Using a Blog in the Classroom

This one was a little harder for me to decide. Their are a lot of potential positives to using one as well as potential negative ones. It could serve as a great tool to get the students thinking and working outside the classroom. It could also serve as a forum for discussion and reflection. I wonder how well the students would respond to this or if their would be resistance. I am unsure if they would be fearful to put their word/work out there for all to see and potentially criticize. This one for me is still up in the air as to if I would want to use this tool in my classroom. I think also each class would dictate the usefulness of it.

Google Docs in the Classroom

I really enjoyed working with google docs. I feel they could serve as an amazing tool for collaborative projects. Students would be able to work on group projects even if they didn't have a lot of outside time together. Each student could work on a portion of their project and the other group members could comment and make suggestions on how or what to change. I feel this is something I will definitely try to utilize in my classroom.

Twitter in the classroom

I am a skeptical as to how well twitter can work in the classroom. I worry the students would forget the topic at hand and go be using it for social communication, not educational. I am sure their are probably ways to prevent this from happening. I also wonder about the amount of computer access all the students may have. I worry about the possibility of some students not having access and them being segregated out for that. As I was going through some of the tools it made me wonder. I could be a great way of keeping in touch with the students outside of class time but I also began wondering how the students parents would feel about them being on a social network. I'm sure most of the students already are but again their may be some who are not allowed this kind of networking. I have a lot of unanswered questions on how to make it work.

Using Flickr

I am a secondary education major in Broadfield Science. I feel flickr could be a great tool. One idea I had was to have students create a native plant collection. This could work to publish their collections and share with the other students without having to pick any plants. a lot of emphasis is on not disturbing the ecosystem. A picture collection could be a great substitute for the real thing and flickr allows the students to do so many different things to the pictures. I think it could work great.

This is a video on how the digital world has changed our lives. It's amazing to me to see the amount of information people are willing to share on the internet. I am a little fearful at times how much of my information is out there. This video helps to remind people how things posted on the web last forever. Hopefully those who see this video will take away a few informational tips on how to be cautious with your digital profile.

The family ranch

This is a photo taken on my families ranch in central Montana. This is just a few of our horses we have on the ranch. We were rounding up colts to brand and begin to separate the yearlings from the rest of the herd. This is something we do every year and my entire family works together to get it done. Everyone has a job!

MT OPI WEBSITE

The office of public instruction website is a site I feel all teachers need to be familiar with. When creating lesson plans we need to addressing specific standards and this website is the place to find them. I thinks its a great idea to check the standards regularly to make sure you are always current.

Education News

Education news is a nice website that provides up to date information on what is going on in the world of education. Its really interesting to see all the different situation around the country and world. It can definitely open your eyes to the number of situations a teacher can be put in.