video games and learning

I worry about the effects that video games may have on our children. This article http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/features/video-game-addiction-no-fun
is also tinking along the same lines.

a short break ...

The past few days have been busy with Olympic distractions and I have not looked at anything to do with this course ... now I am back into figuring some things out. My group project partners are great and we each seem to be exploring things here and there trying to put together our ideas. The wiki space we have set up is ready for our additions ... should be good.

My own wiki continued ...

I find myself often thinking about the wiki that I have begun to create for my library. My "mission" with this space is to motivate students to read and open their eyes to books that have been recommended by myself or their peers. Although I prefer the layout of Joyce Valenza's wiki site, I will continue with my basic version for now. I am not feeling terribly creative at the moment but I have been very busy (teaching, kids, dog, new house, Olympic guests arriving soon) and have not really had much time to "create" let alone breathe. It will come ... possibly at 2:00 a.m. one morning, or perhaps while walking my wonderful puppy :)

TechEssence wiki

I wanted to jot down a few things I really liked on Farkas' TechEssence site ... this seems to be as good a spot as any to record them:

1. " ... a wiki is a perpetual work in progress" - yes, very well put.
2. " ... Wikis are known for being extremely easy to use." - definitely agree and happy that they are so straight forward.
3. "Wikis are an ideal tool for libraries that need to share information better internally" - I would love to set one up for my library. I really like Joyce Valenza's school library website and am seriously thinking of setting up a similar one for my library.

Well, I am getting many ideas for improving and updating things at my school and am thrilled that wikis are so user friendly.

My own wiki

I can't help myself, I just love my books ... lucky for me I have my own library! Many of my students are so happy to find new books and are always looking for something to read. Lately, the book of choice is Riordan's The Lightning Thief. I truly cannot keep a single copy on my shelf. One particular boy had been waiting quite some time for a copy to become available ... he was thrilled when we had a copy returned yesterday. I am reading this amazing story to two of my classes and they are very, very interested and have had lots of comments along the way. I have created a wiki page ... http://booksaregreat.pbworks.com/EB-Library and am hoping my students will contribute to it. I have a bit of "tweaking" to do but am pretty excited about it!

making a wiki page ...

So anyone can make up a wiki page? I never knew. This idea is very cool and I think that my colleagues might be interested ... we could make a wiki page for our school. We have a website but it might be an idea to also have a wiki page where the teachers can add information ... a cooperative approach. We would have to make sure that there were strict rules as far as allowing only staff to contribute for the most part. Shall have to speak with the prinicipal.

Have been looking ... might be a good one

I have been looking for an interesting blog to help get some different and exciting lessons for the french class that I teach. Found his one http://www.thefrenchcorner.net/2008/04/interview-with-retired-french-teacher.html today. Will check it out and try a few things.

Google reader ... cool

I have been talking to the grade 7 class I teach once a week and explaining Google Reader to them. I thought that many of them would be familiar with this but only a few were ... not the social type of application that they are into at this point in their lives. Anyway, we went into the computer lab and I showed them mine ... they were impressed but said they preferred Facebook as far as the updating they wanted in their lives. I think I might have sparked some interest. This is my page ...
http://www.google.com/reader/view/?utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-ww-ww-bk&utm_medium=ha&utm_term=google+reader#overview-page

I will try a screenshot when I get back form walking my dog ...

Wiki comment is gone!

I see that my Wiki comment is no longer! I checked my inbox and see that my info was deemed irrelevant so it was removed. Okay, so this is how it works.

Needed some quick info and used Wikipedia ...

I have a group of students that I teach french to and a few of them cannot understand why they must learn this language. I decided to make things a bit more interesting and did some research on the language itself ... its origins, a list of french speaking countries, the influence of the French explorers etc. I found great info ... on Wikipedia ... it was easy to read and answered all of my questions. . So I now have an interesting twist for my next lesson ... looking forward to it!

Yet another blog ...

My son's high school library has a blog : http://librarysdss.blogspot.com/ . I checked it out today. It looks o.k....just o.k. So far, it looks like summaries of a few interesting books that are available ... not sure if these summaries are personal or have been taken from the back of each book. Anyway, interesting start ... perhaps I will start one for my library next year. I definitely have many very keen readers!

Wiki edit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_District_37_Delta Here it is, my first edit on Wiki . My comment was on my recent transfer to Pebble Hill.

blog looks good!

The blog post by Monica Edinger is great! I am a big fan of reading aloud to children and this "wikipedia" lesson is a great follow up activity. It allows the students to collaborate their ideas as well as get a good idea of the ins and outs of Wikipedia ... and the age group that Monica is working with is perfect to begin this "working with Wikipedia" idea.

interesting blog

A colleague of mine recommended this blog http://teacherlingo.com/. Looks cool and worth exploring.

one more try

I do have time to try this once more ...

http://www.google.ca/ig?hl=en

voice thread

Voice thread ... hmmm, not sure how it works but have found some images that will work. I realize that I will not have time to put this together today ... off to soccer practice. Will try again another day. By the way, I am still totally thrilled with Animoto. Taught some South American geography today ... could definitely have used Animoto with this lesson ... might try next time.