Well, this week we discussed our new IPT 286 class and I'm excited to be teaching such a variety of majors! Last semester I was teaching all elementary education majors, so this is exciting, especially since my only experience teaching in a K-12 setting is with high school kids.
Today we shared ideas about how our teachers used technology when we were students. We then discussed David Jonassen's article "Mindtools," where he discusses how we should have our students learn WITH technology, not from technology nor about technology. We also discussed weblogs in education and got started with our own weblogs and aggregators. If you missed class and aren't sure how to do this yet, or if you were in class and got lost, read my post about blogs, and then download the tutorial and follow the directions. And don't forget to subscribe to my blog and all the bloggers in your blogging buddy group.
BTW, when I said you need to be blogging this semester, you need to do a suficient amount of blogging about technology in education. I hope you blog about personal things too, for example one of our students got engaged last week! (I don't know how much she wants to publicize it, or else I'd link to her post here). I like to hear about things like that--it helps me get to know you as a real person, not just a student. So go ahead and blog about personal stuff, but remember that it doesn't substitute for your blogging about class topics.
TWO USEFUL TIPS--If you log back into blogger and go to "settings" and "comments" you can tell it to email you when someone comments on one of your posts. This is the easiest way to know when you have a new comment on your blog. The second tip is to blog in Mozilla, when you can. Mozilla is an Internet browser, like Explorer. It's free (at mozilla.org) and it's more secure and better than Explorer. When you log into blogger in Mozilla, there are cool formatting options that make writing a post even easier. We have Mozilla on all the computers in the TLSC lab (It's the big "M" on the dock at the bottom of the screen).
How often do you need to post to your blog to get the points? I don't know and can't say. It depends on how good your posts are. You should post and comment enough to convince me that you are conversing with your blogging buddies, using your blog to learn, and being diligent about it. It doesn't have to be every week, however.
Have fun-- I look forward to reading about your ideas!
p.s. if you have questions on anything this semester, post them to your blog and either I, the TA, or your blogging buddies will answer it for you. Whoever gets to it first.
