YETC

I learned about so many different resources online today at the YETC. I had no idea how many different ways we could use the internet as a resource in our classrooms. I really liked how there are so many of these resources that are free. I think these will be great resources in my classroom and in my home. I don't want to lose any of these ideas, so I am going to list some of these websites here for easy remembering and access:

www.theopendisc.com/education (Provides software for free. It covers a lot of subjects and has an office program similar to word. I really liked the stellarium and celestia downloads for learning about space.)

www.zotero.org (This is a fabulous tool for research papers.)

storyonline.net (These are stories read online with some activities that go along with them.)

kiddyrecords.com (These are old records converted to mp3 format.)

pioneer-library.org (Using emedia we can find great resources for teaching.)

We also learned about using itune podcasts, Google's advanced search, phun (a drawing program), and format factory and video monkey (These sites help you download and watch videos. They change the formats to .wmv and then you can put them in your powerpoints!

I really enjoyed learning about all of these resources and I think I will be able to use them in my practicums as well as teaching.

UEN

Today we set up our own MyUEN account and found different lesson plans that we can use while teaching. Our goal for the next two weeks is to change these lesson plans to add technology.

I am excited that I will be able to use this blog in my future classroom to help my parents stay connected to my classroom. I also want to be able to use my blog to help my students with their assignments. I could possibly post some podcasts further clarifying big projects assigned. I also would like to set it up so that my students will be able to post on our class blog and to make it more interesting for them and let their parents, grandparents, etc. see their work.

This week in my practicum, our math classes were able to go to the computer lab and play a factors game. It was a challenging (and addicting) game for the students. They had to think ahead two steps before making a move. They seemed to really enjoy it. In fact, several students went home and played it on their home computers trying to beat the computer in the game. My mentor teacher has this game on her school website, so it was easy for the students to access it. I hope to be able to use this game as well as others on my class blog to help my students in their learning.

Web 2.0

We learned in class this week that web 2.0 is where we don't just view the world wide web anymore, we interact with it on sites such as blogger or facebook, etc. We are participants in the web and not just spectators.

This is my first post.