I hope this helps

I've deliberated about writing this post but it is something that has been bugging me and so here goes.
My posts may not always reflect it but I know that there are a lot of good things about our education system.

1. It has produced all of the wonderful, hard-working, competent, dedicated teachers that are involved in this MEd. and many more besides,
2. Our initiative makes the obstacles we as teachers face, look like a 2-piece jigsaw puzzle
3. We want the best for our students, not just academically, we want them to be everything they want to be and more

I accept that there is a lot that we've learned, and a lot that we want to share. The thing is a whole session was held on the format of a blog that would capture and hold the reader's attention, adult, child, teacher, student, and on and on.

If we as teachers do not model and implement what we want our students to do, we can become as technologically literate and brilliant as we want to be it won't help as much as it should.

Can we start with our blog posts please?
My emphasis is not on content but on delivery so don't think that I'm flaming anyone. In other words you don't have to agree or disagree, you can just leave it be.

Although I wasn't there I understand from the online notes that Audacity was used. This is an excellent and easy way to add any kind of audio - music, voice, effects to a wide variety of media (ppt, video) for use with students. Just remember to save your files in the correct format, wav or mp3 (wav is smaller in size).
Here are some good reviews http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/Top100Tools/audacity.html and the simplest how-to online tutorial that I could find (without writing it myself) http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Audacity.
Experiment that's the only way you'll get it right!

A few ideas to add to your digital storytelling

I've been thinking about the sessions on digital storytelling and was trying to figure out where I've used something similar, although not for the same purpose. This site http://www.infotoday.com/MMSchools/jan02/banaszewski.htm gives a good idea of how you can use iMovie (a Macintosh program) to get students involved in the creation of their own stories.
The whole process is not as complex as you might think and it is outlined very simply on this page. Most people will not own a Mac but other options are:

• Windows Moviemaker is similar and as easy to use
• Windows 7 has muvee (which I have not used)

I also found this http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/StoryTools which does give some good (and some not so good) free online programs to create a story.

• # 53 Slideshare is good and simple
• # 65 Zooburst looks way cool!

As always the most important thing to remember is to synchronize your objectives and your teaching strategy/ies so that students not only have fun and are interested, but learn!

E-books and learning

This site http://www.neirtec.org/reading_report/report.htm has a bunch of useful information about the use of technology to help children to read. I am especially interested in the use of e-books to improve fluency.

The good points about e-books include

• being a good model of fluent oral reading
• in-built help with decoding
• visual highlighting of text to aid in reading with expression
• different levels enable readers to challenge themselves
• speech recognition
• assessments can lead to further instructional designs

Hope that I can produce some quality work in this area to help my own students.

Still learning!

Learned a lot from yesterday's class. Who knew blog formatting could be so crucial?
To reflect my newly-found knowledge I have:

• Changed the post header colour & font size
• Darkened the post text colour
• Changed the page layout
• Started using bullets

Lastly, new posts will definitely be shorter.
Check here for some suggestions http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20060125/2865/
I like the last one the best!

Jeez, my manners are totally non-existent these days. A special thanks to Lisha for your comment and becoming a follower of this blog. Hope to hear from you again soon!

The usefulness of blogs in teaching

I came across this article, http://www.rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/cho4462z9.htm, which made me understand more clearly not only the purpose of blogs in education, but some of the philosophy behind their usage.

The learner-focused blog which allows students to interact with their peers as well as the instructor appears to be the most suitable. The idea is for classmates to help one another through collaboration and discussion, hopefully with a good deal of research somewhere in between.  

Let me state right now that I am a big fan of technology - I'm not a tech-junkie, but I know that I couldn't live without all the everyday devices we know and love so well - starting with my (sometimes) trustworthy computer. Blogs, wikis, podcasts, all this terrific stuff that is supposed to be used by me to help students be better readers.

Guess what, I don't teach in a school "behind God back", but I am a realist and an optimist. I know that it will take some time for many of my students to become familiar, and then comfortable with the use of technology. And I'm going to have to be the one to teach them this too.      

If there is one thing this M. Ed. should have done a better job at it is this, give me some solid ideas about how to integrate the non-tech with the tech stuff. After all if my students don't know how to spell 'enter' can I really tell them to press the 'enter' key now?

ABTW there are two of these on a keyboard!