Literacy ~ Room 208

Learning about the world and ourselves…


My PLN…

I am blessed to be able to say I have two PLNs… My colleagues that I bookclub with at school, and my online PLN that includes my Twitter friends.   Teachers and Internet users who continually share their ideas and thoughts ~ I read and listen until I am inundated to the point of slight discomfort…

I always tell my students that it is that feeling that lets us know that we are building new knowledge~ new neural pathways… that it gets easier once the initial growth has started… so to all of my fellow teachers and learners, thank you!

 

Thank you for helping to make me a better teacher… and a better person!

 

 

Thank you for helping to make me a better teacher… and a better person!

 

Day 4…Slightly overwhelmed…

Anyone who knows me… KNOWS that I love working on the computer, on the Internet.  This RITTI training experience is akin to Tech Bootcamp~ truly puts the trainee to the test.  I have never spent so many hours on a computer…while everything I am learning intrigues me (learning does make me truly happy), I am fatigued from the thinking and the sitting in one spot.

Today I worked on the wiki I started yesterday… it is just starting to look like something~ Hopefully it turns out to be a success.  If so, I would NOT hesitate to incorporate it into our classroom.  Eyes and brain are tired though. I still need to do my homework before heading upstairs :)

Wow! Just wow!

Day 3 coming to a close…

I am so tired that I am almost in a daze! RITTI is a wonderful challenge to all of the senses :)

Today, we signed up with Thinkfinity for training (which starts tomorrow)… and I started a wiki for the very first time, (2 actually to see which I like.) I put in some serious time with my lesson plan ~ which I still have to put time into before going to bed…and was introduced to the Polyvision Ino Board.

While I am not quite comfortable with the concept of wikis… I will continue to pursue it over the next week and a half. The Ino board is fabulous… just doesn’t meet my needs at the moment since I am working with a SmartBoard. It makes more sense to focus on replacing the ancient computers in our classroom. We have two that are beyond tired~ plus, I am psyched about the possibility of working with an Elmo projector.

The quest for knowledge… ;)

Day two has come and gone… Tired, but content. Sharing and learning are both phenomenal~ but nothing beats meeting a challenge!

“Learning makes your brain happy” Why information is its own reward – same neurons signal thirst for water, knowledge (via Raph Koster

So my brain is happy, but the rest of me is tired? Totally worth it!

So today the technology was comfortable, nothing new. But the reinforcement of focusing on academic expectations and the implementation of “authentic” assignments impacting teaching and learning in the classroom. Focusing solely on creating “essential questions” and DOK (Depth of Knowledge) having real conversations with fabulous teachers… life is good!

What is Literacy?

Books: Wordle