You're the inspiration

1. Is Inspiration something you would invest in for your classroom? List some ideas in your content areas where you could incorporate it.
Personally I think that I could come to like Inspiration very much. I think that it could be used for language arts as a story organizer/web. The students could use it to plan out their story elements ahead of time. Or in math the students could use pre-made mini webs to solve word problems, for example each branch could have a different question to help them solve the problem (ie how many did we start with, what function (+,-, x) are we using, how many do we have at the end). Inspiration could also be used in history or science to show progress or a timeline.
The class could also use inspiration to create word walls at the beginning of each new unit to show what they already know about the subject at hand. I know that I have personally created word walls/graffiti walls at the beginning of a new class and it has help tremendously. But I believe that inspiration could make it quicker and easier to do.

2. What are your favorite web resources we covered in class? Which do you think you would use the most? Why and how? Be specific.
I like the word cloud creator. I thought it was a fun and quick way to get everyone thinking. It was also very easy so that anyone could do it. I also stand by the fact that I love Diigo, the social bookmarking site. I would use it as previously mentioned as a way to stay in touch with parents. I think that it is a great tool to use to keep the family involved. It also give the students a steady base connection with the class. Now a days there are so many children who have baby sitters, stay with a relative after school, or come from a split home; with a social bookmarking site the child will never accidently leave homework at someone else’s house and it will also never be lost. Even if the child were to forget a study aid they could just check Diigo and find the material online. I also like social bookmarking for the older students as an honesty check in. They can show the progress they are making on different projects and it also lists all of their sources so they cannot plagiarize.
If I was teacher to a slightly older crowd I would say that blogger would be the best, but I believe that second graders may have a bit of trouble using blogger at home, especially if their parents are like mine and have no idea what a blog is yet alone how to make one work.

Social Bookmarking

1. Does Social Bookmarking have an application in your classroom? What are some ways it could benefit you and your students? Could it have helped you in the past? Can it help you now as an Albright Student...how? Be specific in answering all questions.
I personally believe that social bookmarking is an excellent addition to the classroom. Because I am leaning towards a younger classroom age I initially thought that it could be used as a way to involve parents or guardians of the students. A site such a Diigo or delicious would allow the parents who can’t make it in during school time to still be a part of their child’s education and still be very hands on. The social bookmarking could include a teacher’s blog of the potential schedule for the upcoming week or the big accomplishments from the week before.
The students would benefit from the fact that their guardian now knows what is going on in the classroom. The students could also benefit from the extra practice the various websites could supply. Sometimes students are afraid to ask for extra practice/help, but if the teacher were to upload links to extra practice then the child could try and work out the problem on their own. The students also know where to find information for their projects and papers. It makes my job of grading easier because I know that the information that they are using is correct.
Also if my students were doing any kind of research on their own I would want them to create an account and create a separate list for the assignment. This way I would have an immediate copy of their sources. I would be able to fact check and check for plagiarism at top speed. It would be a handy tool for the teacher as well as the student in this case.
Social bookmarking would have been amazing in high school! All of my English classes would type out websites on how to format MLA but the links never worked right. This way the entire class could have the resources at their fingertips. I would have been so happy to have the websites already typed out for me. Also I have had my computer crash several times since I bought it (like twice) but it feels like a million times when you lose all of your information. If I would have used a diigo type site before I could have saved all of websites and all of my sources on a diigo list.
Using Diigo now as an Albright student will be helpful. As a psych co-concentrator I am always researching one thing or another so now I can keep all of my files and sites organized. I can also use diigo as a way to sort out different educational resources for myself or for the future for my classroom.

Blogs in the Classroom

1. Give some specific ideas of how you could incorporate blogs into your classroom. What are the benefits and challenges to using this technology in your classroom? List some.
To use blogging in the classroom would be a wonderful change for the students. It would give them a chance to express themselves in creative new ways that they might not get to use elsewhere. I believe that the most common subject to use a computer with would be English/language arts. The children could each have their own blog and start a book discussion. They could all answer questions about a certain a book and then comment and compare answers with each other. Or in language arts the children could respond to the teacher’s blog of short story prompts. From there the children could critique each others’ work. For science the children could blog the progress of a project. For example I know that every third grade class does a seed project where they cultivate plants from the very beginning. This would be an excellent project to blog about. For history the students could keep a blog about the different characters that are discussed in class. Each night the children could go home and do a journal entry as the person we discussed that day. And finally for math the children could use blogging as a money journal. They could use the blog as a ledger for how much they have spent. They could also use the blog as an application journal; they would take the information used in that days class and explain how they would apply it to the real world.
The benefits of blogging are infinite. Children who blog in the classroom will learn how to use a computer and the internet in a way that could help them with their future career. They are also learning proper internet manners, something that there is no class for in the public school system. The children are also learning how to interact with one another without the teacher’s direct influence. As funny as that sounds the children are improving their people skills.
Blogging does face a few challenges though. Even in today’s high tech world there are still households that do not have a computer set up, and even if the family has a computer they might not have an internet connection. In addition some families are very strict and do not allow their children to be on the internet without their permission. Although these children could continue the project as a regular journal it would not be the same.

2. Why is it important to evaluate websites before using them in the classroom or in research? Do you think most people understand and apply these evaluation techniques? How would you incorporate them into your classroom and student projects? What ways could you teach students evaluation techniques?
A teacher needs to check any source before it is passed on to her students, and this includes web sources. It is important to evaluate an website used for educational reasons because you do not want to use the wrong information. As a teacher you do not want to teach your students wrong, and as a student you do not want to lose points for have incorrect information. I believe that the common person does not know how to evaluate a website correctly. Most people just go to the google and type in their search which can lead to some pretty interesting results. People also rely heavily on the first website they check, but if they are unsure of an answer the rule of thumb I was taught was to check 3 sites to see if they agree.
To teach students the evaluation techniques I would show the different incorrect information from the internet. I would show that things that are obviously wrong like author miscredits or science processes that are completely wrong. I would show them websites based off of what we are learning in class, that way they can compare the information. To teach kids the basic evaluation tools I would pick a different topic each day over the course of a week and go in depth at the beginning of the lesson and then at the end of the week I would have an entire lesson dedicated to a review. I would explain the importance of current information, the different website endings (edu, com, net, org, gov, ect.), talk about finding the author and who the author is, and in addition I would talk about where the site got its information from.

Test run

Practice makes perfect . . .

Words to ponder . . .

"our story is not a file of photographs... our story is of moments when even slow motion moved too fast for the shutter of the camera. our story is how still we stand, but how fast"

“Think for a moment what paper means to people. How ubiquitous it is in everyday life . . . A material of paradoxes, it can be used and abused in a thousand ways and still be the same under its skin. It is the embodiment of man’s achievement, yet it is as transient and as flimsy as tissue . . . In its strengths and weaknesses, faults and flaws, it is intensely human . . .” The Sense of Paper

"I'll conjure something, a picture that haunts you. But, trying to put words to pictures; sometimes I just don't want to hear myself. Or maybe, maybe I've said all I have needed to say." --Mike Kuchar