CED535 Week 1

This class should be interesting. I do not currently have a WIKI that my students look at, or a blog for them. I have concerns about these types of communication. I know that our administration does not want us encouraging our children to sign up for an email, or other kinds of Internet sites. I guess my boss is worried that if something happens the school would be responsible. While reading one of the assigned chapters for this week, I was happy to read that statistics are low for incidents with children. I guess I'm interested to learn how to use these sites for educational purposes, in a middle school setting. It's not that I don't think it can be done, or useful. These sites are new to me and I don't know how to use them yet.......but hey.........that is why I signed up for this program. I know my students would enjoy doing these types of activities, but I need to learn how to do it and make sure it's safe for them. My other concern is time. I feel like we are learning great things, but they seem to be time consuming. I guess it'll become easier with time, but right now I feel overwhelmed. Last........ I just worry about putting my students names, pictures, or videos on the Internet. I still don't feel like anything is "safe". I need some convincing! Hopefully these are all concerns that will no longer be on my mind when we finish.

CED530 Week 5

Well.........
Almost done with another class!! I'm going to be very--- happy when I get the Pecha Kucha out of the way. I just looked at the rubric and realized, I need to go back and re-work it a little. I'm sick of looking at it to be honest!! I have an issue with talking (I am a teacher haha) so this 20 seconds per slide is torture. I feel like I can't get my point across in that short of time. But........... I'm really excited to make a Christmas animoto! Unfortunately I STILL have not gotten confirmation on my account :( so the animoto will only be 30 seconds.

The rubric assignment peeked my attention the most this week. I just got home from a 2 day convention about differentiated assessment. Rick Wormeli was the presenter and he did a phenomenal job! We talked about rubrics for a little while, but he has a great deal of information in his books that I have. I'm going to take the information from his books, as well as our class and see what I come up with. I am familiar with rubrics, but I don't use them as much as I should.