Amy’s Blog

“Blogs are reshaping our environment. They are beginning to emerge in large numbers in the educational field and offer great potential to transform learning and teaching. It is about new literacies appropriate for this time.” – Anne Davis, Edublogs Insight

Think about what we have talked about today and respond to the following questions-

Do you think a blog is a tool you could use in your classroom?  Why or why not?

Brainstorm and share an example of how you could incorporate a blog into your curriculum.

Technology can be a bit overwhelming in our already crowded curriculums. However, we can use technology as a tool to help us reach our “digital learners” and make what we do even more engaging – without taking away from the other important things we are already doing. The “Did you Know?” slideshow that we watched today brought up some valid points about why we should be using technology. As a group, we need to come up with a vision for technology here at Paideia. Think about these questions…

If you had unlimited time, money, and support, how would you want to use technology in your classroom?
Do you feel like you are using enough technology already?
If you are, what are some of the things you are doing? If not, why?

Please reply to this post (by clicking on the title above) and let us know your thoughts on technology here at Paideia.
Note: When you reply, you do NOT have to put in an e-mail address or website.

I attended the Building Learning Communities conference in Boston this summer. This conference is done by Alan November – if you ever get a chance to see him speak, go! The take-home message (in a very small nutshell) that I got from this conference is that because of globalization, the world is changing. Because the world is changing, we need to change the way we teach children so they can work with others of different beliefs, languages etc. We have plenty of technology to help us do this, but we need to change what we do with the technology. There are easy to use technology tools that give students a wider, real audience (Notice that I said “TOOLS”…it’s not another item to be added on top of a teacher’s already overloaded curriculum). No one ever says, ‘remember that great lecture we had in …’ They remember things they did themselves.

As a member of Paideia’s learning community, I want to make sure our students are cultivating the skills and talents needed to make them successful in the worldwide community. Some of the questions that I often ask myself are: How do we incorporate technology into our curriculums in the most effective ways? What technologies have the most educational validity? Can we use technology to its fullest capacity without taking away from other areas?