Tuesday, July 24, 2007

As the Wheel Turns


As I was thinking about what to write this week, I decided to go back over our class discussion of the pros and cons of blogs and wikis. In one of my responses, I stated that I see no reason why teachers should reinvent the wheel if another educator has already come up with a project, lesson plan, or idea that would work in their classrooms. I also said that teacher-to-teacher blogs could be a way of transporting these ideas around the country, from one classroom to another, perhaps being tweaked along the way into something even better. Given all that, I want to dedicate this posting - if not my entire blog - to not reinventing the wheel. As I find sites (even other blogs) that may be useful to you and save you time, I'll post their links. Although some may be for the Spanish educator (or someone who wants to learn the language), others won't because some good ideas are subject independent. One of those sites, think.com ,touts software that only allows students to publish inside the password-protected community. This may allay some of the security concerns of teachers and parents and could open the door to school-to-school projects that would allow students to comment on, debate and/or exchange information about any given subject.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Bienvenidos to my Blog

Well, here goes nothing. I'm completely new to blogging and am really unsure about its place in the classroom, but I'm willing to try just about anything if it will benefit my students. I haven't had good experiences with the website MySpace but concede to its popularity among today's youth.

I've included a picture of the small PS-8 Catholic school I teach at in Clearfield, St. Francis School, home of the St. Francis Ponies. It has a strict policy regarding websites such as MySpace, as do the public schools in the area.

Perhaps through this blog you can help me come up with ways to use this communication medium in the classroom. It will be tough, though, given school policy and the inability to properly monitor the site. Tough, but probably not impossible. Anyway, let's put our heads together and see what we come up with. Let me know your thoughts.