Opening Blog

Welcome to the Blog of 2012.

I am really looking forward to seeing what this course has to offer.  I think I have a lot to learn, despite really enjoying technology.  I have no idea what a Wiki or Wordle is yet.. all in due time I suppose.  

I am really excited to learn about new things to help engage my class.  My CT didn't use any technological aspects in his teaching, so I am excited to hopefully incorporate some of what I learn in this course into my second practicum.  I think the kids would enjoy something new.  I already have ideas about how to bring in some fresh technology and am getting some inspiration from this blog idea.  My friend, who is teaching English in Japan, and I were hoping to get some sort of pen pal system going to help her kids with English vocabulary and my kids with their composition.  If we could somehow connect the classrooms through blogs we could exchange information and 'letters' more frequently and include pictures and links to things that the kids might want to share with their blog-pal.  I am quite interested to know how adept my friend's kids are with technology and if they would be open to blogging.

I really like that this class is smart phone friendly, namely Apple friendly to start with.  I love my iPhone and am continually inspired by the amount of things it can do and offer.  Perusing the App Store is always  quite eye opening and I find a lot of Apps geared towards educating kids.  Those apps in particular would likely be much better suited towards an iPad however, and as soon as the funds are available I hope to purchase one of them and find ways to incorporate that into my classroom teaching.  I am hoping there will be more App ideas suggested in class as one cannot simply know about them all.  

Wishing you all continued blogging success