Too Much Time on Their Hands

It has come to my attention, via 10 emails, that I have not blogged for a few days. Things must be really desperate if all you live for is reading my useless rambings! So...I thought I'd better post before I receive another 10!

Recently, I spent some time experimenting with something called voicethreads. I know that many of you thought I was just wasting time. I hate to disappoint you all, but I was actually doing school work. Unfortunately, you all were just guinea pigs!

At school right now, I am working on social responsibility with my two social studies classes. The main focus of our unit is the Holocaust. From there we are talking about all sorts of issues. My intent with voicethreads is to start a discussion board with my students. Just like I did in my experiment, I can upload a video or picture and invite my classes to have a discussion about what they are looking at or reading. I think that this might turn out to be a very valuable tool and am very excited about trying it out. That's what I'll be spending my weekend working on.

I know...now who doesn't have a life?????????????????

On Being a Life-Long Learner

Since I began my SFU course in January, I have been exploring the world of the internet as an educational tool. Who knew that there was a world outside of e-mails and spider solitaire! I can't believe all the things I've learned. The only problem is that now I belong to so many sites, I have to write everything down so I remember my usernames and passwords. It would make life a lot easier if I could use the same ones for all sites. But oh no! Some sites want numbers, some sites want capitals, some want my first-born!

Anyways, here's some sites I've been exploring:

• education/glogster


• animoto


• voicethread


• Lit to Go


• Prezi.com


• photo laboratory


• educational blogs


• delicious.com


• google documents


• introduction to podcasts


• wordle


• freemind


• widgets

And the list goes on. Have I really explored these? Of course not! Who has time for that. I've spent most of my time joining these sites; I haven't a clue what I'm doing!!!!!

Hopefully, in the next little while, I'll be able to actually try these out. I'll keep you posted on what I learn! Perhaps I'll even send you links to things like my e-portfolio that I'm supposed to have started!

In the meantime, hang in there! I promise I'll share!

The academic world!

I've just finished reading 80 billion articles on self-reflection and have discovered one thing! I am very tired of thinking! I think I'll reflect on the fact that I need some good sleep and a spa day! Surely by the age of 43, I've done enough self-reflection.

Actually, the articles all have to do with self-reflection of your teaching practice. The articles also dealt with being critical of what you do. As teachers I think that this is a given. I know that I'm not perfect (damn near close to it, though!). There are a lot of ideas I have floating around in my head that I'd like to try with my students. However, it's quite difficult when the resources aren't there.

Alas, I digress...that's a totally different blog!