Enthusiasm + Technology = !!!

Well, my final project is ready for submission.   A couple classmates have checked it out for me and it seems to work- woo hoo!   I am happy to be done, and looking forward to writing lots more webquests… I may even get my students to write them for younger kids… I think that would be really fun…

This class was the most challenging, by far, that I’ve taken, but it was also my favorite– what’s that say to us teachers?!

If you are interesting in seeing my siteyou should be able to access it at  http://sites.google.com/site/mrslindsaystkmwebquest/

Well, here’s the wrap up… ECOMP 6008 is drawing to a close and I am feverishly working on my final project.  I have taken on the awesome task of creating a webquest.   Webquests are something I have wanted to do for a long time, but I never had the (dare I say it?) motivation to get started.  Some of it was time, but a lot of it was just not having a clue how to start.   I must admit that through the reading we did in 6008, and the activities, I found the confidence to give it a real try.   The first thing I did was search out some authoring software– learning HTML, and making my little site using HTML was an experience that I am not crazy enough to repeat when there are so many alternatives out there.  I ended up using Google because I usually find them to be user friendly.   Organizing has been a little tricky, but gathering materials has been much easier.   So many of the excercises I do at the beginning of To Kill a Mockingbird are gleaned from the Internet–now it’s just in one place and way more technological!  (My students will like it, I hope!)

This class has been really eye opening for me.  I have worked very hard on the assignments, and have been rewarded by a lot of learning.   My confidence with technology has increased very much as we created blogs, did some social networking and instant messaging.  I doubt I’ll do much IM work with my students, but I am excited to do much more telecommuting with them.   I have already established a “getting to know you” email that I’ll send as school starts.   I would like to encourge them to complete their journals on line somehow, but I’m not sure 70 extra blogs on the Internet is a good idea.   Perhaps a Wiki with a discussion board is the answer– I think many eighth graders would like to read each other’s thoughts on topics…  Unfortunately, sometimes journal prompts are the way students alert me to things going on that I need to know.   Maybe I could include the option of emailing me a response rather than posting it. I guess I’ll have to think more on that. 

One thing I really appreciated in ECOMP 6008 was the communication and support I received from my professor and classmates.   Matthew provided a lot of feedback, and helped when I asked.   The casual manner with which he led us encouraged us to be comfortable and social, too.   I always enjoyed our discussions and apperciated all the ideas that circulated.  

Overall, this was my favorite Lesley class.  I worked harder on this one than on any other and I feel richly rewarded. 

My thanks to Matthew and my classmates… Maybe I’ll see you again in 7100?

This morning my husband, Mark, had to return a call his brother, who lives about 200 yards down our driveway.   As he dialed Tim’s cell phone, MY cell phone began ringing.  Of course, my husband realized his error and redialed.  When their conversation ended, I smiled at Mark and said, “I’m here in the next room, you could have just said my name.”

This made me think about households and how things may have changed since so many of us have incorporated technology into our lives.   Are the days of yelling, “Dinner’s ready!” from the bottom of the stairs gone?   Do parents text their kids:  ”Wash hands.  Set Table.”  (I can see it working better in many cases!)?

Remember when intercoms were super cool and only rich people had them?   Boy, have we come  a long way!

I am done with the HTML assignment!  It was pretty amazing– I had no idea what goes into creating a webpage.  The biggest problem I had was linking the webpage to the Lesley server, but I figured it out!  I know that in the future I’ll use some sort of webpage software (so much easier), but learning the HTML was really very cool.   I like how logical it is in that you have to open and close commands.   My little site is very basic, and still had a lot of code– I cannot imagine what the codes look like for pages and pages of websites!  

This was a pretty cool experience– frustrating at times, but the AHA moment was awesome!

One more thought… My four year-old daughter and my three and five year old nieces are here playing school… They have a big elaborate scene, with bookbags and snacks,and dress up clothes.. one is the teacher, two are the students.   The five year old is walking them through the day (she’s been to preschool, you see).   It is all wonderful to listen to….

The question I have is this:  Why is it that in a 2000 square foot house, with a playroom downstairs, the upstairs hall and Kate’s bedroom, the girls insist on their school being in our bathroom?

The recent assignment on online projects and activities really got me thinking about webquests.   I have always wanted to create a webquest, but felt like it would take way too much time–something I feel very protective of!   As I explored the Internet, I found some very cool ideas, and I think that a webquest would be very cool for my students to complete.  The unit I would most like to create a webquest for is To Kill a Mockingbird, but I wonder if I could also do something similar for a grammar review.   So many people can’t stand grammar, and a fun quest might be just the thing to make it all so much better.   I could begin with a series of questions about what the parts of speech are and how to use them correctly.   I could do the same for punctuation.    Later, maybe I could include a project that shows just how much my studnets have learned.

