Moodle

Molly,

Have you heard of Moodle? I was talking with an art teacher from NJ and her district uses it. My limited understanding is that it is intended as an online class management system... but when I was able to check her page out, I was literally blown away by all that she could do & put on there... and it is open source software.

Anyway... thought I would share this with you...

Deep, Dark Secret

I'm going to reveal something of myself here. I know that I've blogged about the controversy brewing between English grammarians and tween bloggers who've adopted Internet slang to express themselves. I've always been one for showing what you know, so I never understood why anyone would purposely "dumb down" any writing.

However, I now see the light. (And it's two years after the fact.) I now can see how text messages need to, by definition, be written in brief. I can see how/why people use shorthand to write texts on cellies. You see, I text myself. I love sending text messages via cell phone. The years have passed, and I'm no longer so uber-concerned with proving to people that I do, in fact, know how to write abbreviations following AP style rules.

I guess I'm a slow, difficult product of the cyber-revolution. I think I worried too long about proper grammar. I am just not sure how to deal with the whole freedom of information and all that that entails.

How do we deal with this? Do we totally embrace this online revolution and try to create a cyberprofile for all of us? Do we ignore/deny the whole Internet presence? I'm just not sure, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

How to Create a Successful Blog...or NOT!

If I think about the development of blogging, I am basically an amateur. This got me to thinking about why some blogs work and why other blogs fail. These are some things that came to mind.


Blogging at its core is about reading and reflecting ~ not about responding. Yes, you have to respond but mostly it is a forum for developing the brain. For example, can you imagine a class that only allowed you to write and not read. Too often I think people don't like blogs because they think they have to write something witty, pithy or intellectual. That would be nice but is not a requirement. Next, if you want people to respond to your blog post then spend time reading and then responding to other peoples posts......have a conversation.....not a monologue. And lastly, nothing piques curiosity like a hyperlink to something fabulous (even if you only think its fab) or a graphic to spruce up the content.



.........so with that said.............where are my bloggers?
Our last session is Monday. See you all there.

Waking the Digital Natives

Are you up for responding to my podcast or sketchcast?
Click on the links below:

My podcast: http://pluto.csov.org/ctig1.mp3

My sketchcast: http://sketchcast.com/view/2BT1lIs

Both of these digital tools will make the digital natives very restless! :-)

School 2.0: Can We Do it?

A couple of weeks ago I attended a workshop called School 2.0 that talked about the ways in which schooling will occur in the near future. The presenter used an interactive map (learning ecosystem, he called it) to illustrate the various aspects of learning and teaching with Web 2.0 applications and how those applications impact what teaching and learning look like.

(On a side note: In last year's CTIG, we discussed some of the Web 2.0 applications that we can use at school to engage our generation of digital learners. If you would like to listen to last year's session on that, click here.)

Back to the workshop....there was also great discussion about how there is no faster route to stagnation and death to teacher innovation than an organization that shuns risk-taking especially during this time of great change, new technology tools and in a time when administrators use traditional observations methods that don't promote innovation in instructional methods.

I found the interactive map to be thought provoking. Check out the interactive map. Once you get to the site, click on the Launch Learning Ecosystem Map (click here) and share your thoughts. I am curious to know:

1. How you feel curricular and instructional aspects would change if schools environments adopted the things in the School 2.0 learning ecosystem map?


2. How many CSOV educators would be willing to adapt to this type of learning environment?


3. How would it work at the early childhood and elementary levels?

Back to you!
Mol

Training vs. Professional Development

I just read an article in which the author talks about the difference between training and professional development. His article provoked me into deep reflection about this topic. Here is what he says:

• "Training is conducted to deepen knowledge about a specific product or strategy.Professional development is on-going learning that is connected to classroom practice and should produce changes in practice and enhance instruction over time."

I would love to know your thoughts about that statement?

Third grade blogging

We are learning to blog in third grade. We have taken a reading program called Caterpillar Reading to the next level. It is now the roots of Mrs. Corish's Online Book Club. Students use the forms they completed after reading a book for the Caterpillar program to write a summary of the book. They include their opinion of the book and any recommendation they have for reading the book. They have learned to create their account for the blog and post their summaries on the blog. Students have had such a good time reading and commenting on each other's postings.