Thing 23

My plan of attack for the remainder of the 2008-2009 school year is pretty much the same as before I started 23 things. A lot of the 23 things are above first graders. I did see a few sites where first grade classes are creating podcasts using songs and poetry. We only have about 6 weeks left and I may try having the class recite the pledge and use it to create a podcast.

Personally I will use many of the things I learned about. Even now I use my delicious page on a regular basis. I use it to research other information about money related matters. It has connected me to a lot of other peoples tags concerning money and finance. My wife is hooked on Flikr. She wants to store our pictures using it. She was fascinated, as was I, with the ability to alter the photo using Picnik and Dumpr. My oldest son was watching with great interest as I created my state Wiki page and even started helping put it together. My children also enjoyed the short podcast I had to put together. They want to create one too.

Professionally and pedagogically this course really has made me think about my teaching style and what changes I need to make to better reach my students especially if I begin to move up grade levels. When I am helping out with bus duty the first thing I see when upper elementary and middle school students hit the exit doors is cell phones, ipods, and other devices that are not allowed to be used in school. I think schools really need to update the policies regarding the above devices and teachers need to really need to begin investigating what kids are into so they can reach them better. Change is scary especially if you have been doing the same things for the past 10, 15, 30 plus years. The truth is that things have changed and continue to at a faster and faster rate. We as teachers need to harness the new technologies that the students are using and incorporate it into our curriculum. Teachers, myself included, need to step outside the box and take a look at teaching in a new light.

23 things has given me a glimpse of what is out there and I plan to tell my peers and coworkers about 23 things. I have already mentioned and shown some of the work I had to do to a few people and they were impressed with all the things I was learning about. Hopefully that will grab their interest and make them want to try new things. I believe as I use some of the 23 things in my classrooms now and in the future some of my peers will warm to the ideas and take interest in it too. I have been thinking about educating parents on some of the applications that we use in school via the use of the school computer labs. If the parents are on board and get a glimpse of what we use in school than that will only strengthen what I am trying to do in the classroom because the parents will have a better understanding of it.

It is difficult to gauge to what extent I will use the 23 things in my classroom because I do not know what I will be teaching next year. It could be Kindergarten, fourth grade, or even middle school. Generally speaking I would like to use and create classroom podcasts. In the upper grades I will incorporate blogs and make a class Wiki page. I will also research how others are using podcasts, Wikis, blogs, and other technologies in the classroom and try to incorporate it bit by bit into my curriculum. Like the saying goes “You can get anywhere one step at a time.” As I get a better feel for what is out there and learn about it I will slowly add more and more to my curriculum.

I still want to learn what twitter is all about. I hear and read of athletes, politicians, and others twittering and I feel like I am out of the loop. I’ll look it up online and check out what it is about. I know there is a bunch of stuff out there that I am not aware of. I’ll pay attention to what I hear and read about then look it up online or sign up for “23 more things” hopefully in the near future.

As for staying in touch with the current participants through a “PLN”, we could continue our blogs. Members could blog what they are up to and the new and exciting things that they have tried in their classrooms that really enhanced/engaged student learning. Maybe create a Wiki page where member could put comments, ideas, videos, podcasts, etc…

In closing, I learned a lot of things that I had no clue about before. I did feel overwhelmed or in the web 2.0 “cloud” at times. The class was presented in a manner that was easy to follow and broke it down into step by step increments. It was a lot of work and I did get frustrated but in the end it was well worth it. This course enabled me to learn about Wikis, podcasts, web 2.0, RSS, Flikr, and many other things. I got to learn, explore, and best of all create things using what I had learned. This course has provided me with tools that I can add to my tool box and can access and use at a personal and professional level.