I was also thinking about asking the kids in my computer class to create webquests for  younger kids.   Perhaps we could find out what books they read in 3rd grade and create webquests about those books?   

More integration of technology– this is my hope and dream!

P.S.  In a previous post I said I stumbled upon the way to write a new page… yeah… I just saw that it is almost impossible to stumble there– it is a HUGE button!   Sigh…  That’s embarassing.

Today I have been working since 9am on the yearbook supplement for the graduates of 2008.   I had wanted to get this to them in July, but my life (and summer!) called and I am now finally getting to it.   Well, WHAT A PROJECT!   The day began with a former student and I copying, cutting and pasting photographs into word documents– We were just about to head to Staples to copy the books for assembly when we realized one page wasn’t done!  Of course it was photos that weren’t on my laptop…so, we trudged in to school with my 2 and 4 year old kids, downloaded photos and proceded to copy the pages we could on the photocopier.  By then it was noon and my children were starving.  A quick (too long in my stressed opinion) lunch at McDonald’s brought us to Staples after 1PM….   My laptop wouldn’t cooperate there, and my flashdrive was formatted for our PC and unrecognizable (?) to the Mac…  We left the photocopied pages there and agreed to submit the photo pages on line.

It is now 6:30PM… I have done that, and the wonderful people at Staples just  called to tell me that there is a problem with their software.   They asked me to now email the pages… No problem… EXCEPT… apparently these are big files and are taking FOREVER to attach in my emails…

I have a feeling this will end up being a 12 hour job… Then we still have to assemble, address and mail….  sigh…

I do love technology, but maybe it is a bad thing when we become too dependent on it.   What ever happened to hand cropping photographs, and using gluesticks to make a yearbook?   It doesn’t really matter– I wouldn’t go back now for anything!
 

Okay, this is going to be a totally random post, but I was just thinking about a few things and want to write them down somewhere.

My husband is watching the history channel (we’re big fans!)–a show about Abraham Lincoln.   I half tuned in a minute ago as they talked about Lincoln’s death.   The narrator said, “And Stanton said, ‘Now he belongs to the angels.’”   I looked at Mark, and said, “I thought it was ‘ages.’”   In the next line, the narrator said, “It was decided that angels didn’t sound right, so the word was changed to ‘ages.’   That is how history remembers it.”   I thought that was funny.

It reminded me of my freshman year of high school– we performed the play, George M! the story of George M. Cohan.   I enjoyed his biography (auto?) and learned about when he wrote “You’re a Grand old Flag.”   Apparently, he was on a train with an old soldier–one of the two men had a flag on their lap and the soldier said, “She’s a grand old rag, isn’t she?”   Originally the song was written that way, but someone decided that calling the flag a rag was disrespectful… and now we sing, flag!  Good story!

What stories do you know?

So, we’ve been discussing hoaxes and viruses in class and therefore the words are on my mind.   Today I sat down to do some work on the computer and put the TV on for a little background “music.”   I settled on The History Channel, and happened upon Dead Men’s Secrets: Operation Bodyguard-D-Day Deception, which is a very good episode that discusses the hoaxes that were created by Allied forces during World War II.  These hoaxes provided the Nazis with false informtion and caused them to change their battle tactics, leading, of course to Allied victories.   Some of the most famous hoaxes include the inflatable army and the drowned marine with “important” documents.   

It made me think about the hoaxes we’ve been discussing and the differences between now and then.  How interesting it is to use hoaxes during that war to save millions of lives and to use hoaxes today to cause panic, upset and frustration on computers.  

In my research I found some cool sites:   http://www.strangeharvest.com/mt/archive/blog/military_decept.php

http://thinkorthwim.com/2007/08/19/1034/

Enjoy!

So I was just wandering around the pageflakes site reading blogs and commenting and I realized that many of us don’t have our name anywhere on the page.   I did notice that for some blogs, our names appear in the URL, but for others, it’s nearly anonymous.   I found myself not wanting to comment–which is weird, I know.   I was thinking, “What if I make a motherhood comment to a Dad?” or comment about the 1980s to someone who is younger or older than I am?  I am going to see if I can add some sort of box or something that has my name in it so people will know that this blog belongs to…. me….

Later…  Hey, I did it!  It was a widget!  ”I did it, I did it, I did it in a widget…”  That reminds me of an old Hall and Oats song… You 30-somethings out there should get that!