If you are absent…

During the summer we worked on the wiki by changing the pandemic stuff to “If you are Absent” information. We started wrting our lesson plans so students could get on the wiki and find their classwork adn homework if they were gone. This made it easy for studnets to keep up with the basic work we were doing. We started on basic subjects like spelling, vocabulary, and math. These subjects and pages the students could download nad complete. Then we worked on the reading and writing pages for students to know what we want them to do each night. The biggest task we took on in the 09-10 years was Social Studies and Science. We put together a page for each topic and included everything we would need to run the lesson as a teacher. We include the test questions, objectives, assignments, timeline, vocabulary, and materials (books we will use, pages to download, and websites to view and learn from). These pages are used to show what we will be doing and to complete discussion assignments on.

Pandewiki

At the end of the 08-09 school year the swine flu broke out and we were in pandemic mode at school. We had to take steps for the students so if they closed the school down for any period of time, we needed to have lesson plans ready for the students to complete at home. So we thought, and thought, and thought. What about putting it on the wiki for the sudents to access at home? So we starteddiscussing what we wanted the students to do if they could not be at school. We made pages for all the major subjects in school: Reading, Spelling, Writing, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Under each of the subjects, we put information that would help the stuents find what they needed to do and pages they could download for help and to turn in. It was very basic in the beginning, but we found it to work. We added a few weeks worth of spelling, vocabulary, math pages, and had a few reading and writing activities put on. The students could all access it from home if they had the internet. If they did not, we could get a copy of the pages and work run off and ready for them at the school. This way we only had about 1/4 of the students to run information off for. It made it so easy.

Other Programs

I use a few other programs online, besides the Wiki and the Blog, to complete my social network. I use Shelfari for a dscussion with others on books, and I use Delicious for my bookmarks I like to share with others. I also subscribe to Classroom 2.0 for information about technology in schools. Together, these are the core of my personal social network. I do use other personal social sites, but not for school.

Bloggety Blog

I started to use a blog, this blog somewhere about the same time I started using a wiki, s they were interchanged and used a little ata time. The wiki won out by being the media of choice. I got on this blog here nad there to say a few things, but not many. I can se now that this blog can become more of a personal reminder to what I have done so I can go back and review mistakes and successes with the things I have done. This way I can remember what has happened and the reasons I did cetain things, and why I should never go back to some of the ideas I had. Never go back to some of the ideas. Never. Ever.

Wiki Wiki Here we go

It is time I get started talking about how I use the wiki in m classroom. This is the perfect place fr me to do that, so here I go. We(the fifth grade team) started to use the Wiki during the 08-09 school year. We set up a username and password for each student. We decided to use Wikispaces because of the simple set up and eae of use. We looked at others, but felt comfortable with Wikispaces. We discussed securtiy and netiquitte with the students. We put together a few pages and started showing the students how to do a few things on it. We showed them how to use the messages, a little about the discussions, and a little about the collaboration. We started with an activity to have the stuents use the collaborative part of the wiki. We posted an assignment to have the students tell one thing about them that other students would not know and do not sign it. This helped the students fumle around with accidently deleting each other’s work and trying to fix the mistakes. We made it and it worked. We talked about the messaging and how I would send a message to let students know what was happening in clss and they could ask me questions about assignments and such. It worked, but half way through the year, it started to slow down becuase we did not know what else we could use it for. A few assignments here and there with the collaboration and discussion, but not much. Is was a typical first year with something new. A learning experience, that was what it was.

SEP Time

It is SEP time. We are having the parents take some time and use the Scholastic Readabout program on the netbooks the students use. That will be some fun for them. It will be interesting to hear what their reaction is to the program. It has done wonders for some of the students. I hope the parents see the good it has done.

Mmmm Delicious

I have started to use the Delicious webpage. What a wonderful tool. I used to use backflip for managing my onine links, but when it went down, I needed to find another. Delicious not only holds my bookmarks, it is a social bookmark site so I can send others my bookmarks. I love it. It is so Delicious!

We are heading into the final stretch of the year with lots to do. We are coming up on the last of our assessments to move students into their last set of groupings of the year. We can see the growth in the students on all levels. Using the Kagen strategies and rotation schedules, we have seen improvement and growth in all students. I am excited to see what the next grouping will be and where the students will go from here.

We are starting SEP Conferences tomorrow.

We are starting our Student Education Plan Conferences with parents this week. In Fifth Grade we have decided to have it different that weusually do. We are having all the Fifth Grade teachers in the Gym. Each of us will be at a different table in the Gym so the parents can vsit each of us if they want. We have flexible groupings in Math and Language and the parents want a little more detail on these subjects, so we will let them visit each of us. We set up the parents five at a time in an hour.  We have set up the times so the parents can come anytime in that hour. It makes it so the parents don’t have to be right on time. If we take a little longer or shorter with a parent, it does not make a difference.