Changing Gears

This year I challenged myself to use more and new technology.  It was a slow start in the beginning, but I have made some big changes lately.  One large change was switching from email to Edmodo as the means of classroom communication.  This has been a beneficial change and one that the students have embraced.  When I originally stated last year to a tech committee that I decided to stop using email some people did not agree.  It seems now though they would have to reconsider their opposition when looking at comments recently made by Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, that only 11% of teens email daily.  Edmodo has also allowed me to stream line my grading and classroom discussion.  Here is an example of a classroom discussion that was held via Edmodo, “Leave it on or Turn it off.”

While using Edmodo I found I needed a better way to get my instructions to students with little interruption from me.  I finally decided to start using my school issued website and got my butt in gear.  I found that I could use a built-in calendar function and PDFs to tell students what they need to do in a fast and productive manner.  So far this has been working pretty well and students seem to be catching on.  You can see what I have so far by clicking this link: Assignment Sheets.

The last thing I have only recently started doing is screen capture videos.  This past summer I found myself doing tech trainings for my school district on how to use Microsoft Office 2010 and our new Microsoft network.  It became apparent I needed to do something more then just printouts of instructions and looked into screen capture software.  I came across a program called Jing from a fellow educator and have found it to be excellent!  The free version (which I have been using) creates video screen captures with audio in 5 minute segments in ShockWave Flash format.  It has worked seamlessly so far and is easy to use.  I only recently created a video for more students on how to create Block Style Letters.  This seemed to make a big difference in class and students seemed to really like it!  I am polling them next week in Edmodo, so numbers to come soon.

Well, that is about all I have achieved so far in the first 3 weeks of school.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that everything keeps going smoothly.

Computers Syllabus

This year I decided to try and create a visual representation of my syllabus instead of just having a hand out.  Please comment positives and/or negatives!  Sorry for the short blog, but school starts tomorrow!  Oh, I used Animoto to create the video and PowerPoint to create the slides (the slides were saved as jpgs).

Computers Syllabus.