I have come pretty far in my journey through this world of Web 2.0 tools. I started as a novice grad student, who thought I was doing a great job of "integrating technology" by simply having my students surf the net and go to a website during reading group rotations. I still do these things on a daily basis. I love Spelling City, a great site where students can go to practice spelling words. I use this not only during the day, but also as a choice in their weekly spelling contract.
However, I have quickly learned that to truly use technology, I must expand my view of technology. Students are not using technology if they are simply sitting in front of a laptop or computer. They may be technically using it, but are they really using it effectively?
Now that I have been exposed to so many different tools, I am slowly trying to use these tools. One such tool is VoiceThread. I have taken small steps each year, reflectively thinking about ways I can use it more effectively. I am now eliciting the help of parents for my students to practice their fluency. This decision was made through much thinking about the lack of resources and time to fully use the website. I am excited to use this with my students on a regular basis, and really think it will have a great impact on their oral reading fluency.
Even though I am just starting this next step, I have already begun to look beyond and look for more ways to improve. I found this section of the VoiceThread 4 Education wiki, where teachers can post contact information so they can connect with different classrooms throughout the country. I think this would be a great start to safely open up my students VoiceThread projects to a larger audience.
I have continued to do more research, and found a great VoiceThread for Educators Ning, which I have joined. I have only started to explore the site, but I have already found some great discussions and posts.
Of all I have learned through my experiences with the Web 2.0 universe, my biggest lesson has to continually reflect upon my practice. Just as we have moved from a traditional paper and pencil classroom into the world of Web 2.0, this Web 2.0 world will continue to evolve. The only way I can keep up is to continue to educate myself, research these new tools, and figure out how to successfully use them in my own classroom.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Blog #2-Research and the Reflective Practitioner
Posted by scurry at 3:24 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I can empathize with your feelings about how opening the world of web 2.0 possibilites is both humbling in the scope of possibilies and eye opening in what could be possible. Finding the balance between tools and processes that enrich and not replace what works in any educational endeavor is paramount to an effective and efficient use of any new approach to teaching.
Do your students' parents read your blog? You should put a "badge" from the voicethread ning on your blog so that people can see that you are a member of it and the members of the ning go to your blog to read it....just one more way to make "connections"!. This will be a great way to connect your students and take the voicethread one step further on the Bloom's Digital Taxonomy. Instead of it just being them putting their voice in the Voicethread, maybe there will be some collaboration from a distance involved! Keep us informed - this is exciting!!
I agree that we must continue to make the move towards being profient in all of this new technology. We have to take a look at ourselves and our understanding and utilization of these tools if we ourselves want to keep up!!
I totally agree. This is a never ending learning process when it comes to Web 2.0. I feel like there are so many possible ways I can go with learning this information, that the road is never ending. In a way it is exciting, but in another way it is a bit scary. Things change so quickly that it will be hard to keep up with the times!
Post a Comment