vaporingvillano

Web Tools for Teachers Class was a useful class for me as a former “Luddite”.  I took the class to become acquainted with Wiki spaces,  blogging, del.icio.us and other web tools.  I wanted to be more aware what is going on in the cyberspace in the field of education. My awareness has grown. My proficiency level however is still at an emerging  stage.  There is so much to learn in this world of participatory media.

Using lap top computers with first graders this year has stretched me a bit. I did not think that my class could handle the mouseless keyboard because of the lack of refined fine motor skills. The thought of lap tops being broken was a real concern as one of my kiddoes dropped one last week. My comfort level is improving, but it is hard to help everyone who cries for help. Another adult in the room would be most helpful when 22 first graders are booting up,  using different applications, accomplishing an assignment, printing, saving, and  closing down. The students are excited as the hunt and peck on the keyboard. Some of them may not even know all the letters  and sounds of the alphabet which can impact the use of many web tools.

As for me and my quest to become more tech literate I seem not to have enough time in the day to accomplish all that is required of me as a teacher. Blogging as a teacher or a private citizen will required more hours in the day. I also will need more support and training to get first graders to blog. Can they blog?? I really like learning to be connected to other teachers at Denali via our blogs and our del.icio.us postings. We can access others researched “cool sites”, which I found very valuable. Fran has shared  some great sites with me and I really enjoyed reading other teachers blogs. I had never done that before.

One of the draw backs for me is that my learning curve for tech is longer and wider than many in the class. I need time to process new material… time to practice… time to review. Sometimes I was at information overload during class and that caused me to miss steps in the process of what ever we were learning. I wonder if  I will need to take the class a few times to feel proficient using all the tools we were exposed to this semester.

It is fun though to talk to my children and their 20 something friends about blogging and having my own site. I have made progress in the class and the experience has made me want to learn and to try using web tools as an educator.