I have come down with a cold. This allows me the excuse to sit and browse the web for more tools to use in my classroom. While my wife doesn't entirely agree with my logic...neither of us wants me moving around the house and spreading germs.
With a classroom set of laptops, I am always searching for new ways to integrate technology in to my English classes. It is my philosophy that kids are always worth my time, effort, and dedication. This is why I spend such a great deal of time researching online tools for use in the classroom. This last week, we used PhotoPeach to construct a digital family photo story as we continued our study of the American family in literature. Some students took pictures of their families, while others brought in photos to scan and upload to Picasa for editing. We looked at our American families and compared our traditions, values, and beliefs to what was said in some nonfiction readings about the family. This was especially meaningful as we have a high number of migrant students from Texas who join us for a short time at the beginning and end of the school year to work for an agricultural research company. We now transition to a unit on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which I feel is appropriate as Huck redefines what family is and how a family operates, first with Widow Douglas, then Pap, Jim, Duke and King, the Grangerfords, and finally Silas and Sally Phelps.
Today, I have been enjoying pearltrees. What a great web resource for teachers to find, organize, and share resources. I have not yet signed up but spent time searching "Educational technology" and have been entirely jazzed by the resources I have found. One of the sites I discovered was emergingedtech.com. Talk about a great resource to find tips on teaching with technology. The 100 ways to use teach with Twitter was especially cool. If only Twitter wasn't blocked in so many schools...
Pearltrees is just fantastic. I am able to search and find hundreds of helpful websites, tips, blogs, vlogs, and other resources. Think of how great this would be to provide for students while doing research. Add an even deeper 21st Century Skill spin to it and have your students create one of these websites, blogs, vlogs, prezis, etc. and share them via a pearl on the website! Holy cow!
Of course there are great social media sites that have been around for a while too: edmodo, diigo, prezi, ning. I think it comes down to what you are comfortable with as an educator and finding the time to play around with the tools. Many offer special pricing or free accounts for educators (who doesn't love free?!?).
There are always blogs and resources to search to find new ideas. Good teaching = ability to adapt and do what we know is right for kids. That's all I'm trying to do...and get over this cold.
