Blogs at EMS or in Elmore County

February 10, 2011
In our county, blogs are blocked from being accessed by teachers and students on the county server.  Although I see the reasoning behind this for k-12 students, blogging and creating a blog page can be a real education itself.  It is a great way for students to express themselves, and in a country of less than stellar writing skills, encouraging spontaneous writing should be a consideration for our illustrious leaders.  I am planning on continuing my blog page which can be accessed at home by students and parents.  It will be a non-threatening place for students to ask questions.  Perhaps I can ask my tech group to allow my blog page to be unblocked.  I'll have to check into that...

Using digital cameras for projects

February 9, 2011
Projects for all classes would be enhanced with photos taken with digital cameras or even cell phones.  Many students have access to cameras and most students have cell phones now by 6th or 7th grade, so the opportunity to use some technology and increase learning and retention of skills is worth the time invested in creating instructions and teaching students how to save or link the picture files to projects.  Math classes could use pictures for still picture or video scavenger hunts of geometry vocabulary terms, social studies classes could use digital pictures for living history projects of city courthouses or local officials, etc.  Once pictures are introduced into a project, the opportunity to teach students how to edit the pictures themselves also exists using many photo editing programs available both free and commercially.

February 8 Thoughts on podcasts in math

While podcasts sound like a great idea for many subjects, there would definitely need to be added pictures to be functional in a math class.  The exception might be for a review of vocabulary for a chapter or for listing lessons that will be included in tests or in a syllabus. Still, I would want to try adding pictures or video to keep listeners interested.