IMicca...do U?

This week was the MICCA conference in Baltimore. The highland Park STEP Team was in attendance. I enjoyed most of the workshops that I attended. I didn't really realize how much of a market there is for technology intergrationin the classroom. It felt good to know that my school had alot of the tools that were being advertised: from the Interwrite board to the clickers. My school has really embraced the technology era and is making a steadfast effort to ensure that we have full intergration in instruction.

I-Station VoiceThread-Day 1

Today my third graders and I started gathering our thoughts for my Voicethread project. Students were very excited to hear that they were going to record their thoughts and feelings about the reading intervention program. I modeled how to record a voice using the headphones. Their faces lit up when I played back my voice. It was extremely funny to me and exciting to them.

Tech Tip 4/19/09

www.docs.google.com

Online documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

Podcast

The voicethread program is very interesting and useful. This is a very creative way to get the students engaged in learning. Allowing them to post information, share, and listen to each other's opinions is a good way to make the students feel apart of learning. Providing an opportunity for the students to hear or read each other's response creates a sense of competition because the next person wants to be better than the last.

Furthermore, podcasting is another method that can be used to assess student knowledge without all the hustle and bustle of grading papers. This gives teachers instant feeback on whether or not a lesson was effective.

Podcasting Session

Today we discussed Podcasting and how it can be used for administrators, teachers and students. We focused mainly on Voice Threads as a means of Podcasting. The overview, video clips and viewing of current Voice Threads provided an opportunity to better understand this topic. The hands-on experience of creating and commenting as well as the discussion provided an additional opportunity to develop a plan to be utilized at the individual school.

Tech Tip 4/12/09

Teachers were sent the Wheel of Fortune Powerpoint to use in the classroom.

Tech Tip 4/3/09

www.miccaonline.org/workshops/workshops.html

Gain certification while furthering your knowledge of integrating technology in the classroom.