Just saw this video and had to post it! New technologies have always had their challenges.
(There is an English version out there but I think the Norwegian version just adds to the whole thing!)
Saturday, October 15, 2011
VoiceThread
I know voicethread has been around a while and I signed up a few years ago however I have only just got around to trying one with my students.
I first thought they could use it to discuss the book we were reading. It didn't work as it was taking forever to get through all my kids. So, a rethink and I tried it to reinforce their personal key fact about their topic and thus generate a lot of key facts in one place. It worked! It didn't take long to upload a photo of each child.... you can do them all in one go. Putting no names on theVoice thread makes it safer. Then as their photo came on the screen they said their fact into the mic. I didn't like that after the last slide it went straight to a page where they could click on facebook links etc... To get round this I put in three slides of nothing before the last page so "hiding" that last slide, well sort of!
Keeping up with Technology
Tried out a new blog host called "edublogs" instead of using "Weebly". Not sure of the benefits of edublogs over weebly but I'll only learn if there are benefits over time and trying things out. Then, I also decided to use "Blogger" again just to see the comparison. There are so many sites offering so much these days it's hard to figure out the good from the bad and sometimes just the good from the very good.
Teachers these days have to be tech savvy on top of everything else they do in their daily routine. We were busy before all these expectations and now we are crazy busy as nothing has ceased to exist, nothing has dropped out of the curriculum. Handwriting some may argue is no longer necessary however I disagree. Recently on the news they showed a youngster in China loosing the skill to be able to write kanji as the autofill on their computers did it for them. In time, this would lead to a whole generation unable to write without a computer. How as educators are we to know whether the technology is here to stay or will the future be one of power cuts due to our inability to safely provide enough electricity for our demands. Without the benefit of hindsight it is an era where as educators we have to prepare children for all eventualities. So back to my problem. How to fit in everything we have to do and learn as educators into our busy weeks. Technology teachers have the benefit of only having to focus on one subject area. As a primary teacher I have to focus on the latest developments in many subjects. So keeping up with technology is an added strain. Fun but daunting at times.
Primary teacher education technology Primary teacher education technology Primary teacher education technology Primary teacher education technology Primary teacher education technology Primary teacher education technology Primary teacher education technology Primary teacher education technology Primary teacher education technology
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