WebQuest

Here is my WebQuest about Famous Athletes & the importance of exercise.

http://www.questgarden.com/author/create/preview.php?u=79272&l=79272-090329231104&pt=student&p=introduction

Web Quest

Web Quest

View more presentations from Megarama.

Gabcast

Here is my Gabcast with some of the kids that I work with. I didn't get to go anywhere exciting this Spring Break, so I just interviewed them about Educare and our field trip.


Gabcast! *Tanya's Technology* #2 - Live From Educare

Educational Podcasts

1 - Super Why! by PBS Kids from I-tunes - Elementary School
2 - IMAX Under the Sea 3D from I-tunes - Middle School
3 - Teaching with SMARTBoard from I-tunes - for teachers
4 - Electronic Field Trip Webisodes from I-tunes - Middle / High School

Numbers 2 through 4 are actually video podcasts, which are something new that I-tunes has. I thought that was really neat. I watched a few episodes of the IMAX podcasts since I love the ocean and sealife. I thought that this would be a great resource to use in the classroom when doing an ocean lesson, or something related to that. These podcasts follow the journey of a film crew and scientist as they are making the new IMAX 3D movie. It shows the underwater life as well as how they interact with the locals in the places they visit.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is a great tool to use in the classroom. It is not just for the teachers. The students can have accounts and share websites that they like as well. Social bookmarking works great because favorite websites are not saved to one computer now. You can access your account from any computer. Social bookmarking can work great with lesson plans. You may know that in a few weeks you have to do a lesson on Gettysburg and you happen to come across a great website that you could use for the lesson. You can now add that to your list and share it with others. You can also see what other teachers recommend in that area.

Wikipedia Article Change

I am a member of Sigma Kappa Sorority here on campus, so I decided to see what Wikipedia said about sororities and fraternities. I think that both groups tend to get a bad image for things that happened in the past (like hazing), and I wanted to make sure that the site had the facts straight about this topic. Hazing is strictly forbidden and a chapter can lose it's charter for it. After the first sentence I entered in, "It is more than just physical acts. Hazing can be mental and emotional. Any activity that ridicules, humiliates, embarrasses, causes mental anguish, confuses, frustrates, or causes undue stress can be considered hazing." I made this change on Saturday, March 14, 2009. I will check back tomorrow to see if it sticks. Here is the link to the site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraternities_and_sororities#Hazing_issues

I just checked the site again, and my changes are still there!! March 16, 2009.

*Poll Everywhere*

Create your own sms poll at Poll Everywhere

Google Docs Survey *Reading*

Here is the link to my survey about Reading. Thanks to everyone for taking it!

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cGxCNWF2WEt2ZVYyXzZxNHFsSG5XS3c6MA..

Pros & Cons of Blogging in Education

After looking at many websites showing some of the pros and cons for blogging, it became clear that there are far more pros to using blogging in the classroom than there are cons. I think this is very important to point out to teachers that are wary of new technology and that only focus on the negatives. One of the pros of blogging was that the student has personal ownership of what they have written. They have thier own site with thier own posts. Many students will think that this is really neat and will enjoy doing assingments on the site. There is also no spell check and grammar check on blogs. This means that the students will have to look over thier work to check for errors. I know that I am even use to Word automatically correcting my mistakes. Another pro is that the posts are public for the teacher and other students to see. This may mean that the author student will take more time composing the work. This also gives other students an opportunity to comment of each other's blogs and work together on assignments. Blogging also gets the student writting regularly, but in a more exciting way other than a journal. Some of the cons of blogging are that some students will have problems coming up with ideas to write about. Another one is that feelings could be hurt if a student feels that something negative was written about thier blog. Also, some students do not have as much experience on the internet as others and will become confused.

The website that is used for this post is:

http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/net/archives/2005/02/pros_and_cons_o.html

Recommended Educational Blogs

Here are a few blogs that I found that you will hopefully find useful. Just click on them and enjoy!

http://borderland.northernattitude.org/

http://historyiselementary.blogspot.com/

http://www.teachinghacks.com/

http://bionicteaching.com/

http://blog.core-ed.net/derek/

http://www.thethinkingstick.com/