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Well, one week in and so far so good. I haven't really done much work with Google applications yet so feel like I am learning some new "stuff." This is my first experience with blogging so I'm excited about that.
I work primarily with Early Years students right now so am always trying to find a way to make these ICT applications work for them with their very early developing skills. Many of my students do now have access to computers at home so school is their only exposure so far. We have been doing some with with Photostory and Moviemaker and just this year have gained access to Mimio's in some of our classrooms. Our school division has also installed LCD projectors in all EY classrooms as they feel that teachers can meet all of their students ICT outcomes with them. I am always looking for good sites that we can use with our students, using the LCD and Mimio technology.
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ICT for Teachers - 584143techie
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- 584143techie
- I am a Student Service Teacher who does Literacy Support for K-4 students and Behaviour Support for students from K-8. I have been teaching at my current school for the last 5 years and prior to that I was a West Coast girl, born and raised and never in a million years thought that I would end up living in Winnipeg, MB. I am currently 2 courses shy of completing my Grad Dip and will be transferring everything into the Masters course route when I'm done. One of my passions is promoting multiage classrooms. I Co-Chair the Manitoba Association of Multiage Educators and love collaborating and finding different kinds of PD opportunities to share with fellow multiage teachers in Manitoba.
Oops...that would be....many of my students Do Not have access to computers at home.
ReplyDeleteExcellent Lynn. I am always on the watch for ICT things for different levels. PikiWiki is an application that I thought might be good for early and middle years. http://pikiwiki.com/ews/index.jsp
ReplyDeleteI've been very impressed with the idea of Mimio and other infrared projectors that don't require the expensive specialized board. See also the Boxlight projector. It works from a remote, no special device required other than infrared pointers and pens.
Our school division has also been trying the Wii as an alternative to Smart Board type technology. I haven't had any experience using this yet..but am interested to see how teachers are using it.
ReplyDeleteThis is also my first experience with blogging Lynn - I started my own blog and then thought it would be really nice to see somebody else's as I've never done this sort of thing before.
ReplyDeleteI teach high school math and science (Physics and Chemistry) and not all my students have access to computers at home so while I want and try to incorporate technology into my lessons I have to be careful not to expect them to finish off at home.
Our school division are about to pilot the use of individual netbooks/cheap laptops with wireless networking throughout the school - this would eliminate the need for a computer lab and the frustration of finding the computer lab fully booked - however bot sure what will happen when a student forgets their netbook/laptop like they forget their text books. It will be interesting to see how and if it works!
Our school elimated our computer lab this year and the teacher's chose to have computer pods in their classrooms instead. The Division then decided that the MY classrooms would share a laptop cart. In the beginning of the year the teachers signed up for the cart at differnt times in their day as their students required them but found that it really didn't work as inevitably some of the computers wouldn't work, the server would go down etc. etc. The teachers have now chosen to divide up the laptops between their classrooms so that they also have something like a pod to use everyday. These computers are left at school. I know there is talk of providing laptops to all students in grades 5-7 but there is a lot of discussion around that right now as the classroom teachers need to be ready to implement this effectively.
ReplyDeleteI went to an amazing session on Teaching Struggling Readers in the 21st Century about a month ago and she had some amazing suggestions of sites to use with students. I will post information so that people in this course can take a look.
We use a laptop cart in our school as well, but have found the same problems. We are currently looking into purchasing a few netbooks for each classroom. This would add to the stand alones each classroom has. I'm not sure what the solution is!
ReplyDeleteI am also an early years teacher...literacy support. I am hoping that I will learn some new ways to differentiate instruction, using ICT, for struggling readers. I would love to learn more about the inservice you mentioned.
ReplyDeletehttp://promiseintopractice.pbworks.com/Manitoba+Reading+Association+-+April+2010
ReplyDeleteThis is the link for the session that I attended. The speaker was Dr. Sarah Kajder and she had some amazing sites to share that she uses with her Grade 7 students. I have been trying out a few of them with my younger students. We are currently working on developing Fairy Tale Book Trailers as a culminating activity for our Fairy Tale Unit and the kids are loving it. Also have you had any experience using Destination Reading? I have been using the program for the last year and find it is really great, especially using Mimio and our LCD projectors.
Hi,This is also my first attempt with a blog and am very excited about it. It is nice to actually be able to use some of the technology that people keep talking about. I am a kindergarten teacher and have not exposed my class to much time on the computers this year. I have one very slow working one in my classroom and it is too frustrating to get it going. The grade 1 to 8 classrooms all have projectors but Kindergarten did not get one. I think that it would have be a great way to intoduce computers to my Ks. What is a mimio?
ReplyDeleteHi Lynne,
ReplyDeleteI added your blog as one I would like to follow. As you can see in the process I did something wrong and you have me listed twice as a follower. Sorry to have messed up your Blog page but I do not know how to fix it.
Lots to learn.
Wow...this week has been crazy and so this is the first chance since Wednesday night that I have had the opportunity to sit and check my Blog and do some work.
ReplyDeleteKim, a Mimio is a tool that, when used with an LCD projector, can convert any white board...or even a white piece of paper on a wall to become interactive. You can download different galleries in all subject areas that have some excellent tools for students to use. It is cheaper than a Smart board so our school was able to purchase them for all 4 of our 7/8 multiage classrooms and we have several others that we use around the building as portable units. All of our classrooms now have LCD projectors and white boards installed so this has opened up the use of the Mimeo in any classroom in our building. Our 1/2 multiage teachers have also purchased wireless keyboards and mice this year to assist them in using this technology from anywhere in their classrooms. Lots of fun playing and trying out different sites with the kids and the interactive piece has been fantastic for those students who have such a hard time doing seat work. I have also had success using this technology with one of my students who has Cerebral Palsy and has limited fine motor skills. He is able to use the fatter pens and styllus on the white board with more success than paper pencil, or he also has the option of dragging pictures on the white board using his hands. It has opened up opportunities for him that we never had really thought of before.
This year our school has implemented Responsive Classroom, which is basically a model that uses class meetings to build positive social communities in classrooms and schools. Many of our teachers are using the the Mimio technology during their meetings as a tool for interactive messages and other activities.
I am really excited after our class the other night to learn about Zotero. I wish I had known about this program before now as I can really see it as a smarter way to do research and work on papers. Thank goodness I'm only half way done....and can still put all of these fabulous tools to good use as I finish up course work and start my thesis. Well, I guess I should go and do a little work on this paper now. Talk to everyone tomorrow.
Enjoyed class today but oh my goodness, I'm feeling quite overwhelmed by all of this. I have been trying to play with Zotero but think I need some help as I can't seem to figure out how to get the articles I'm finding to go into my Zotero account. I'm super stubborn so am determined to figure this out...Diigo is downloaded and I'm looking forward to playing around with that too.
ReplyDeleteO.K. after much playing around I have had some success with Zotero, Delicious, and Diigo. I too though am a bit apprehensive about using CClean as I don't want to lose a bunch of files that are important. I'm hoping we can talk about this program a little more on Wednesday before I do any cleaning. Anyone else used it yet and have some input?
ReplyDeleteO.K. I did it. I CCleaned my computer and nothing bad happened. Not that I didn't trust you Glen but I did hold my breath while I pressed the button. Now I'm Twittering and had a follower within about 10 seconds. Kind of scary! Now looking for fellow teachers to Tweet with...
ReplyDeleteGreat to see this much conversation in the blog comments!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you are more confident in CCleaner but I completely understand your hesitation.