WoWzers!

 1) what you learned about yourself and teaching with technology from completing this assignment.
Well, I learned that I am capable of completing an assignment like this.  I was dreading this for the entire semester, but once I sat down and really tried to figure it out, I understood it.  I know it may not be as involved or nice as other people's but I am impressed with how far I've come with technology.
 2) how what you planned was received by your peers, what you liked about your teaching/presentation and what you would do differently if you were assigned to present this topic again; and
 3) tell how this Literacy topic or Technology/software would be useful in a classroom curriculum.

Collaborative tools for schools

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Collaborative tools for schools

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*TEAM TECHSAVY NEWSLETTER*

1) Why is communication important between teachers and parents? Communication is important because parents should know what their children are doing, and how they are doing.  If there are weaknesses then parents should work with students at home.  The only way for a student to get a well-rounded education is to also be learning outside of the classroom.

2) In what way will you communicate with your students’ parents? I plan to have an online site to communicate with parents and students, if that is unavailable to me I would certainly create a quarterly newsletter with all contact information on it.

3) What new communications software applications would be fun to try to communicate with parents for sharing assessment techniques?  I think any type of secure networking site is good for communicationg with parents.  I was very impressed with schoology, and look forward to trying that out.

4) What software did you use, why did you choose to use it? For this particular assignment we used letterpop.  I feel any type of program such as publisher would work to create a newsletter.  I am happy that letterpop was free though.

5) How was it to collaborate on this project?  Team techsavy did a great job collaborating.  We were very progressive in our ideas, and figure out exactly how we wanted to structure it very quickly.

6) What would you do differently if you did a Class Newsletter again? I may use a different program, as I found letterpop to be confusing, and not user friendly.

Engrade/Engage

Many of the ideas I have for teaching English involve online message boards, to promote interaction.  I especially feel this is a great way to teach dramatic literature as the students may take on different character personas while communicating on an online site.  It is a lot easier for people to be in a certain character online, because it is a way to hide your true identity.  This idea only feeds into that, but will promote learning, because students will have a legitimate reason to be able to be someone else online, and learn something about their character in the process.

Schoology actually seems to be a good way to do that or the program used for our online classes.  I am developing many lessons for English, that I hope I will soon get to use.  I thought this was a neat picture, that describes how learning is changing...

Schoology the facebook of school

I found this to be such a useful tool for students and teachers.  This is such a modern way to interact that the students can relate to.  This is what the students are used to with all the social networking sites, and this is just a more familiar way to interact.  The fact that you can add online tests and different courses is such an amazing way to keep students learning even outside the classroom or perhaps have an entire school online.  Some sick children who cannot come to school or children overseas who would like an education in the US would  benefit greatly from this type of school.  I found this youtube video about the site:

Writing an Essay

Writing an Essay I found digital storytelling in an English class to be ironic, because so much of it is focused on writing. I do see how it is a good way to get students interested in the subject. It was easier to make than I thought. The words digital storytelling always made me nervous, but this was not as hard as I thought it would be. I could definitely see myself using this in the classroom to introduce all types of literature in English class.