Behind the Scenes

So - what goes into planning EDIT 2000? Lately, alot of web surfing to catch up with what's going on in educational technology and to learn how to use some new tools. A lot of time has been spent looking at educator's blogs to see what they are talking about - what they are planning to use in their classrooms this fall, etc. Enjoyable, but I'm getting a little "carsick" from reading so much text on the computer screen.

I've come across some ideas I want to try out for fall semester -- I want to start talking about emerging technologies more - but there just doesn't seem to be enough time - but I'm working on it. Here's my wishlist for what I'd like to be able to talk with students about, do, etc.:
1. Blogs (really this time -- instead of just posting to post).
2. Podcasts
3. Flickr
4. Wikis
5. The Digital Generation
6. The National Educational Technology Plan, Georgia's plans for technology


I'd also like to have students be able to download or order a copy of a "text" for our course. Lulu seems to be an interesting way to go about this. But I would need to actually create some text for this . . .

I want students to keep up with web resources they've found throughout the semester and keep them in a community list organized by class-determine categories. I think I want to use the Delicious site to do this and I've already set up a site that we can use. But we could use a Wiki for this?

I also want students to keep an eye on an ed tech blog all semester and listen to at least 1 podcast -- but how do I keep up with this -- and I need to put together a list of valuable blogs to view -- I'll have 80 students this semester so I don't know how I should divide all of that up. And what do they do with the information? How will it help them to understand about what is going on in schools?

I want to breathe some life into what we do at the beginning of the semester -- there's got to be a better (read: more interesting) way to introduce the basic foundation stuff. Can I do most of it through personal inventories and class discussions -- can I actually do it without using PowerPoint at all -- can I use iMovie instead? That's what I really need to work on next -- because it will set the tone for the entire semester.

I've also gone through all of the projects and thought of improvements:

Productivity Tools - I need new examples and new template sites -- and I definitely need better readings and anecdotes for this. The assignment needs to be updated and some of the elements that are redundant need to be eliminated.

Inspiration - I need to review the readings I currently use. I'm happy with the project itself but I could use better examples, a better how-to handout, and the requirements for the teacher info sheet could be improved so that I could use it for other projects (it's a bit redundant as is).

PowerPoint Game - I'm pretty happy with this one - so to keep my sanity I'm going to leave it as is for fall

iMovie -- so much work to be done here -- but just not enough time alloted for the project -- I need to give more background on Internet safety and have a better evaluation with a list of expectations. I want them to be funny - but they really need to teach something specific to a specific audience

Web Resources -- I want to do this early -- not later -- and work on it throughout the semester with the class list of resources -- I still need to think about this one alot. It always gets short shrift and out of all the things my students are learning to use in this course -- it is web resources that they will use so much - so why am I not spending more time on them?

Curriculum software -- I like the way I did this back in the spring -- so I think I'll keep it as is for now.

WebQuests -- lots to do here: I need to break down the classroom work into sections. I need to place more focus on: writing the process, finding good resources (using thematic sites like emints and other WebQuests). I need to find or create new templates -- Bernie Dodge's Quest Garden is supposed to go live in September so I may be able to use that. I also need a new evaluation rubric and provide more support (and time) for peer review.

Portfolio -- I want to rethink this -- with the advent of LiveText I don't know how important it is to create portfolios from scratch - what if we refocused our efforts on classroom websites?

Reflection -- I'm okay with this as is

Hmm -- I think that's it for now -- there's an interesting article that has been getting some discussion on other blogs about the 20 Tech Skills every educator should have and whether or not those really are the 20 - might make for nice class discussions - also found (on a blog) a new "diatribe" by Cliff Stoll - that should be great for the beginning of the semester. I can't find the link for that -- should have been keeping this blog while I was doing all of my exploring.