Been a while

Since I've last posted we've started quite a few initiatives/projects. To give a brief update, all of the kids in this class have Google accounts through our school district.(It's amazing what Google offers for FREE.) The students used a movie tutorial site that Heather and I set up so kids could set up their docs. page and their websites. (I later found better tutorials in iTunesU. Of course this came after I had made all the movies and ran the classes. NOTE TO SELF: ALWAYS CHECK ITUNES FIRST) I would highly recommend setting up tutorials for kids to watch and follow. I tried once, and only once, to show kids a step by step process using my computer and a projector...what a mistake. Every new step required me to walk around the room and help multiple kids who were stuck in multiple places. (This was also the one day that Heather was not in school. I blame her for the hair I pulled out that day.) The tutorials allowed kids to work at their own pace.

The kids now have a docs page with the following folders:

"Notebook" - all Handouts, notes, etc.

"Presentations"- Google has it's own powerpoint within docs. Kids make and keep them here.

"Shared" - all docs. that get shared amongst the group go here. All kids see all changes made to each doc. Think, collaborative webquest.

"Tests Quizzes and Essays" - Google allows you to create forms that become online quizzes.

"Vocabulary"- self explanatory.

"Do Nows" - Just something we do at the beginning of every class.

The students also have their own websites. All websites had to:

1) subscribe to the calendar Heather and I shared with them.

2) link to both of our websites

3) have fun without being inappropriate.

I've never seen so many gadgets on websites before. Google offers free gadgets to be placed onto their sites. Little did I know, Pacman is making a comeback.

More on individual projects and the mistakes we made with "sharing" to come.

Jason