Week Four: WBQ

How is the course going so far? What has been most valuable? What are your concerns or fears? What would you like to see more (or less) of?


This has to be my favorite class because I find it extremely useful for my future. We have learned things I could never figure out on my own such as blogs, podcasts, and other 2.00 tools which I can incorporate into my lesson plans. I feel as if now I truly have the tools and knowledge to teach students, reach out to them, tend to their every needs and disabilities, and have fun at the same time with them.
What has been the most valuable in this class is setting up and tagging all these websites that will help my students with research, homework, and classroom activities. The blog has been extremely helpful and the networking so that everyone can see each other’s ideas and no one is left out. It’s important to me that everyone works together and branches off each other’s idea. The blogs are a way of classroom communication and it’s extremely easy to see what my students are thinking, what their struggling with, and what else their looking for.
Another thing I found extremely useful is the websites where you can find primary source documents. My favorite subject is history so having that information to help me not only with my classes but just for fun is very handy. My high school teachers used several primary source documents and they have influenced my lesson ideas so having these websites will gather information for my students to read and analyze. I also love the documentaries for students. I sometimes find myself watching them because their so interesting and I wish my teacher assigned homework like this instead of always reading and writing.
My concerns for this class is the time we may have to put in for our projects. I’m not sure how lengthy this project will be or other details such as in-class time, topics, finding information, ect. I’m still not as good as I want to be using sites that we have worked on. Another concern is the microphone we may need for podcasting. I have a macbook so I have a built in microphone but I don’t know how well it works or how to plug it in. Another fear is how am I going to be able to incorporate everything I learned into lesson plans for high school students. By the time I’m teaching will everyone have the technology to follow with my projects?
I would like to see more websites with tools to use as research such as videos, primary sources, and other formats to help teach history. I’m not sure what else I should look for cause I would never think of any of these tools to use for teaching. This has been a pleasant shock and I’ve learned so much from this class that I’m sure I will be using in my classroom in the future.