Virtual Games

over the years I have been very wishy washy in regards to virtual games for children. I need to remind myself that there are different kinds of games out there and some are very educational. It is one thing to use a virtual game that helps with spelling or other areas of educational development compared to the video games that have you shooting and killing people/animals/aliens. I think that too many kids sit in front of their PS3 and shoot/kill in the virtual world that they are not realizing the difference between the technology and real life.

Where I work I do not have computers or any technology in my classroom. there are times that I really enjoy that and other times when I wish I had a computer for them to work on. Seeing the types of educational virtual games available I do think that they can be helpful for some students, especially those that have a hard time listening or paying attention to some one just talk. This is a way for them to become more interactive with their educational development. I feel that if it takes a virtual game to help a child understand or learn something then that is an option we need to have available for them. After all we as teacher will do anything we can to help better a students chance to learn.

Augmented Reality

While watching some of the youtube videos I was quite shocked at the 3D forms off the computer screen. The entire time I was watching the youtube video I could not help but think about how useful that could be in the automotive world or in advertising. Doing augmented reality in a preschool classroom is a very difficult task. I would love to see this put to use in a geography class though. To show the difference in other countries and how their land is either similar or different. There is so much that you can do with with technology. It does not surprise me that over the years we have come up with something like augmented reality.

Wiki sites

About a year ago for one of my grad classes I was asked to sign up for a wiki account and that would be the site that our class used during our online weeks and for turning in papers for peer editing. The initial sound of the website was that it was the same as blackboard (at least for this class we were using it for). Once we were all signed onto an account we ran into many problems. Papers were not loading, comments did not show up, some people were locked out of their page and a few other issues. I can honestly say that once we had ran into so many problems I was turned off to the wiki sites and never visited them again until this class. Assuming that the problems my class had faced with the site are fixed then I could see this being useful for an education class. The idea of group collaboration is great and being able to use this website to post information, papers, research and other items then have it peer reviewed could be a great help to children. Once again this in not something that I can use in my classroom so it is difficult for me to give ideas on how I would use this with my class. It could be a way to communicate with my parents but we already have so many ways of communicating with them that it would just be one more thing for me to take time out of my day for.  And as we all know, teachers do not have enough hours in the day as it is to get all their information and work completed. I myself take work home and do a lot of emailing at night and on weekends. If I were to have two more hours in each day I would get so much work completed!

Have fun and learn with web 2.0

after looking at the websites this week all I can say is where was Diigo during my undergrad??!! The amount of paper I wasted printing out web pages to highligh and add sticky notes to and yet you can do it online. In one aspect this does not surprise me but in another I am amazed at the fact that technology has come to the point that you can highlight online and save the information. To me it is a great way to save on paper. I just wish that I did not find out about this website during my last semester of grad school. Another thing I like about Diigo is the collaboration and ability to research a large about of information. I think that I will be able to use this site for finding information I am looking for within my classroom. I see this site being great for upper level education. Certain projects like social studies could be used with this site to gather much information as well as save and highlight.

Movie Maker

The movie maker project is really exciting to me. I had no idea about this program and have fallen in love with it! There are so many things that I want to use this site for in regards to my personal life. I have also started thinking about using this for our classroom website for parents to see. I think it would be great to post a movie maker project of what the kids have been doing so the parents can see first hand what their children are working on. As for my classroom I am not able to have the children work on this project but I am allowed to create a project of my students working on a project and then be able to place it into a movie maker project for this class. I see this being great for students to learn and wish I had the opportunity to do so with my students.

Google Maps Earth/parent maps

Google maps is my favorite to use with my parents. It is very simple and easy to use!! Before I even started this section I had sent my parents google maps showing them how to get to the apple orchard from our building. We had planned a field trip to the apple orchard and I took the opportunity to send my parents an invite (if they could get away from work) to join us as well as a map showing them how to get there. I find that it is very easy and very reliable.
As for Google maps earth, I find this very interesting and fun to play around with for me. Unfortunately it is not something that I can use in my classroom. not being able to teach technology is something that I see as a downfall in our exceptional curriculum. We are very proud of our curriculum and the high standards we set for ourselves. But unfortunately the children do not have access to technology at all. There are no computers, projectors, ELMO's or other technology devices available for them. This program would be great to show the children where they live, where they used to live (many of my students are from another country) or to even show them how some places are different or the same as the area they live in. I can see this program being very useful in social studies and science projects for older students. Sadly I will not have the opportunity to see my students use this program.

Google Tools

While reading information on google tools I really realized how much google does and how much I use google with out even knowing it. I currently use gmail for my email. With that my phone is a google phone. All my emails, contacts and calendar go right through my email account. I can access all my contacts, their phone numbers and addresses (home and email) through my phone or my computer. I also have the ability to have my work calendar linked to my phone. I am able to look at my calendar on my phone and see which staff members are out for the day and who their subs are going to be. This makes it easy for me as a head teacher to plan for the week, month or my time off. Many of the sites, like blogger.com for example, automatically link up to my gmail account. I never realized until now that gmail or google is really a center for so many different tools and websites. Not only is it the center but it is also very secure. I trust google and gmail a lot more then most sites.

