Hello All!
This past Tuesday in class, we skyped Mrs. Cassidy. Before class even began, I was wondering what this skype thing was all about. I had never heard of Skype so I did not know what it was or even how it worked. All I know is that when we had to go the survey on Google, I picked Mrs. Cassidy’s blog before I even knew she was the person we were interviewing on skype. I enjoyed how she set up her blog. She had videos of the children as the main blog posts. The few that I watched were about the children learning patterns. It seemed like they had such a fun time learning in Mrs. Cassidy’s classroom. Also, she had a section where each child can write their own blog entry. She did not have them type it perfectly. She had them type and then it was edited. I like how this was done because it allowed the children to write whatever they wanted on the blog. As I was looking at this blog, all I can think of was how does she find the time to do this with her students? Our professor explained to the class how Skype works on tuesday and it was of a lot of interest to me. I enjoyed listening to Mrs. Cassidy about how she keeps up with the blog she has for her classroom. She gave a lot of helpful hints such as; keeping the kids confidential (do not match pictures and faces), take blogging one step at a time, and only do what you can. I found this very helpful because I think this whole idea of blogging is great but I think it is something that will have to come in time. New teachers are probably overwhelmed with things to do the first year or so. But I think that I would definitely want to create my own blog for my students once I get settled into things. The students would love it because they get to see their own work on the internet and how many people looked at it. The parents would love it because they get to see how their children’s work is progressing through out the year in the comfort of their own home. I, as a teacher, would enjoy it because I get to share with the rest of the world what my students are learning about and how fun it is to learn what I am teaching.
Have a great weekend!
[...] have used, we kept it simple. Surprisingly, many of my students had never used Skype before and some had never even heard of it. So it was also a great way to demonstrate this free and powerful [...]
Mary, I like your perspective here:
(1) understand the potential/see the value
(2) start slowly and build on success
2 cannot take hold without 1. That is why I try to focus so much on 1 and you may often feel that I don’t focus enough on 2. It’s a balancing act, but too often the cart is put before the horse. If you understand the value and potential, you can tackle things that make the most sense for you at the time. If you don’t, you won’t.