IEP for technology class

2-1-2010 In the hope that I will be able to learn more about the uses of blogging. I chose to set up a blog for my science fiction class where students will be able to post what they have learned as we explore different topics.

At this point I am not entirely sure how to do this, but I am sure that through practice (i.e. multiple hours of wasted time and frustration) I will be able to come up with a home-site that is useful for me as a teacher, and also interests the students.

What follows in this post are the play-by-play actions as I explore and apply my technological IEP... Creating a class blog to help manage writing!

Today was the start of my creation. Check out the class blog that I created here, at Brave New World

2-9-2010 It is now February 9th and the class is underway. I tried to get my students into the lab to create their blogs, and was very surprised to realize that blogger is blocked. I then tried to get them to comment on my blog and found that that was blocked as well. Students were frustrated, and I had no idea that I would run into this kind of road block.

Instead of giving up I have been working with the tech at our school to establish a secure connection so that the students in my 5th hour will have access to the blog. It will be nice if I can get this kind of clearance to proceed.

Until that happens the students can still use my 'master' blog as a place to find information. I have posted the reading schedule and continue to post questions for each of the chapters that we are reading. It is an easy way for students who loose their papers to still have access to the material. I also put on two online versions of the books, and it has helped at least two students so far who were not able to check out the classroom copy due to having too many books overdue.

So far the main blog is a great success, I will continue trying with my students individual blogs.

2-12-2010 This past week was a productive one. I was able to work with the technology specialist in my school and get her to unblock blogger for the students in my class. I had to provide her evidence that I was going to be using blogger for educational purposes, but that wasn't hard to do since my personal blog was already set up.

Since then I have pulled a few students (my teaching aid and a student in my first hour) into the lab and had them set up a blog as well as comment on my blog, which they did so successfully. So far 8 students have successfully set up a blog and have a link posted on my main site.

I also decided that I would make my portfolio for my masters program a blog. You can find a link to the work in progress here Portfolio.

2-16-2010 Today the students are online. Blogger is unblocked and students got online to make a blog. I was surprised at how long it took to create the blog. The only assignment was to get me a blog address, and this took 20 minutes! Of course there were speed-bumps, and some of the (about a third) still need to get a blog created, but overall it was a success.

2-17-2010 Students went into the lab today to use their blog. Things were slow, but I imagine as we do this more and more it will go quicker. I taught a quick lesson about how to make a link on the blog by showing students on my blog while it was projected on the big screen in class. We started class by reading a chapter out of "Brave New World". Then, we went into the lab and the students had an assignment that was, "find an example of the Brave New World in our 2010 world. Post this on your blog with a link to a picture or website that shows this. Most students got something posted, but many students are still in the "exploring" phase of blogs. I hope that by giving out more small assignments students will be able to become more fluent in the blog.

2-23-2010 Students currently have two assignments to post on their blog. They are starting to get quicker with using their blogs, and we are continuing to post things that connect to the book. You can check out the assignments by clicking here; assignment one, assignment two

After going into the lab, however, it took the students 20 minutes to get onto the internet. The server moved too slow for the class to navigate effectively, so not to many students got much done. I do not know if I can spend much more time trying to get this cool thing up and running.