A New Blog Journey Begins

First, a quick introduction. Who I am and why I'm doing this. And, what will this blog be about.

Who I am.

Most of my readership at this point know me, I'm sure, so I'll keep this short and sweet. My name is Jen. I'm a computer teacher at a small independent school in PA. I just started this position in September. I teach computer classes to students in grades 2-6 once or twice in a 6 day cycle and I teach various technology electives to students in 7-9 2 or 3 times.


Why am I doing this?

Several reasons, really.

First of all, I should be keeping a blog. Its already January, and I haven't started one yet, and that's a shame. There are things that I've done that I haven't written down. I feel that blogging helps me keep a record of what I've done, reflect on what I've done, and share what I've done. This is not to say I haven't recorded or written anything yet, but I haven't really shared.

I'm doing this to connect to the teachers in my school. I want my day to day goings on to be more transparent.

I'm doing this to give teachers at VSL who are trying new things to get recognition for it. Some great things have been going on. I want to make sure that those things are put out there for all to see.

I'm doing this to entice teachers at VSL. I want teachers to see what others are doing, and to get curious, get inspired, and maybe try something, too.

I'm doing this to connect the teachers at VSL. Many teachers out there blog. Many teachers share fantastic resources, great ideas, and amazing insights. I want to get some of the teachers at VSL to start reading some of those blogs, and then to contribute comments, and maybe even to start blogs of their own. Or to use blogging in the classroom with students.

I suppose that is plenty of reasons to be getting on with.

What will this blog be about?

Mostly, this blog will be about what technology is being used at VSL.

I hope to mostly focus on what different classroom teachers are doing. I have worked with teachers on several projects already this year, including using Prezi and creating podcasts. I'm more likely to have insight into projects that I'm involved in, but I'm hoping to be able to expand to tech use that I'm not directly linked to.

I will write about what I'm teaching in my own computer classes. Hopefully, more and more of that will be linked directly with what is going on in other classrooms.

I will write about what is going well. I will write about what is not going well. And I will write about thoughts for improving both in the future.

There are a few projects in the making to keep an eye out for.

3rd graders are going to be using class wiki to help find info for a writing prompt.

4th graders are going to be using askkids.com to search for info and pictures to create glogs for an animal project.

5th graders are going to be web searching for information and posting it to a wiki to facilitate classroom discussion on heroes of the American Revolution.

6th graders are going to be using a wiki to facilitate group work and research and to create a final project (detail tbd).

Several teachers, including 2nd grade, are starting to learn mimio studio to use the mimio board in class. A large part of the first learning session was spent figuring out that you have to turn out the light directly over the white board to get the mimio to work.

One of the math teachers is currently exploring the potential of geogebra.