To be honest, I never realized just how much you can integrate technology on a daily basis into your classroom. I am not teaching currently, but the class chatter program is one thing that really interested me. I have shared it with several colleagues who are teaching and they are integrating it into their class. It really allows students to interact with each other and carry on class discussions after the school day. I was also thinking you could use it on snow days as an effective tool to engage students. From discussions with other teachers, we all agreed that some students would be much more likely to post something on a discussion board than participate in class.
As far as this online experience, after some initial difficulty, it has been great. I am learning a lot about the various ways that people use technology in their classrooms. I enjoy sharing ideas and talking to other educators about strategies and techniques that they have had success (or a lack of) with much more than just reading about them in books. The weekly blogs and responses have allowed that discussion to take place.
Jason, Your point about using Class Chatter on snow days is a good one. I feel the same is true for Edmodo as well. The students can easily work from home in the event of a school closing or if they missed school. Just today I posted instructions for finishing up Animoto projects that students were working on in class. This also ties into emergency preparedness for districts. In the event of some sort of major biological warefare threat when schools could not open resources such as these allows education to still take place. A scary thought for sure, but one that school districts need to be prepared for.
ReplyDeleteThis is so true even for me and my work ( I worked globally). I am all hooked up to work from home and in emergencies I can work from home (although this has happened only once). I can easily look out into the future and see all children being able to work from home. This is really a good thing for very sick children and snow days etc. On a personal level I also loved some snow days when I was a kid... As an adult too!
ReplyDeleteI like the class chatter idea. Since I use edmodo in school from time to time, mainly to give students an easy way to access a website, I need to utilize it more to communicate due dates or possibly work on a snow day. Thanks for the idea!
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