Mrs. Charron’s Edtec Blog

President Obama addressed the students of this country in a pseech he gave on Tuesday, 9/8/09. After either watching the speech or reading it, what were your thoughts? Do you think the speech was controversial and had a political slant to it? What is your opinion of the message President Obama wa strying to send out. Write a one paragraph response to these questions in which you reference at least one part of his speech. You have until Friday, 9/18/09. This will be worth 10 extra credit points.

Video of the Speech

Text of the Speech

Remember, your test on the Fifty States is next Friday, 9/18/09. Here are some games to help you study:

Did you watch the presidential debate tonight? Who do you think presented a stronger argument on the issues? If you would like to receive ten extra credit point, write a paragraph in which you state who you think won the debate and why. You need to include at least three reasons to support your position. Posts are due by Wednesday.

And finally, here is the last remaining assignment:

edtec-700-vodcast

Here is my one minute blogcast:

1minutepodcast3

Evaluation

How will you know if this site is helping your users reach the objectives you’ve defined for them?

I will know if my site is helping users reach their objectives through a number of different ways:

• Students utilize the podcasts that will be posted  to help them  study for tests and actually post comments on those posts.
• Students feel free to share opinions and post comments on news stories and current events that are posted.
• Students actually comment on each other’s posts and respond to comments that are made.
• Students help each other by answering each other’s questions on the blog.

Implementation

How will you introduce this to the class?

I plan on introducing the blog to my classes either on the second or third day of our first week. The first day our staff will be covering enough as it is since we will be introducing a new discipline plan and program to our students. Since I can hook my laptop up to my projector in class, I plan on going over the blog in this manner, modeling how to post and search for things on the blog. In addition, I am actually considering having my students post to the blog by the end of the first week as a credit assignment just to get them in the habit of posting. I am also considering making a movie about how to use my blog and posting it on the blog as a guide for them.

What do you have to do to get permission from the powers that be at your school?

Luckily, the principal at my school is very supportive of technology and anything that teachers can use to connect to students. He knew that I, as well as a few other teachers, had started blogs last year, and he was very supportive of our efforts.

Development

What tools or combination of tools will you use to support the site?

I was going to try blogger, but instead I just created a blog on edublogs. I like the different features, and that this page seems very easy to navigate. I am not going to have my kids register in order to be able to post. I think if they had to register first that it would turn many of them off to actually posting (even though some posts are going to be required assignments.  I am going to moderate posts though. So nothing will be posted until I approve it.  This shouldn’t be a problem since I am online all of the time. In fact, I have  actually approved  blog posts from my blackberry before!

What customizations will you need to do to your site?

Fortunately, for this blog I do not need to make that many customizations. I uploaded a new picture to the header, but I would like to change it eventually to a street shot I have taken somewhere in DC or Virginia perhaps. I also added a few widgets to the side. I added a calender and recent posts widget, and I also added a list of links kids could go to as well. In addition, I created a poll on a website called Vizu, and using a text widget I was able to add it to my blog. I also created a questions page. My kids let me know last year that they never knew where to post the current questions they had, especially when there wasn’t a blog post for the day. Thus, I have created a questions page specifically for that reason so they can always go there to post questions.

Are you happy with how well it turned out?

Yes, I definitely am. I think navigation for this page will be much easier. I am going to post my entries in categories, so students will be able to conduct easier searches. This blog makes it easy to post my podcasts which I will really do this year. In addition, I think the layout is simple and not distracting. I may attempt to tweak the colors, but that is a very minor detail in the scheme of things.

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Design

What do you want users to be able to do when they visit this site?

Students should be able to come here to listen to podcasts in order to prepare for tests.

Students should be able to discuss current events that are occurring and relate them back to what we are studying.

Students should be able to post assignments (answers to discussion questions).

Students should be able to post their own questions and share information to help others.

Is it a recurring effort, or a one-time project?

Yes, this effort will be recurring throughout the school year. I will definitely be using this blog on a weekly basis if not daily (hopefully). And my students will at least be using this website weekly.