27 March 2019 Notes to Myself

I am going off script this week and putting my own stream of consciousness in my blog.  It feels like I am double-tracking with this course; learning technology as a second language on the one track and rolling along the other track with all the different ways that I can use these things for students pinging at me.  I have taken to jotting all of the new learning that could work for me down, so here it is for you...this is what it looks like when an old teacher finally sees the value of technology for her twenty-first century learners.

I am thinking about using blogs in my Year 10 English.  I know that I am late to arrive at this, but I am getting my head around how this would enhance learning.  I love Dorothy's suggestion this morning of using the share stuff as a hook to finish.  This gives them a purpose for writing and I really see the potential motivation here with the Year 10s.  Publishing will require a re-defining for students in class.  How do I integrate the publishing share aspect of their writing into my "writing is never finished" credo that my students hear from me every day.  Time to rethink my own definitions to make sure they are still relevant for my students.

I also take Dorothy's point of "don't stop" when DFI is over. At this point, this course is a safe place with some time to play with this stuff, but ultimately I go back to what I know works and what is familiar.  I am sure that I am not alone in this.  The challenge is to sift through all of the new bits that we have been exposed to here, decide what could be useful, become fluent with those elements, and move on to a new element that could work with my students.

I love the idea of the video making and was overwhelmed by all of the beautiful websites we looked at today, but again I am up against the too-much-work barrier and I immediately think of how long it took to make something like that.  Was it worth the time (enough bang for my buck)?  Can I put it into my resources or will it need to be refreshed every year?  I am noticing some clip links are no longer live.  Is there a way to permanently insert clips into websites so that great bits that fit well into your website do not go dead and become irreplaceable?

I also love the idea of creating a new site for your classes every year-- it contributes to your inquiry cycle to show where you were, where you are next and also archives old resources for my own use in the future.  And finally,  I am noticing that these websites seem to be made for each unit schemes, not a huge class subject websites--is that correct?  Is there a way to link all of these unit plans into a subject site or are individual ones websites better?

Thank you, Ben, for patiently sitting next to me and helping me, and for sharing "Just Dance" and  "Go Noodle" Youtube videos for class dancing--one never knows when these will come in handy!

Well Folks, that's the end of Day Four of DFI and my brain is quite full.  I will be percolating all week as usual.