iPad Updates

Technology at School

AHHH!  Technology can be so frustrating at school!  :)  We have an iPad cart that I try to help and maintain.  Last week I was working with the main person who maintains it and we were looking through all the apps that are on the devices.  I took an iPad home to take a more extensive look at each app and its functionality in the classroom.  There is so much that I am confused about.  Does anyone use it?  How do they use it?  When was it used last?  Who asked for this app?  We came to the conclusion that we are going to create an online survey to ask colleagues which apps they use.  Were hoping to find quite a few apps that are of no use to people in our building, and can delete them off the devices.  Please pray that this process goes well - whenever we try to talk technology at our school, it usually ends up ugly!  :(

Recent Assignments

Some Recent Work:
http://uniselectintegrate.wikispaces.com/Lauren%27s+TIM+CLassifications

http://uniselectintegrate.wikispaces.com/BYOD+or+BYOT

http://uniselectintegrate.wikispaces.com/Lauren%27s+TPACK

New Literacies

I'm really excited to take part in this class!  Already in the first two weeks I have participated in technology that I have not used in the past.  I also excited because my volleyball season will be coming to an end soon and I can have more time to concentrate and complete my school work (hopefully not late at night anymore :)).  When reading through our assignments this week we were asked to look at different types of literacies - this connected to our last class and I found that my inquiry project will be helpful in this area.  I studied "How websites can connected school and home and promote literacy."  I worked hard for my students to understand that reading was now beyond the pages in a book - but could instead be many different places.  One thing I noticed this week while looking at the P21 website was their plug to show their information and posts also on Twitter.  If this isn't showing 21st century skills at literacy's finest, I'm not sure what is!  I googled  "students reading" just to see what images would pop up, in the first 11 pages, all pictures show students reading with a hardcover or paperback book. 
No examples of reading with technology, reading directions to a game, reading the newspaper.  The only instances where I saw technology was either in the background of a picture OR if it was displaying some type of AP or program to help with reading for teachers.  I found this to be extremely interesting.  It makes me reflect how I am conducting reading in my own classroom, within this past week we have looked at a TIME FOR KIDS magazine, the newspaper on the Smartboard, and played new math games in which the students had to read the directions and figure out how to play without my help (this helped with our math and reading comprehension).  I hope many of us are moving to these new literacies.