Week 1

Welcome back!

It's hard to believe that we're already a week into our class!

I have struggled with implementing new things into my classroom this week; we've been up to our eyeballs in narrative text, and I've been trying to wrap up "The Treasure of Lemon Brown" and take a quick summative assessment over the story while prepping for our book talks--they begin tomorrow morning, and I swear I am more nervous about them than any of my students are!

I explored many technological resources this week. I'm going to share my opinions here.

The first website I researched was PBWorks (http://pbworks.com/education). This would be such a great way to incorporate differentiation in the classroom. I have been dying to try the flipped classroom model, and I think that having access to this site would be a tremendous help in achieving that goal! I am a little unsure as to whether or not this is similar to a Wiki; we have access to a school Wiki that I can use. If this is the same thing, it wouldn't be beneficial to spend that much money for the licenses. I think that it would provide the same challenges as any other technological reliant program; my kids just don't have the access outside of school. I could use it in my class (and would love to do so!), but it would be very limited in that I would have to use it during school hours for most students.

Next, I explored TumbleBooks. While I really liked the website (and concept of providing access to the books), I don't see it being something that I could use in my classroom. There are several chapter books that would be wonderful for my lower-level readers. However, the site isn't free (it's rather costly), and the majority of my students don't have access to technology outside of school. I want to foster a love of reading, so I need them to have access to books that they can read while on the bus and at home. I would love to have access to TumbleBooks for my own kids; I know that they would love it!

I also looked at Podcasts and Audioboo. I love the idea of incorporating podcasts into the classroom. I actually plan to incorporate a Podcast into my differentiation plan for the next unit. I think it would be a great way to allow my higher-level learners to "teach" skills to some of the struggling students.  They could use the school technology to listen to the Podcasts while the remainder of the class worked on the next assignment level. Because the Podcasts would be able to be downloaded, students who have iPods but don't have Internet could download them before leaving school. It might be a way to incorporate a "flipped classroom model" into my classroom.

That's it for this week. Be sure to check back next week for more reviews!