Well, the blogging time has come to an end and who knows what will happen with this blog now. It is a great way to keep in touch over the summer and onward. I thought the idea of a group blog for next year is so much better than this. The class has been really great and I have used it as a way to get off my butt and get into the computer lab. I had a great time with my kids using power point and my own power point lesson. It was fun to watch them navigate their way through the links and such. Ah well, so it is....

Well, the blogging time has come to an end and who knows what will happen with this blog now. It is a great way to keep in touch over the summer and onward. I thought the idea of a group blog for next year is so much better than this. The class has been really great and I have used it as a way to get off my butt and get into the computer lab. I had a great time with my kids using power point and my own power point lesson. It was fun to watch them navigate their way through the links and such. Ah well, so it is....

Well, the blogging time has come to an end and who knows what will happen with this blog now. It is a great way to keep in touch over the summer and onward. I thought the idea of a group blog for next year is so much better than this. The class has been really great and I have used it as a way to get off my butt and get into the computer lab. I had a great time with my kids using power point and my own power point lesson. It was fun to watch them navigate their way through the links and such. Ah well, so it is....

Hey all -
I'm writing to talk a little about the midterm. It certainly is a lot of work trying to get all this information down. However, I see what I need to work on in order to teach my kids how to complete all the new literacies. If I start at the beginning of the school year in getting my kid to the computer lab, it will make the job of sending them out on their own that much easier towards the end of the year. I understand now how much more I have to learn in order to better teach them. But what a valuable resource this class and text have been to opening my eyes to new literacies and how I can use them to help my kids succeed. Hope all is going well with you and your work.

No matter what I read in this book, I can't help but get excited all over again. I logged onto the text website and found some really great links to add to my newly created bookmark folders. One in particular was a site that broke down some great literary classics into chapters. This enables you, as the teacher, to assign a chapter a day for your kids to read. You no longer have to have the actual books in front of you. While I am a book hound and can never give up my vast book collection, I value this site because my school cant afford to get me new books every year. This will work in my favor as I approach my superintendent for money to obtain a mobile laptop unit for my team at school. Wish me luck.!!!! As a closing thought, with all these great resources, I wonder why NCLB isn't giving schools in need the funds to support new literacies? If they want all students to be proficient by 2014 (?) and they have so many schools that are not meeting AYP, why not help them instead of letting good teachers go that are doing the best with what they have? It seems they are setting us up to fail and I don't understand why.

At the end of each class, I wish I had the technology in my classroom to do all these great things. I love the idea of a scavanger hunt with my kids. We just finished a unit on Greek Mythology and what a great way to end the unit. I wish I could have had this class 2 weeks ago. The class continutes to fuel my fire for technology and makes me want it more and more. Maybe I can deal with the computer lab teacher and get my kids in there soon. It's also cool to read about how to organize bookmarks and review some basic skills on the computer. The book is a great tool for when I want to really start teaching the new literacies in my room. I just read on the Apple web page that NCLB has billions of dollars in Title II money for teacher improvement. Did anyone know about that and I wonder what they mean by it? Will we ever see it? The track record says no.

I read the assigned pages for next class and can I tell you that I forget how vast the internet really is. It's like I'm stuck on a highway and I never get off a different exit. It's always the same web pages that I visit and the same information that I get time and time again. By simply linking with the authors webset connected to our book, I am now connected to hundreds of different ways to bring the new literacies into my classroom. The excitement that I now have started on the first page. The book is also a great way for me to share information with my collegues. It's a bit funny that this class started at the time it did. My principal just asked us to think about what equipment we would need to support literacy and numeracy skills in our classes. I knew I wanted another computer (which would be the only one I have besides the one on my desk) but I couldn't really give him any examples of how I would use it. In the time it took me to read 25 pages of text material, I can now go back to him and say look what I found. While I might only get one computer in my room, it's like getting every piece of information there is in the world delivered to my door. If I learned this much in just one chapter, I can't wait to see what else there is to learn. See you all on Thursday.

Hey all!!! Here is the first entry onto my blog site. Hopefully things will go well and we will learn to keep up with the technological world within our classrooms.