Thing 5

This chapter was fascinating. It is interesting that our textbooks and pencils may very quickly become relics of the past just as the blackboard has. We are racing into a new era. In this era the communication devices are beyond the classroom doors and have now become global!

New mind thinking

I am realizing that going to school in the 70s and 80s that I was taught by the presentation method and learned about things. I have realized that learning by the participation method for our children of today is much more powerful and that they are learning to be through daily experience. My mind is reeling thinking about all the doors that this opens for my 1st grade students growing up in the conceptual age.

Thing 4

At first thought my mind thought blogging was rather complicated. Now I am realizing that it is another communication avenue just as Face Book is. I love the idea that Blogging...Facebook... and Twitter are just another genre of writing. I love talking about what I am learning and am excited about an avenue to network with others from maybe across the world... I'm diving in!

Thing 3

When attaching widgets, I attached a picture of myself, created a profile, and added a slide show of sunsets. The reason I added these widgets is that I am very much a picture oriented person. I failed to figure out how to put my own photos into a slideshow and this is of course bothering me. Frustration is occuring because it is time to go to lunch and I REALLY want to continue to WIG out. :)

Thing 2

My first thoughts of Web 2.0 are that I feel sort of like what I am sure my 65 year old mother feels like when she tries to wrestle with the concept of text messages, voice mail and answering machine messages. She is still clueless as to the difference and what the purpose of each is but yet prattles on as if she does.
I feel that I know just enought to start talking but am unsure of the HOW of using each of these tools.
I know that I am excited about learning how to dive into the web 2.0 ocean with my 1st grade learners and recreate a learning enviroment that spawns "learning to be" instead of "learning about", participation instead of presentation and conversation instead of publication. I am no longer a lone first grade teacher presenting the world but a first grade teacher learning about the world along with my students via the web. My job is to make their education public to the world and the leverage of the world public to them with adult discernment. My classroom will become the hallways and in my mind the hallways are much more fun!
As I said before... my mother prattles as if she knows what she is speaking about and I think I know where I am going but am overwhelmed with diving in. Perhaps it is prattling but I am in the ocean now and refuse to let the little fishies drown.