It's All About the Kids

Today was amazing! During the podcasting class, we had open and useful discourse about the great things that can be done with podcasting! Jerry and Brad were exhuberant about how they could use this technology in the classroom! Podcasting notes to review for this weeks test; biographies; country reports for World Cultures! WOW! Lots and lots of ideas. I am so impressed with the enthusiasm and movement from the tech comfort zone! Adding sounds to the podcast to jazz up the interest level, yes, Virginia, there is a tekkie Santa Claus!

It just got better sharing the word and the ammenities that go with it! Lets do some real peer editing with comments and changes listed automatically. How do you change the reading level of the written essay? - - - Add three syllable words instead of one and two syllables! That suggestion came from Travis Gaidos after I had explained how Word evaluates the document and gives a Flesch Kinkaid reading score. He said then you can require your students to create their research papers on an 8th grade level! Kids can check to see how their composition is doing as they write and edit their work to reflect a higher reading level. What a problem solver!

This training program has made staff rethink how they are going to engage students on a new level. I am so proud of these teachers. They are incredible! Doris Manning came to the CC program and I introduced her to Delicious and she was off and selecting web sites to meet the needs of her students, online Math games, Applets, and areas where kids can go for help at home when the teacher is not available. She will tag sites so that the kids in her pre-alg and alg classes can easily locate pertinent information! Janice caruso has been working on locating resources for her Science classes. How about listening to a podcast about a current science event? She will share this location with her students. These are the time consuming things that can't be accomplished when there are kids needing help, grades to do, meetings to attend, etc. That has been one of the big factors in teachers coming to these sessions - TIME! That is what teachers need to be successful!

I think that I will take a break tomorrow evening. No one is signed up for that session and I'm going to go home! It has been an exciting time so far and I am tired!