Throughout our second day of learning how to utilize the mini computers within our classrooms, my peers and I spent a day working and learning more about each other. Maybe it should be a requirement for co-workers to spend successive days together…working and talking and working and chatting. Fun!
I did fail to mention a techie tool that we used yesterday: MonkeySurvey. How did we utilize this tool? Well, we did create a survey for our students, but, some time…just a little bit…was spent creating surveys that often created snickers at inopportune times (yes, I know this sentence is in passive voice…intentionally so. Passive voice saves me from having to name names!)
Today, the presenters spent time assisting the teachers create wiki pages…a tool that we from Batesville began using last year (Mrs. G Info and The Think Tank…I love wikis!). Thus, much of today was spent working…for the most part very quietly…on techie tools we each wanted to perfect, as the presenters also shared ways they had implemented the minis and all the techie tools mentioned here and in yesterday’s post. My favorite? The Lucky Ducks. Ms. Anna purchased each of her students a rubber ducky, which each student adopted wrote about in various assignments. Cool idea…now how can I implement this within my classes this fall?
One idea we gleaned from today? Next year when we host this meeting for the “newbies” in our district, we want to host sessions for the various learning levels. Leader Lisa Huff is taking notes…already planning for what we can implement to ensure the success of our teachers and our Classroom Redesign within our district. Today, it became even more obvious the multiple levels of technological knowledge within the room; to have been able to break out into sessions….that would have been advantageous.
Tomorrow, we do not meet as a group, so we will spend time preparing for the first day back to school. That’s right: Welcome back to school…after only being out of school for a week!
