class assignments for those students that were absent. Wikis might be a good way for students to post what they learned/already knew about a topic or unit of study - then have everyone's knowledge together to study/review from. Right now, I think the big thing I need to remember is to just add one thing at a time so as to not overwhelm my students (OR MYSELF) with all of these great tech ideas!

Jessica (Math - Algera 1 - RRHS) I plan on using a blog as a source to any and all information about my classes. I am also really looking forward to making many podcasts of me explaining the lessons so that students will be able to review the lessons in the own time and also not get behind if they are absent. It will also be helpful to the parents so that the will be able to know and understand what abd how I am teaching a certain topic and may even be able to help the children study.

Denise (7th grade Science) I plan to use my blog primarily as a place for students and teachers to see what's going on in the classroom. TeacherWeb has been helpful, but doesn't have all the great tools in such a user-friendly format. I hope to have students take more ownership in their learning by engaging them in the process--using a wiki for collaboration, posting big questions on my blog for students to comment on, asking students to contribute to science-related current events (via a wiki or that I can add to my blog), podcasting mini-lessons to help explain difficult concepts that students often need additional help with. I also want to encourage parents/students to subscribe to my blog so that they're receive updates as often as I post them--this is much easier than the teacher newsflash feature since parents will know there are updates they can read as they have time, instead of flooding their inbox when only small changes have been made. I also think a wiki might be really helpful for coordination within our team--posting a calendar that all teachers on the team can add events to, creating an agenda for daily/weekly meetings, assigning/organizing tasks for team members, posing questions to the group, etc.

Cara (8th grade math) I want to use a wiki to manage web links for my students to use in conjunction with their math class. By using a wiki, other teachers could help organize and share links that students would find helpful and interesting.