Why I Love Teaching Technology

Because somewhere down the line I want my students to be able to produce something like this, which was created by an 18-year-old high school senior from Beaverton, Oregon:



I'm a little late in sharing this, but no matter what day of the year, a few minutes spent remembering Dr. King and all that he did for our country are minutes well spent.

Writing a paper about Dr. King is one thing, but when you use the tools available in the 21st century, I think the learning becomes much more valuable. I hope that by using technology, I'm enriching the learning of students and helping prepare them for lives as 21st century learners and 21st century leaders.

Edmodo Experiment

Edmodo is a special networking site designed for teachers and students. Basically, it creates a "facebook-like" environment (minus the profile pictures, the photo albums, the silly games, and the friends from junior high you have no interest in talking to) for teachers to post assignments, files, and discussion questions. However, it's completely secure. It is only used for people in the class to interact with each other, not with the outside world.

I learned about it from some literacy training that the staff attended in August. We plan on using it for students to post writing and reading assignments. Today we logged onto it for the first time and I let the students explore. I created a group called "friends" for them to interact with each other and get the hang of things before we start using it for our real work. I even gave them some an extra credit assignment tonight--post an answer to my question, "What did you have for dinner?" There's been a lot of activity already tonight.

Using the login information I sent home today, I encourage you to have your child give you a tour of the site so you can see how it works. The way they're using it now seems a bit silly, I know. But, trust me, it has lots of educational uses.

As always, if you have any questions, please let me know.