I feel like I just took a crash course on a plethara of technology tools I can use with my kids in my classroom. Perhaps its good that I waited until the end of the summer to do this professional development, as it will be relatively fresh on my mind. I know it will be the catalyst to bring about changes in my classroom. I am excited to get to try some of the new tools that I learned.
Student to student communication, student to teacher communication, and teacher to student communication will be enhanced as we use wikis and google docs. I can easily apply these tools on a regular basis in both my language arts and social studies classes.
I want to try some of the visual tools. I think glogster will be highly appealing to the kids as an alternative learning assessment. There are also some other tech products on Big Huge Labs that I would like to introduce the kids to. Eventually, I want my students to choose the product that will best suit their needs and interests as a way to display their learning.
I'd like to try doing Skype at least one time this year with my class. Since we study world cultures, I think it would be a great experience for the kids to have a discussion with a class in another country. I feel confident they would come away with new insights and perspectives of the world.
While I had heard about some of these tech tools, such as wikis, I wasn't quite sure what they were or even more how to apply them in my classroom. Now, I have the confidence and understanding of integrating the various technology as part of best practices. I am excited to move foward and try some of my new tricks in my teaching bag.
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