Sunday, July 30, 2006

Racing to Catch My Cheese!

So many new things to learn! As my cheese keeps moving, it's become a race to stay on top of new discoveries and new information. What an exciting time to be an educator and have access to tools to create content in brand new ways. I am learning so much from Brian Grenier and his blog, Bump on the Blog. With about 20 others, we were part of a Skype cast that looked at Educational blogging. What was especially exciting about this Skype conversation was the fact that there were so many of us participating on an international level and simultaneoulsy discussing Web 2.0 tools for our students.
Another free download that I have been exploring is Springdoo. This is free video or audio email that is incredibly easy to learn. The company includes a brief online instructional video. An excellent application for differentiated instruction for students with output difficulties is to have the students record their homework, schedule or reminders and reduce copying from the board. Once they are home, they can listen to the email and use what they need. There are many other applications as well. This is just one idea to get you started.
I also just learned about edublogs which offers free blogs and wikis for educators. I can now post documents online that can be easily downloaded by anyone looking for information. Today I added my "Text-to-Speech in Microsoft Word 2003" document to my wikispace.
Click on the link check it out if you need that information.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Karen for the compliment, it is great to hear such things from people in the same field. Although I have only been bloggin for a little over a month, I still can't believe how much I have learned. I have said time and time again that the edublogosphere has provided me with the most enriching source of professional development I have experienced in my ten years as an educator. I look forward to continuing the conversation!

Brian Grenier
http://bumpontheblog.etowns.net

Anonymous said...

Brian,
I can not agree with you more. Blogging allows us to connect in ways never before possible and participate in thought provoking conversations. Don't you want to tell EVERYBODY about the possibilities? I want to shout from the rooftops about the excellent free professional development that emanates from educational blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc.
(And I'm all over "FREE!")