Skype with Aviva

What a great opportunity for me to be able to see how much children enjoy technology and what they are learning around the world. To me, after looking through Aviva's blogs and sites, I was overwhelmed with how much information she puts into them. After talking with her, I was able to understand the importance of only implementing different technology skills one at a time. Of course, after reviewing her things, the only things that were going through my mind were, "oh my god, how does she have time for all of this?" After having a conversation with her, it was helpful to know that she gradually created each technology item and she has built up to where she is today, since my biggest concern going into this discussion was the TIME issue. I feel so much better about implementing technology now!

I think that this was such an amazing opportunity for us teachers to get a feel for how other teachers are using technology in the classroom and how the students react to the technology uses. From what I gathered from the skype, her students have grown to love and enjoy using technology in the classroom, so much that they would rather use technology skills and practice with their ipod touches and ipads, rather than play outside! This is amazing!

Aviva gave me many great ideas on how to use technology both in my teaching and in the classroom to help students learn. She mentioned one thing, that stuck out to me, and that was the bitstrip(I think that is what it was called) and how she had her students create a comic strip of the water cycle. In fourth grade, we focus a lot on the water cycle, and I was just thinking how great of an opportunity that would be for my fourth graders to use technology to create a comic strip about what they have learned about the different parts of the water cycle. We have already talked about it this year, but I was thinking, I could even maybe try the same sort of thing with our food chains and web unit that we are discussing right now.  I think it it great how she talked about how she focuses on her expectations through exploration and how things are not skill based, but rather putting the strategy thinking into place!

Aviva talked a lot about how she uses her knowledge about technology as a way to track her personal growth, and that is such a great idea! I never would have even thought about that! In our school, starting in fourth grade the students have to create electronic portfolios of specific activities that they have created using different tools throughout the year. I feel that this would be so much more beneficial if these portfolios were carried on throughout their years at school, to showcase all of their learning. This has become something that is never even looked at beyond their fourth grade year. This all goes along with our personal teaching folders, rather than wiping them out at the end of the school year, I feel that it would be much more beneficial for us to save and create a portfolio of our work over the coarse of the school years. Even as she said, blogs could be used as a great portfolio of student and teacher learning.

Overall, it was nice to hear Aviva say that she likes to focus on the learning and not the tools that are used during learning activities. Yes, they are tools, and yes they do help with the teaching and the learning of different skills, but they are not the focus of her teaching. I am excited to use the tools that she mentioned, and I am looking forward to trying out Kidblog, as she said it is easier for the students to use than blogger. I am also looking into implementing wordpress into my classroom as well!