K-12 conference

I viewed two of the K-12 conference posts today and liked both of them. Following Diana's suggestion, I visited "Little Kids, Big ideas". I liked that she focused on just a few tools and explored how they could be used in the classroom. I incorporated two of her ideas immediately following viewing the presentation. I went to Wall wisher and decided to incorporate a sticky note wall into my social studies wiki. I had already envisioned students sharing just a sentence or two on a topic--and I think the wall will be perfect. I might have to add a few more walls, though, as I'm not sure how many stickies fit. It also limits the number of characters, but in this case that might be fine. There were other interesting aspects of this site, but I didn't fully explore them. I also visited comic creator and made a comic for my sharing project. I still need to work out a few bugs-- but it was fun and I created a slide for my power point. I could see students using it. I plan to visit Edmoto, another recommended site, soon. She also showed how Wordle could be used as a tool to help develop deductive reasoning with students. Not bad for one short presentation.

I also enjoyed Bridging History Using 2.0 tools. This is especially good for History teachers of all levels. She also packed lots of good practical advice and tools into a short presentation. We've talked about Blogster, but the way she used it really made me want to explore it. She also talked about the ability to connect easily to primary sources. She talked about how 2.0 tools are more interactive and creative than older internet teaching techniques--but she suggested that new tools could be used to improve old ways of doing things--not to completely replace essentially good units.

Both of these presentations really addressed the feeling I sometimes have about all this--it's cool, but how can I use it in my classroom. These were practical answers to that question.