Journal #6

     Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to do a presentation to the technology committee at my school on how I use the Mimio interactive whiteboard daily in my classroom.  I felt the presentation went very well.  The most rewarding aspect of the presentation was at the end when a teacher stated that she didn't know the Mimio could do so much and that she couldn't wait to play with all the new features she learned and plan new lessons during her planning time.  I took that as a huge compliment as we don't usually have much planning time due to meetings.  : )  In addition to this committee presentation, I continue to present "Technology Tidbits" during our language arts curriculum meetings on Wednesdays.  Last Wednesday I compiled a list of language arts games and demonstrated a few of them using the Mimio.  This Wednesday we have a guest speaker coming to speak; however, this gives me time to prepare a presentation (and learn) the Turning Point student response system.  Our school recently purchased several new sets of these remotes, and I would love for my language arts teachers to be the first to use them!      
     This week I read Kevin Oliver's Integrating Web 2.0 Across the Curriculum.  I really enjoyed this article and will definitely be printing a copy to keep on hand at school.  I immediately zoned in to the language arts section where I found my head spinning from all the free Web 2.0 tools available for our curriculum area.  I'll have my highlighter handy when I read it a second time.  While reading the article, I found that I was already familiar with Quizlet and Shelfari; however, Diigo and Gliffy were new to me.  I could use Diigo during collaborative classwork projects for students to share their work and Gliffy would be awesome for students to use for creating story maps and for help with creating graphic organizers for reading responses.
     I find it so beneficial that these great tools that are available, at no cost, to promote sharing, collaborating, and creativity.  My goal is to not only make better use of these resources in my classroom to promote student engagement and interactivity, but to share them with my colleagues so that everyone benefits. 

Oliver, K. (2010). Integrating Web 2.0 across the curriculum. TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 54(2), 50-60.