Successes+&+Failures+with+Emerging+Technology

home Wikis for teacher collaboration Excited about Del.icio.us! Making collaborative slide shows with Google Docs- breakthrough! || Our blogs haven't been very interactive Abortive forays into Voicethread getting kids to speak French. Not exactly a failure, but a frustration. || Randa you have grown so much, as far as technology is concerned, this past year. I love your enthusiasm. Did you put your VoiceThreads on your blog? (Nicole) Randa I am so impressed with your web page for freshman focus. If only every freshman focus teacher would use it the class might actually make sense to our students. || Since leaving Exeter my VLE is non-existent (being a new teacher is hard!) ||  || Del.icio.us bookmark sharing Interactive websites for chemistry practice || Blog participation Wii remote for interactive white board, blind spots ||  || Your use of the web 2.0 tools with your students totally amazes me and makes me a little nervous as to what your students will expect from the high school teachers when they get here. (Diana) || Using the MIMEO in my classroom. I can't seem to get it to do what I want so I just gave up. || I look at what we were doing just two years ago and marvel at our progress. If we move ahead at that same pace I wonder what we will be doing two years from now! (Randy) || home
 * **Name** || **Success with Emerging Technology** || **Failure with Emerging Technology** || **Response from Classmate** ||
 * Crystal ||  ||   ||   ||
 * Randa || Using blogs as a forum for collecting kids' writings
 * Tina || Use of Smartboard to make Powerpoints interactive. || Blogging, I tried to start a blog to do a semester review and it bombed.
 * Susie || I believe that I have been succeeding with my use of my SmartBoard and my response system as well as my integration of technology. Using bookmark sharing in combination with RSS feeds to share sites with ease. Recording my lectures with the use of screen capturing software and a bluetooth headset. || While Moodle has been, in my mind, a success, it has also been a failure in that I have sometimes tried to do too much with it and am not able to keep up with the students interactions as well as I'd like (such as grading glossary entries when I require them). Sometimes my SmartBoard software also goes haywire and it's hard to recover without losing the kids. Podcasts/Vodcasts have also been hit or miss for me in the past, but I think it is getting better with age. || I think it is awesome that you record all your lectures for your students. How great is it that if they are absent, they really don't miss a thing! (Nicole) ||
 * Jen || Collaboration on wikis with other teachers
 * Kate || Wikis, blogs, podcasts, Belkin tunetalks for recording with iPods, Garageband, Promethean... I tend to be more successful when I am learning with others... ||  || I am intrigued by your success with the tunetalks. They seem really neat and a perfect way to integrate technology in to a music classroom! ||
 * Barbara || My latest success (I hope it's a success) has been with distance learning, both synchronous and asynchronous. We've been conducting webinars using Adobe Connect and it has allowed me to reach out to people across the state and even in other parts of the country. I'm still exploring the possibilities and as video conferencing and other distance learning tools become more sophisticated, I think we will be providing even more PD this way. || I've had many failures in the 20 years that I've been teaching with technology. Most recent failures have more to do with attitudes and control issues than with the technology itself. I'm running into many barriers that are put in place by people who fear the changes the technology may bring and fear losing control over the learning environment. || Fear of change seems to be a very common barrier for every school really. That's why, I think, convincing my fellow teachers to look at the positives of iPod-type devices has been insanely hard. (Susie) You Rock Barbara! I loved watching your webinar on digital storytelling. I need to look up your podcasts and listen to those too. I promise myself to someday find the time. (Nicole) ||
 * Lisa || I have utilized Web 2.0 tools like wikis, blogs, nings, Twitter, and podcasts for teaching and learning. Student engagement was high. I have used web 2.0 simulations to help students learn difficult to teach concepts. I have used smart phones for assignments. || My failures were the best learning experiences ever! I used a collaborative tool called Sub-Etha-Edit with students. It was a challenge to teach the students how to use this program to collaboratively write. The challenge was not so much the program or how it worked. The challenge was teaching and allowing the students to collaborate. This took much more practice than I had anticipated. || I've seen that too. It's a cultural change, I think. Traditionally we've thought of school work as being individual and competitive and collaboration was considered cheating, Moving teachers and students out of that mindset is really hard. (Barbara) ||
 * ** Nicole ** || I have enjoyed using as many of the new free web 2.0 tools that I learn about. I have found that these tools help keep students engaged in learning and it is an excellent way to keep parents informed or showcase what we are doing in the classroom. || Failures always turn into successes. I find that it is best to learn from any mistakes or failures and move on. || Your web 2.0 integration, especially at such a low grade level, has been inspirational to just about everyone. It's incredible! I think you give us all hope that our endeavors will, someday, become all worth the time. Yours certainly have! (Susie)
 * Jeff ||  ||   ||   ||
 * Randy || I have used graphing calculators in my classroom since they came on the market and we (the school) could afford them. Recently I have had success using wikis (for dissemination of information) and blogs (for questions and answers) in all my classes. Although some of this technology is not new it is definitely new to my classroom. || My biggest failure is the failure to find emerging tech and try to use it in the classroom. I would love to be introduced to more inexpensive (possibly free) technology that could be helpful in my classroom. || Randy, it's really hard to keep up with all the new stuff that's constantly coming out. One thing I do is follow a lot of blogs. If you haven't seen Free Technology for Teachers, that would be a good one to start with. (Barbara) ||
 * Diana || I have used graphing calculators with my students extensively for the past 4 years. I also use graphing software on my computer with my classes. My web page and wiki page have been great for keeping students and parents informed. The few activities that I have developed for my students to use have been successfully used by the students. || Developing activities for students to use and access on my wiki page to help with assignments from home. Getting students to use the blog on a regular basis.