Joining in the exploration

Ideas, ideas, ideas, that is what I got from reading all my colleagues blogs. Idea sharing, and support from the comments given, very positive and energetic. The process of writing the blog feeds into the this idea generation as well. It forces one to consider what is possible and evaluate what has been tried or in the context of this class learned. To borrow a phrase from Nick, I am excited about the possibilities. It occurs to me that I very much like the idea of discovery learning. (This is not a shot at Louis who has been a great support!) So far I have learned a lot and been taught very little. I have been asked to discover and experiment in order to understand the different technologies we are working with. I have been exploring how they work and generating ideas of possible uses in my classroom. Even more lately I have been thinking how much I like having the opportunity to explore and learn as compared to being "taught" and how this might translate or apply to the experience my high school students have in my online class.

Specifically this week I started using a social bookmarking system; Delicious. I had also decided to use Firefox as a browser, which incidentally runs some of my online work application better. I bounce between my desktop computer and my laptop computer all the time, whether it is so I can sit in my easy chair and grade hundreds of exams while watching the birds at the feeder or I pop into the Greatest Coffee shop, downtown Hartland to work so I avoided the drowsy effects of grading countless assignments submitted during the last week of the semester as I am doing right now. It the past this meant I would have to send all my links back and forth between computers if I wanted to access them. when I go up north for a 3 day weekend and would realize I don't have my favorites set up on my In-laws computer. Well those days are gone. I added my work and class links to Delicious from each of my computers and now no matter what computer I am on I can access them.

As part of my online class I also set up information links for my student for each topic we study. I have folders of links which I pull up each semester to check on their relevance and whether they are active links. Now I can tag them and have them organized on Delicious. In Addition my students have a assignment choice they can do which asks them to complete an internet search and report on helpful websites they have found. In the past I would fill pages and pages full of these links and then go to each and check them out, adding some to favorites. Now if I find them useful I can tag them in Delicious and have them organized by topic. I have already found ways to save time and get more done.

Ideas, ideas, Ideas they just keep on coming..... I look forward to reading about your ideas as we explore this new virtual environment.

Introductory Post

Week q MEIT program
Welcome to my Blog, to better understand my posts it would behoove you to know that I teach for a virtual high school. I have four classes with varying degrees of difficulty and student numbers. My AP courses are small in number of students but much of their structure is beyond my control. My Biology class consists of a mix of students almost 200 strong. Environmental science has roughly 38 students.
It seems to me the tools being taught during this first class will be very helpful for my interactions with my teaching colleagues. I had just learned about Google doc's in a meeting in December. My department used the Google doc's to produce a rubric for grading research papers. We also used Google doc's to produce a schedule for student projects next year. In my AP class I used the Google Doc's for a survey to find out information concerning number of student's planning on taking this year's AP examinations. This proved very useful. The tools concerning communication and collaboration may or may not be as helpful when working with my student's. I believe class size may inhibit collaborative work biology. This program has already stimulated ideas for incorporating more collaboration in my classes. In particular I am writing curriculum for nest years Environmental science class which usually has between 30-40 students each year and with this number I look forward to implementing many of the collaborative strategies and techniques we will learn in this class
I have not been able to sign into the Stritch Wolfmail system but have an account of my own set up on a different Email app. Hopefully I will be able to collaborate with my assigned group but I am currently waiting on a fix or assigned group.
I have begun the process of comparing Google Doc's word processing and Microsoft Word which is the traditional word processor I use. I am unsure of which Google features to discuss.