Screen Recordings

I love doing webquests in our class. However, it seems no matter how many times I explain things students always forget. The screenrecorders would be great to record the instructions for doing the assignment and then when the students get lost they can just rewatch the file.

We also do criterion writing at our school which is a program that allows the students to write, submit their writing online, and immediately recieve feedback on it. There are so many options on this program students get overwhelmed. I could make a number of help files explaining how to access each option on the program so the students could get to them as they need them.

Another project I like to do in class are powerpoints over Canada. This would be a great way to teach students the basics of powerpoints.

Flickr

In thinking of ways to use flickr to enhance my classroom projects, I think the best use of it would be for our egyptian scrapbooks or our tourist brochures. From what I understand many images pulled from google image search can be copyrighted or inappropriate. However, by using flickr I can get safe images and quality ones from all over the world. In the Egyptian scrapbook the students make a book and each page has picture of something from Egypt that interest them and then a paragraph about it. We could do it on the internet this year by making an Egyptian Wiki and pulling the photos from Flickr. When we study Africa the students make a travel brochure about a country in AFrica. We could pull photos from flickr for this.

Our school has a class digital camera. I could see each students making an account on Flikr and storing pictures they have take around the school for use on a wiki as well.

Youtube and the Classroom

After searching through the available Youtube videos available I found the most interesting and useful items for the classroom where the famous speeches.

Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall Speech
This could be used when teaching about the Cold War, Communism, and the Berlin Wall. The speech would give students a chance to hear the famous speech first hand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK30k2WTxY0




Winston Churchill Speech: We Shall Fight Them on the Beaches
Listening to one of Churchill's famous WWII talksto will give the students an insight into what Churchill was thinking during this time period.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkTw3_PmKtc


Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death Speech: Patrick Henry Impersonator
This will help students understand how one of the most influential advocates of the American Revolution felt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEOets_L7vg&feature=PlayList&p=244B7422FA5C90BE&index=12

Podcasts in Social Studies

I teach middle School Social Studies and I can see how podcasts can be a great learning tool for students in my class. First, I could see Podcasts being used to help the large number of struggling readers at our school. Many students do poorly at the assignments because they can't read the textbook. I could read the text to the students and they could listen to it to help them do their assignments. These reading as well as my lectures could also be put in the resource room for the students to have access to at anytime. Another way I could use podcasts in social studies would be to give students an alternate way to express themselves on a test. Some students that struggle with writing could be allowed the option of recording their essay answer on a podcast for a grade. Many students that refuse to write may be motivated by this option. Another way would be to record information for absent students that they could listen to and use to catch up when they return to school. Finally, there are endless opportunities for students to use podcasts to do projects. They could do interviews of famous people, newshows, audio almanacs, summaries, test or section study guides, talks over magazine articles or history stories, opinion on current events, debates are just a few of the ideas I have thought of so far. Students would definetly be excited about podcasts.
Here are some links about Podcasts in Education:

The Education Podcast Network
http://epnweb.org/

Resources for teachers using podcast in the classroom
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/gadgets.html

Podcasting Lesson Plans:
http://wiki.classroom20.com/Podcasting+Lesson+Plans

Schools and Blogs

I don't know if our school blocks blogs or not. I do know that they block most of the social networking sites. My Space and Facebook I know are blocked. Any site that is of questionable content is also blocked. If I had to guess, I would think the majority of the blog sites are blocked.

I am not sure who makes the decisions at our school about what gets blocked and what doesn't. I think I could make a pretty good case and convince our principal that blogs would be a great help in the classroom, however since I work in such a large corporation and the technology is all controlled from down town I am not sure how strict their policy is on removing blocks. This is definetly something I am going to be looking into once I get back into the school.

Internet Safety

I have personally never run into an internet safety issue before, but as I watch the news and hear more and more about problems that come up I am concerned about it. I believe it is a big problem today and as helpful and exciting as the internet can be, it can also be a hinderance as well. Personally, I get concerned about people accesing my banking accounts and accessing my passwords and pin numbers. I think students today have to be the most careful. As a teacher I notice that students spend lots of time on facebook and my space. They post all of their personal information and instant message. I don't think their parents are aware of all the personal information the students are putting out there and it concerns me. I am also concerned about using them at school. I think it would be exciting, but will students be putting too much information about themselves out there.