Google for ELL parents

Did you know that you can change the language of a website?

If you go to Google, to the right of the search box, there is a hyperlink for "Language Tools". Once you click on that, you can change the language of the website you are searching.

Good idea to share with our bilingual parents so that they can feel comfortable using our school websites.

New Goal!

This is a perfect example of setting a goal and then needing to change it!

I signed up for "11.5 Things" (online challenge to explore new Web 2.0 tools), got distracted with my Master Teacher Program, and didn't finish by deadline. So I am starting a new goal of trying to complete the remainder of the "Things" on my own. It is a wonderful opportunity to see what is changing in the tech field.

Thing #2 for 11.5

I love Wordle! (See my previous post) I think the students could use this after creating a composition to see if they focused on the main idea.

Glogster is definitely something I want to use in my classroom. I like that there is a way to keep a classroom private. I think the students will need to complete some pre-planning/brainstorming or it will take too long. I created one for my Master Teacher program and it was very easy once you learned the tools.

http://aggieteacher.glogster.com/Listserv-project/

Voki was fun. I created a speaking avatar and embedded on this blog. The students could use the "text to speech" feature to send a composition to the teacher. They could listen to the avatar and check their writing to see if that's what they meant to write.

Bookr has lots of possibilities in the classroom. My concern is keeping the students from discovering inapproprate pictures from flickr.

Wordle

I am such a Maroon-blooded Aggie!

http://www.wordle.net/

You copy some text and paste it into the create
page. It can be text you type or text you copy
from a web page. The more times the word is
mentioned the bigger it becomes.

Thing #1

I believe our students will need to continue to educate themselves over and over again during their lifetimes. The student in the video definitely exists in our classrooms and we as classroom teachers need to guide them as the teacher in the video. The librarian as a media specialist should help with the training of the teachers in her building. She should be a resource for the teachers and the students.

I'm back!

OK...I have neglected my blog. It seemed like I stayed thrown off all year due to Hurricane Ike. Now that it's summer, I hope to get into a habit of posting again. I am a strong believer in continuing self-education and I have decided spending some time @ the beach might help! Since I am a classroom teacher, my viewpoint will be integrating the technology in my classroom. I am still working on my Master Teacher of Technology @ Texas A&M so I am hoping I will find some inspiration for some of my coursework.
I can hear the waves crashing on the beach.

Check it out: http://library2play2.blogspot.com/

Use of Wiki in Educational Setting

We have been using a wiki for our book study. We are reading Strategies That Work. We use it to share websites, picture books or novels we can use. We have a file of strategy lessons that we can print and use in our classroom. Because it is not on the intranet, everyone can get to the ideas from home at any time. We are also writing comments of our thoughts as we read the book.