My Poor Neglected Blog…

I really have been scarce around here of late, especially if I look at my first post of the year in which I vowed to blog more often! BUT – that does not mean that I have not been blogging! In fact, I have been quite the busy bee over at Just iPadding Along, because our iPad project has kept me quite busy this year and much of my focus has been there. That said, there have been other things on the boil too and so I have had my work cut our for me.

In keeping with my aim to update and reinvigorate the happenings in our IT Centre, I have been exposing the teachers and children to new and exciting lessons and tools. We have used Google Earth quite extensively (there is still so much to learn), we have shown the children how to create Word Clouds (Wordle, Tagxedo), the students have created videos with PhotoStory and MovieMake, the Grade 4s created posters online using a nifty website called postermywall.com and the Grade 5s and 6s are learning how to use Prezi. I will also shortly be teaching the teachers and students how to blog (finally – I have been trying to get this off the ground for a while now).

Add into the mix my ongoing quest to make more global connections through Twitter (what an enjoyable journey this is), my weekly involvement in a new Twitter chat initiative called #edchatsa, launched by our principal (@artpreston) and launch of a #globalclassroom project (see my next post), you will understand that i have been “as busy as a bee”!

Ooohh… so many ideas… where to begin??

Yesterday’s ThinkQuest course was great in that it really got me thinking and now I have so many ideas going around in my head, I almost have a headache!! This is a regular problem I have, so baby steps it will be… I really enjoyed the course and LOVED looking at the library of past winners. Some wonderful work has been done and it is certainly inspiring. So, I’ve set myself up on ThinkQuest – let’s see what will grow from there. I also enjoyed the course because I met new people and was able to exchange ideas and pass on tips to help others – and gain tips too. Such gatherings of teachers are priceless and so worthwhile. I certainly did not mind giving up my Saturday. Thanks Fiona (Beal), and thank you for showing everyone my blog too – very kind of you! Now off to work I go, to put into practice what I saw yesterday…he he!!