When looking at the educational google tools I was rather impressed at the fact that we can link with teachers around the world. The blogging sites help teachers talk to other teachers that are not in their school. I am a firm believer that reaching out to peers is beneficial in the teaching field. If we have an opportunity to reach out to teachers in other schools, districts, states and countries then we have even more knowledge to tap into so that we can make our classrooms better. So many of the classes I have taken have touched base on the fact that teachers need to partner together, google educational tools help to do that.

Educational Survey Websites

While going through these websites I noticed that many of them were beneficial for teachers. Two of the ten websites were unavailable when I was trying to access them so I was unable to see what their sites looked like and how they worked.
The first site, Rubistar, is a free website for creating rubrics. This site is useful for teachers who use rubrics. While looking at this site I noticed that this is not a site that I would have any use for. Being a preschool teacher, we do not create rubrics or assess our students in this manor. The website is specifically for rubrics only and does not offer any other program or services.

Next was surveymonkey, with this site you can create your own surveys. It is free for basic use (membership) which offers you a limited use of their products. If you decide that you need to use more surveys in a given year then you would have to upgrade. With an upgrade you will look at spending 19.95 a month or an annual rate of 200.00 for unlimited use. If you want unlimited use of all their services then you have to do a yearly subscription. I can not see  a teacher sending out that many surveys within a year to where they need to upgrade from the free basic plan. Teachers could use this site to create surveys for parent info or to find out more information about the family or what they expect their children to be learning in that given year. This site was very easy to navigate, templates are made for you or you can create them on your own. It seems to be very convenient. It also offers a range of security too. They have firewall, intrusion detection systems and a few other offers too.

Hotpotatoes is a free website. It offers only six applications which include quizes, jumble sentences, crosswords and a few other things. The only catch is that you have to download the free apps and you can not preview the apps or what they offer until you download them. Me personally I prefer to see what I am going to download before I download it. The website is not an extensive and there are no examples. It is very simple.

quizstar4teachers is free and has availability for teachers and for students. I thought it was interesting that a teacher can create and share quizes with other teachers as well has have their students take the quizes online. You do have to register and login in order to view the available quizes that are posted. From what I can tell this is a very easy to navigate site. Teachers can create their quizes, invite their students to their page, the students take the quiz and then the teacher can view the results of the individual students or the class as a whole.

snappoll was a very simple website. It did not catch my attention at all. Once you click on the site you start creating your poll. I did not see any information on their site about security or how and what you can do with their site. It is free but not an appealing website.

quizbox seemed to me like the online quizzes and assessments you would take and then post on facebook. This site had personality tests and IQ tests. It seemed more for a personal entertainment factor then it did for educational purposes. You can create your own quizzes as well. Like some of the other sites it is free for basic use and if you want more offers and products to use you will have to pay 14.95 a month.

teach-nology is a free website offering worksheets. Personally I hate worksheets and do not see them as beneficial for students as hands on work. They have a large variety of printables for teachers but it comes with a price. You will pay 29.99-49.99 depending on the membership you select.

easytestmaker helps teachers to format their tests for students. your choice ranges from a free membership to 24.95. There really was not much to the website and no way to preview what they offer. I find it hard to sign up for a website when you can not take a tour and see what they have to offer you.


Yourfreepoll and my gradebook were the two sites that I was unable to access.

Blogging as an Educational Tool

Blogging as an educational tool can be great. For someone like myself I teach preschool students, blogging is not an option for these children but it is for their parents. When it comes to teaching young children I have noticed a large decline in parent involvement. Many of my parents do not even know what their children are capable of nor do they know what their children are doing throughout their day in preschool. Blogging is a way for parents to become more informed about their children and see what they are doing in preschool. When teachers create a blogging site for their classroom they are giving the parents an opportunity to read what the kids are doing and then be able to ask questions and make comments on the posts. As much as this in not a personal parent involvement route it still makes a pathway for the parents to open communication with their children while at home.

Web 2.0

Before I read the information about Web 2.0 I was under the impression that this was something that would be very new to me. Unfortunately I was wrong, web 2.0 is something that I use on a daily basis myself. Whether it be on facebook or uploading pictures for my friends and family to see, I was unaware that this was considered web 2.0.
I can see some pros and cons when it comes to web 2.0. My place of employment currently uses snapfish to allow parents the opportunity to see what the children are working on in and out of the classroom (field trips). We have had positive feedback in regards to this site. This is one way to help connect the parents with what their children are doing in the classroom which in turn can give them more communicating options. Most of the time the parents will ask their children what they did and the usual response is "nothing". This gives them the opportunity to open the door of communication and say "I saw that you did....today". Using these sites to connect parents gives them the chance to help the children recall and describe what they actually did.

blogging sites for parents and teachers is another way for communication. It helps the parents find answers and ask questions about the daily routines and what their children are working on. This is another pro when it comes to web 2.0.

One thing that I see as a con is the lack of personal attention. It is much easier to write a blog, send an email or post some pictures online but in the end we miss that face to face conversation. The personal communication that some people really enjoy and need. Another con that I see is with my ESL students. Many of their parents need to have visuals and explanation of those visuals. This is not always something that is easy to do over the internet. I have many parents that have only been in the country for the last year to three years and have a difficult time with some of these sites. These are my parents that are much better with a face to face personal meeting then they are blogging or communicating through the internet.