Review & Reflect

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We all have much to be thankful for, don't we? I am thankful for students like you who are considering becoming teachers. I know you can and will make a difference!

I thought we would review and reflect for a few moments today. We have survived more than our share of technology glitches and lab scheduling problems. You are a flexible bunch! That trait is going to serve you well in the classroom!

We only have one more session before your Christmas break. You will be returning to assignments to the elementary schoolswhere you will be working! How exciting! The real learning will begin!

I know you will have much to blog about once you are in your classrooms. You will be sharing your experiences, your thoughts, your ideas and reflections. Blogs will enable us to share each others' adventures. So one of the really positive aspects of blogging is that you get to learn all about what is happening with your classmates. It is great to be able to share the learning!

You all have a personalized "help sheet" to help you remember the mechanics of making a post in TypePad. You know that you sign in to TypePad and give your Username (remember it is case sensitive) and password (also case sensitive). The first thing we do is check and answer comments. I will show you how to check to make sure you have answered each one. You need to remember your email address and the url of your blog. After you post, you have the choice of previewing it or posting. Here are a few other tips to remember about posting:

• use spell check
• use first names only
• use correct punctuation (instant messaging is out here - remember young students will be looking to you to be the role models)
• make sure you ideas flow and make sense
• make your post come alive by expressing your thoughts with your unique voice
• ask a friend to proof your post to see if it makes sense and to add any constructive suggestions to make it even better
• strive to make your post descriptive and thorough and one that will pique someone's interest
• include enough details so your reader can understand the topic
• try to end the post with a thought-provoking question that will make your readers want to respond

Now can you think of some more tips to add to this list? We'll talk about that in class. After you have checked your post and are proud of what you have written you can post it!

We'll discuss comments and talk about the comment starters that you were given in an earlier class. I am anxious to hear your thoughts about them.

We also will talk about hyperlinks and giving credit to the writer of the material you are writing about. This is important. We will talk about quotes and other aspects of writing.

We also will learn about different school issues. See the link on the right hand side at the top of this page.

As we review & reflect, can you think of any other things that you have been wondering about as you get ready to enter those wonderful halls of learning? Remember it is all about "adding to the conversations!"

I can't wait to see you in the morning! Let's meet in the lab shortly after eight!

Comments

[King]

On the issue of conduct, a scoohl/college in a Scotland town (can't remember)has devised rules for teachers about engaging with pupils in say online environments i.e. SNS and other sites outside office hours'so to speak, thus extending the teacher-pupil relationship outside scoohling hours'. If there are no ground rules this can leave it open to a host of issues, unfortuntely backfiring on the teacher'. We need to remember teachers' are people too and they will use such online sites evidently.

[imagereadyfree icons]

I here am casual, but was specially registered to participate in discussion.