Wrapping it up

This class, The Connected Educator, has been extremely useful to me. In the past I have sat through a wide variety of classes that were supposed to help me with my professional development. Usually, though, they were just a giant waste of my time. Rarely did I walk away with helpful information that I could take back to my classroom and use the very next day. This class has been one of those rare instances where the information I've learned is not only useful but relevant and can be used by both me AND my students. Tomorrow.

I especially liked how we were able to individualize assignments to focus on our own teaching areas and interests. As an older student who teaches on the high school level, I rarely have classes with anyone my own age or who works with my subject area. I was able to personalize the assignments for this class so that they would be practical for my job. I have found that I have already shared some of this information with my colleagues and students. Hopefully I will continue to use some of the tools that I have started in this course.

Learning more about how to do an effective Google search was particularly helpful. I was a little creeped out, however, to see how easily Wolfram Alpha could access and analyze my Facebook account. It's not like I have anything to hide, I just found it a little creepy. I think that I will share this option with my students. I always tell them that anything on the Internet is public, but I don't think they really take me seriously. Perhaps some charts and graphs would go a long way to illustrate my point.

Light Bulb!

Using the research function in Google Docs was a definite light bulb moment for me. How awesome is this? Having resources right next to the document you are working on is great. Having the hyperlink and citation added is even better. I really love this option.

I found it so useful that I'm sharing it with everyone that will listen to me. I showed it to the librarians at my school who didn't know about it. They told me that the citations are not exactly MLA correct, but they are pretty close and have most of the information needed in a citation. This is important for me to know so I can pass this on to my students. I am always telling them to work harder, not smarter, and this tool is a way to make that happen.

This tool is so great that I incorporated it into an assignment for my junior English class. We have been discussing the American Dream and the various interpretations of this concept. Their final activity in this unit is to write a compare/contrast essay examining their definition of the concept with the American Dream of the athletes in the documentary "Hoop Dreams".

I have tried and tried to figure out how to attach a copy of the assignment I gave my students but I wasn't successful. I did, however, figure out how to share a copy of it with you, Marcia. So far, the kids seem to really be applying this new tech tool to their essay. Will it produce any better content? We'll just have to see. (fingers crossed)