A quote from a former administrator popped into my head. He had told me that every morning, as he was winding through the hills on his way to work, once the school was in his sight he said to himself, "Beautiful Centura". Centura is beautiful. Inside and out. As we are getting ready for kids to flood through our doors next week, I find myself thinking more about the inside beauty, particularly my classroom. In my business/technology instruction, I'm constantly working to integrate technology into my curriculum. Below are some of the additions I've made for the 2011-2012 school year.
One of my personal goals was to start blogging. You are reading my first blog, I used Blogger.com. It is also important for the students in my classes to read, think, and respond to certain topics, I have a class ready to begin blogging using kidblog.org.
Weebly.com is a site that one of my students already used this summer to create a website for a local business. This is an FBLA project that she got a jump start on. Weebly not only has standard options, but some free advanced options too. My careers class will find themselves createing electronic portfolios using this program as well.
Linkedin.com is an additional avenue to assist the high school students with networking and making job and career connections. This is a social network that the students can use to showcase themselve's professionally.
Information technology class will be creating an online portfolio of their classroom accomplishments using Voice Thread.com. This is an awesome site that allows collaboration between students, teachers, and hopefully, parents.
DoInk.com is an animation site. Students in entrepreneurship and careers classes will be utilizing Doink to create animated vocabulary definitions.
This summer I experimented with Zunal.com, a webquest maker. You can create one webquest without having to pay a fee, which I did. Then I explored many webquests pertaining to digital citizenship. I found several to utilize in my 7th grade keyboarding class.
And finally, to help with management of the many projects that the students in computer media class will have, I've created a class wiki using wikispaces.com. One of the many features that I'm excited about is the Google calendar that is now found on each project page of the wiki.
Chances are that many of you have already experimented with one or more of these websites. Please feel free to let me know what your thoughts are and how you have utilized the site(s) in the classroom.
I think it is evident that I'm excited and ready to begin the 2011-2012 school year at Beautiful Centura! Wishing you the same as you begin the school year.
