When I first came across Thinkfinity -- I thought, oh great! Another website to become familiar with and something else to do. I learned to navigate the site over the summer during another technology course. It wasn't the worse thing in the world and I became comfortable with the easy navigation. Tonight, I found 2 communities (Onlien Tools for Educators & Special Education) to join that would serve my purpose of gaining additional knowledge and resources from people who may have more experience in technology and Special Education than I do. Thinkfinity is really cool! It's teachers helping teachers. It is filled with a lot of clever ideas and great resources available. Tonight, while surfing, I came across a group of teachers who removed their desks from the classrooms to make more room because their desks were not being used efficiently. How clever!
My goals for my projects are to house and combine my information in a format that students, parents, colleagues, and myself have access to 24/7. It will be similiar to an online Walmart for education. The recent changes in my professional life moved me into the digital age full-time. I recently, purged my home office of several 6" binders overloaded with print material; Venns, charts, story maps, timelines, etc. which are all on-line. The development of the Web 2.0 is paperless requiring a backup drive which arrived the other day. My classes have taught me to think differently about print, therefore I plan to network my computers to capture and secure all my learning as a student and teacher.
Thinkfinity Community
Hi De Bora, Thinkfinity is cool, I had never heard of it before this course, but there are tons of resources at our finger tips! I like the idea of housing information so that everyone has access to it all the time. I too have been struggling with the build-up of paper and one day would like to go completely digital, kudos to you! When you say network, do you mean have the students have access to the other machines in the classroom or at home at the same time? Or network via the web? Danielle
ReplyDeleteI joined Online Tools for Educators as well. I like the look of your blog. I have been enjoying Thinkfinity and in looking up these groups to join have seen so much more that I can use. You have a good goal of combining all of your material in one place and I think you'll have fun doing it.
ReplyDeleteJeri
Hi De Bora!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're enjoying your time in Thinkfinity. I agree that the site is truly a "teachers helping teachers" experience. I really enjoy connecting with other educators to learn about various methodologies and Web 2.0 technologies that I've yet to discover during my own surfing sessions (outside the Thinkfinity webscape).
I think that the two groups that you've selected within Thinkfinity are great in terms of exploring the educational side of your project. To avoid biting off more than you can chew in this course, you may want to narrow the breadth of your proposed project to focus on the educational resources you are familiar with in one area (such as Special Ed and Technology in the Social Studies classroom) as opposed to a smattering of everything -- just a thought! Of course, this project is meant to be a jumping point into the world of multimedia design, so I certainly don't want you to stop working at your goal of creating an "educational version of Walmart" so-to-speak, once your requirements for the course have been fulfilled. Perhaps your project can evolve around developing the website itself, focusing more on structure and content delivery, than on content itself. These are just some suggestions for what direction you may want to take this project in.
I look forward to seeing how your project progresses throughout the semester!