open source

Well I have been checking out all the free programs avalaible.  It is amazing to me how these programs are offered completely free.  I am still waitning for the CATCH?? I like to find you tube videos to show and I found teacher tube that is very similar.  However, it is produced by educators so you can feel more comfortable knowing that you are going to get better quality information and not something stupid that is not relevant to education.  I also found a few things relevant to physical education.  It is really neat becuase you can track various things with your fitness levels and make your own plans.  I will be checking into this more. 

igoogle

Alright so I have been really enjoying igoogle and having everything on one page for me to look at.  I set one up for my husband and he thinks I'm a genius, little does he know.  The igoogle is very handy when short on time.  Also i have been exploring prezi and mix book.  Definitely falling in love.  I have never been a fan of power point and have been super excited to find something that is "heaven forbid, FUN and EDUCATIONAL to use.  Because it seems as though when we teach we should not be having fun too.  But with prezi and things like this make presentations much more interesting and I can see the kids enjoysing something different then the same old same old thing for a presentation.  Well I will continue to look into the neat tools avaliable and FREE!!!

virtual field trips

ok so now that sarah and I have been working away at our virtual field trip to rainforest of the world I feel more confident in using the various tools out there.  I have actually enjoyed making this field trip and at first was a little skeptical of the whole thing, but found myself getting into it.  So I found a lot of neat information I didn;t really know about the rainforest.  I am getting good at the whole putting a link to a site thing.  I was frustrated with google maps because I didn't know what I was doing because I never messed with it before but once i got the hang of it it was much easier than I was trying to make it!! Isn't that how it always works, things are simple we just tend to make things more complicated then they need to be.

i google

Wow, I am excited and frustrated all at the same time.  I hae been exploring igoogle and google educator and have found things that I am excited to try out in my classes.  I am frustrated because I wish someone would have shown me these tools were available 5 years ago I could have been using them in my classes.  With igoogle I will be able to us it with my group projhects that I have the kids do in health.  The big issue I have had in the past is kids not having flash drives to take work home or kids work on projects at home and cant get it to school or the email didnt work or they didnt attach it right.  With using i google I can have all the kids set up accounts and use i google and solve a lot of problems!! The google educator has a lot of things that I going to keep looking into to use in my classes.  Having this class, I am taking the time to research and explore different things offered through google and I am learning a lot and want to keep finding new things that i can actually use in my classes.  Also I feel like I am more informed and less technologically challenged! 

ED 517

These blog posts are going to be used for Ed 517 to help in keeping track of exploring topics and reflecting as I go through this class.  So far I have never done anything with a blog and I now have my own blog, so far so good.  I know just enough to be dangerous with using technology and never have time to explore.  So this class will force me to make time to explore and play with technology to hopefully help me incorporate it into my classes.