STaRT Tech Learning Community

I am always awed when I read what others are doing with technology. I still marvel at the podcasts etc. I have been busy but don't seem to have accomplished/finished much. That doesn't mean I haven't done anything. I got my parent survey on line and on paper. Unfortunately, I did not get a tremendous response. However, the information I did get was interesting. Of the people who answered it, most do use technology fairly competently and are interested in using the internet as a means of communication with me about their child's progress etc. So far so good. I am offering workshops for parents who are email illiterate but want to become more familiar with it on Thursday at our school's open house. I hope to get a few more email addresses out of this.

I have set up a wiki and tried to get my students to do some collaborative editing. There are some wrinkles in this but I could see some really promising things too. When the groups had all added to their page, they sat around a computer together and were discussing in a lot of detail how to edit the page, improve sentences, etc. I sat quietly listening the whole time while they critiqued and improved their work. Bravo!

I have been revamping my website to make it more user friendly so to speak. The kids said they had a hard time finding things. So I made a separate page for several units and folders for Regular vs. Honours etc. I am not sure that this is the best way still, but it's a work in progress.

I am mentoring 2 other staff working on Check My Mark. I quite enjoy getting emails from my students when they question something or if I missed something etc. Sure beats the line up at my desk or having them follow me around the room, etc.

I have kept up my blog and have put "bonus" activities on it. These have been different activities and then I was told about Quia.com. This is the most fantastic site. It has ready made activities in all subjects that you can link to and if you sign up for a subscription you can copy existing activities and then edit them to customize for your classes. Wow. The kids have told me they enjoy playing the games and any time I am told that 15 year olds enjoyed practicing with verbs or subordinate clauses or short story terms, I love it. Try this site out. I have made a quick game using words more or less associated with the Learning community. See how you do. You can play in flash or html. http://www.quia.com/hm/300819.html

Apart from all that, I have recorded some of the short stories we read onto my website in my somewhat feeble attempts to differentiate my instruction but it's a start. My next plan is to make a video/powerpoint of the story Portable Phonograph with various nuclear war pictures, video clips downloaded from various sharing sites, etc. with me reading the story. I hope I can get it done before we have to read it in class. That is the biggest problem. I run out of time to do all the things I would like to do and then it just seems to fall by the wayside. Anyway, this has gone on long enough and my stack of marking awaits. Keep going and keep blogging everyone. It really is inspirational to hear what everyone is accomplishing. Spring break is coming!!!

The project I chose to do was with my French 9 class, and they just began on February 5, in the new semester. I had to complete my survey and get them working on that as my first step and I am pleased that it is finally underway. Once I have collected my survey results, I will be moving on to the actual audio files that I am creating for my classroom website, to help students work on their French pronunciations. In the meantime, I am observing the pronunciation of four key students in my class to chart their progress from February to May with the help of my website practice links. I hope it really makes a difference for them! If so, it will become bigger, better and a permanent part of my classroom website.

Feb. 16, 2007
I have to admit I had been procrastinating about this "midway" blog as I would be forced to organize the " chaotic mess" I have created into some semblance of a coherent report that would of value to myself, and possibly others. I was somewhat "bolstered" by Shane’s last blog. I identified with many of his observations about project development and student progress.
However, once I got the blog started, I went on forever, so I have posted the complete "blog" at:
http://abbynet.sd34.bc.ca/kingdiv14/chesney/enteratyourownrisk
I didn’t want to subject everyone to my ramblings here.
Having finished the blogging process, I do have two things to share. First of all, if you happen to think you are also falling into the "chaotic mess" category, it really, really helps to blog. I finished the whole exercise feeling that my students and I have actually learned and accomplished a great deal. Secondly, I found it helpful to organize under the four basic steps of the action research cycle – plan, action, observations, reflections. Suddenly my "chaotic mess" became Cycle A, Cycle B – a completely new project, and then Cycle A, Part 2. It doesn’t seem like so much of a mess anymore.
Lynn Chesney