Adele McMurry

Thing 23

mcmurrykrcs — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 19:40:07 +0000

Web 2.0 was well worth the time and effort. I learned so much from this class and still need to learn more. A few of my favorite things are Google Reader, Delicious, and Wiki. I was also glad to find out about RSS feeds! Voicethreads are also a good tool to get the classroom communicating using technology, but it will be interesting to try out Twitter. I used to think that Twitter was something dumb and why would anyone want to know what you are doing every minute of the day. Once I investigated more about how teachers can use this in the classroom, I was amazed. I will definitely pursue introducing this; students of today love this type of stuff and if I (as well as other teachers) show students how to use it properly, it could really take off for teachers. My first thought for Twitter will be for the high school art classes. This teacher wants a way to get the kids thinking, outside of class, about the artist of the week. Since most of them walk around with their phones as a third hand, what a great way to engage them by receiving “Tweets”! They won’t be able to resist the urge to make a comment after reading a classmates “tweet”. Thanks Shelly for a great class. I am definitely recommending this course for our staff.

Thing 22

mcmurrykrcs — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 18:18:13 +0000

When I first heard about Twitter, I thought “who cares about what someone is doing during the day”, but after reviewing the material about what it is really about and how it can be used for teachers, I think Twitter could be used in classrooms. I really like the idea of tweeting on a topic. For example, an art teacher could tweet about a piece of art and have students respond back by giving a fact about the painter, and stipulate that they cannot repeat a previous tweet fact. I am going to investigate this more because it would be great for all topics. I plan on suggesting this as a fun way to get middle and high school students talking about content topics outside the classroom. I have also bookmarked all the sites suggested, by our instructor, to my delicious account.

Thing 7C

mcmurrykrcs — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:42:45 +0000

This blog is very interesting. It is about the dolphins and The Cove in Japan. The Japanese are starting their 6 month massacre of dolphins, which they begin each year in September. The Cove is trying to teach the Japanese that instead of killing the dolphins, that they could develop a tourist industry like some New England states (MA. CT, NH RI) where people ride boats to go whale watching. This blog talks about trying to get people to show up at the same place and time as tourists. Check it out.

Save the Dolphins

Thing 20

mcmurrykrcs — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:28:45 +0000

Google Docs is a huge step for sharing. I see this very useful when two or more people are working on creating a PowerPoint presentation. If two or more science teachers want to collaborate and create lesson plans together, this will make it so much easier. In my early days of teaching, we used to send one copy of a PowerPoint back and forth between all the science teachers. It got crazy, but we all had to be on the same page when teaching AKS and standards. Once we created the lesson, we could use it year after year with very little ‘tweeking’ for updates.

A second use I see for this is management for my position next year. This will come in handy when I have to meet with teachers and share ideas about incorporating technology into the curriculum. Instead of sending lots of copies of files to all English (for example) teachers, I can use this and include their emails. Even if they don’t need to make changes and we use this for a source to view and comment on documents, spreadsheets, or presentations, it will make it more organized.

And finally, for the classroom, we all have seen how useful this has been by using it to track our progress for this course, which can be used in our classrooms with kids as well. One good use I see, is for science for Labs. I used to spend so much time making directions and a place for kids to record lab results. Now, the directions can be posted using google docs, and spreadsheets can be make so all the lab data is collected in worksheet tabs. Then a final tab can be made that actually graphs all the class data together. This is huge! What a time saver and it allows classes to share data among all classes and not just within a class. Great stuff! Love it.

Thing 19

mcmurrykrcs — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:25:21 +0000

Youtube is great. I actually have an account that I use for saving “teaching” videos. I started it when I created my own video on Zero Gravity. This is a very useful tool for teachers and we don’t necessarily have to use a camera to create a learning video. When I created my video I had lots of pictures, graphs, and clips of the actual flight. So, I created this video in movie maker so I could add all these elements together and include my voice. Hope you enjoy the video

Zero Gravity Experience

Other fun stuff I look for beside classroom content is sports. This is a video I took for my son Anthony. He was 15 yrs. old and swimming at the Senior State Meet. He was ranked in the top ten for the 50 backstroke for the State of Georgia. He is swimming against college kids. He did awesome for 15 yrs old. At the time he had a torn labrum and we didn’t know it. Now it is fixed and next summer we’ll see how well he does. He had a personal best time and came in 2nd. This clip was used for a recruiting video and the company cut off the last part where I zoomed in to the board to show his time. We’ll have to make a new one next year to replace this one. Anthony at State

Thing 18

mcmurrykrcs — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 16:51:51 +0000

Creating a podcast was so much easier than I thought it would be. Very nice! I made a podcast for California Grilled Veggie Sandwich. It is really yummie. For this coming school year, I see myself using Audacity to create learning podcasts with video on “how to” do something. This will come in handy to record directions on our new software for teachers.

Thing 17

mcmurrykrcs — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:36:26 +0000

Podcasts are really neat. I knew about them but do not use them in the classroom. I did search science sites and BBC documentaries. I’ll definitely show this to the teachers I will be supporting so they can decide if and how they want to use it in the classroom.

Thing 16

mcmurrykrcs — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 21:01:39 +0000

Library Thing looks really neat and very useful. Since I will not have kids this year, I didn’t really look for books for my classroom. Once I get back to teaching the kids, I will definitely start using it more for classroom books. Just another great site to add to delicious.

Thing 15

mcmurrykrcs — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 19:32:59 +0000

Delicious is fantastic. i already have an account and plan on using it to help teachers collaborate by tagging sites by KRCS and then by upper lower middle schools. In addition, I am requesting that teachers add tags for subject content as well. I am creating tag bundles by HS LS and MS. This is just a beginning idea and I don’t know how it will take off. I hope this turns out to be a resource of sites that teachers have researched and used, thus saving us time. http://delicious.com/amcmurry/

Thing 7b

mcmurrykrcs — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 19:18:01 +0000

This blog I just read was amazing. it was about going paperless and what that means in our changing classrooms as we head toward more technology use in teaching. Check this out http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/2010/07/cost-measured-in-lives-responding-to.html This is something we should not take lightly, as the blog title reads ‘A cost measured in lives..’ further points out that we, as consumers of technology, should also demand that manufacturers recycle old computers and parts or we don’t buy them! As time goes on, these parts end up in landfills, or in third world countries polluting and harming children from the metals, etc. This is a must read.