Zee+Last+Page--Further+Reflections

==Okay, everyone. Having had some time now to use the skills and tools we learned during the summer of '09, what's worth keeping and what ought to get tossed? Share with us any of your experiences that we could benefit from, either positive things that happened in your use of computer technology in your classroom this past year or important, difficult lessons you learned through unhappy experiences with technology in your classroom. In particular, I am interested in knowing what to keep in my curriculum for the upcoming group this summer, and what topics or particular activities to replace. I hope you'll each have something to offer in the way of suggestions. Don't forget to add your name so we know who to thank! Have a fantastic final few weeks of school!==

Tom (May 4, 2010)
By the way, I should acknowledge one of my favorite sources of new ideas and applications. Teachersfirst.com is a free service that sends me a weekly list of cool websites, annotated with evaluations and other comments, PreK-12 usefulness, etc. It's where, for example, I found out about the newspaper headline app that we used the first day of class. If your teaching situation allows you to use technology pretty freely I think you will get some fun resources at this place. I'm going to try using timelines, for instance, in next summer's class and teachersfirst.com has a long list of sites that feature timelines, both finished timelines and user-generated timelines. Even if you can't keep up with their unobtrusive but weekly lists (I can't!) you can always go to the website and search for an idea (e.g. timelines). If you DO have the time to scan their favorites of the week you'll find little gems like the headline app or the one I just started using which lets me highlight text on webpages that I want my students to visit. I think I will use this with my teachers who are building WebQuests. Fun!

From Aimee Veness: This year I used the quarter technology plan (3rd grade social studies). It worked great (so long as my internet and projector were up and running) and was wonderful to have everything already outlined and set to go! I was more intentional about using technology this year. I bought a flip camera that I used with my Spanish students to create a commercial. The built in software made it easy to use and fun for the students. The only other thing I can think of that I used that came directly from the class was the newspaper headline from the first day of class. I wrote up an article about myself and shared it with my Spanish students. They enjoyed that. Those few things were the most valuable to me and I will use them again I'm sure!