Tuesday, October 23, 2007

MLTI digital literacy collaboration meeting

We developed some goals about what we'd like to do using noteshare and moodle this year. We'd like to develop a unit for each subject area for teachers to use and manipulate to their needs. We would like to meet with content area teachers for one hour per subject after school to show them the capabilities of the program and possibilities of the unit.
They discussed that this is the time for librarians to thoroughly educate students about validity of information on the web, how to find information and the tools available to access information. Examples of how to teach children about this are at MSAD 54 website. Click on 21st Century Skills
Math teachers should be using the math applets encased in noteshare as a supplement. Students should be writing and reflecting about this virtual math. Teachers should find their teaching abilities improving if they use these. To access these applets in noteshare go to outline, new plug in entry, NPLN. It is on page 52 as well.
At some point it is believed that the FG will expect the state's 8th grades will have to have an 8th grade technology literacy assessment completed. It is anticipated that this will be another mandate we will be left to our devices to implement.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Actem

Friday was ACTEM day! It was a successful day overall despite the inclement weather.

Session 1: I went to Collaboration and Communication by Way of Moodle. I have heard about Moodle for the last 2 years but had never worked with it or been educated about it. I could not BELIEVE all of the things folks said it could do! I was amazed. Everything from tests to quizzes, or discussions to chats can be done with this. Sadly, the server was down for the entire session so we never got into it but we at least were able to talk about it's potential if used in a classroom.

Session 2: I went to Comic Life, Serious Tool. Well, I can definitely see it's potential in either LA or Social Studies. Bob literally flew through stuff, the screen was fuzzy, the room was full, the server was down but I still enjoyed the neat things he showed us. It reminded me of when I used to teach students about Rebuses in Social Studies and had them create one of their own. This would be a perfect vehicle for students to use to complete and assignment of that type.

Session3: I tried to get into 2 other sessions before ending up in EZ Data Studio. I was terrifically happy to have ended up in this session for 2 reasons. First being that it was hosted by Phil Brookhouse who is always so very interesting and fun to be around. Second, there were only 2 of us who showed up so we got to have a blast! He showed us how to use Data studio for kids to learn the components of graphing. We were able to create our own graph using a sound monitor to detail distance and speed.