Google Reader Project

The purpose of this project is to learn about Google Reader and it's usefulness in the field of education as well as in daily life.

Google Reader Project

 Since Google Reader enables one to basically personalize their own newspaper allowing them the choice of information that comes to them, it can be a great tool to use in the classroom. For example if the class was learning about government and elections the class could subscribe to various blogs and those blog posts would come in directly to the account allowing the students to track articles that are relevant to their learning. Teachers can use Reader as well to follow blogs that they use to find teaching resources, blogs on education trends etc...
My personal learning curve was not too bad. I liked watching the videos to get an idea of what Reader was all about and how to use it.
 In my group I added a video I found interesting that gives a general view of what Reader is as well an informative site on how to use Google Reader.

Post 3, video reflection

These two videos demonstrated how much our society has changed in a very short amount of time.  It has changed the way we communicate, the way we share content and the way that we educate and learn (vision 2011). Because it is changing how we learn, as an educator I need to be able to change and grow too.  I need to teach with methods that are relatable to students, not necessarily to me or my generation.  The Social Media Revolution video stated that a "Google book search scanner can digitize 1,000 pages every hour". To me this means that current students turn to digital resources for information.  The manner in which they receive and give information has changed and as an educator I need to change with them. We go to school and learn to better ourselves for our future, we are constantly building on what we have learned and adding new content all the time.  The students we teach are preparing for their futures, it seems natural to teach them for their present and future. 

Post 2: Blogging in education

It seems to me that blogging is best used for information sharing.  I share great stuff with you and you share great stuff with me and we are all the better, smarter and more informed.  I go to the Internet a lot for lesson planning, always on the look out for great ideas for in class projects, good videos to show (I recently brought my class to the school library to show them YouTube videos of polar animals, they loved it!).  A teacher friend of mine just recently launched a teaching blog and honestly that was the first time I had given any thought to a classroom or educational blog.  Here is the link to her blog if you are interested http://snippetsbysarah.blogspot.com/


The grade level I want to teach is early elementary, so strictly speaking for this age group some possible activities through blogging could be:


- Blogging about book reviews, taking a pen and paper task and create an online discussion amongst students.
- Create photo slide shows demonstrating their learned knowledge in an earth science activity; for example students could take pictures of plants on the campus as part of a living/nonliving earth science unit, then publish their photo's to their blog labeling and blogging about each item in the photo.
- Students could blog about the weather in their present environment and compare it with another environment on weekly or daily basis.  Each student could have the same or a different geographic area to compare.




As a resource blogging would be useful for:


- Sharing with parents what their children are learning about in the classroom though subject by subject description and photo sharing.


- Provide parents with specific online resources to encourage or help their students at home by providing links to educational sites.


- Enable other teachers to share ideas with each other.


- Share homework assignment with students and parents.
   

My Bio

I am a born and raised Oregonian, which makes me water proof.  However I do not have webbed feet, I do have a beaver tail though!  I am an Oregon State Graduate, with my undergraduate degree in Liberal Studies.  My focus was on education and Language Arts.  Prior to deciding to enter the realm of education I was a fine arts major.  One of my life's passions has been photography. It began in High school with an elective class in darkroom photography.  That art form fueled my artistic cravings and even lead to me purchasing a house with two kitchens, so that I could use one as a dark room of my own.  The smell of developer and film are still some of my favorite smells.  Photography has also served as an income for myself.  I have been doing portrait photography for the last 10 + years and I most enjoy wedding photography.  If you want to check out some of my work please visit my photography blog...intrigue images. 

Aside from my passion in photography, the classroom is where I really love to spend my time.  I have been working/teaching in a Pre-K classroom for the last 7 years.  After I finish graduate school my dream job would be teaching 1st grade.  I would also welcome K-3 too though!  I really love this age group, the enthusiasm and excitement that they have for learning and life in general. My favorite subjects to teach are reading, writing, and science.  I love the discovery of science.  I especially love earth science.  I love being outdoors and have a strong desire to keep in touch with my natural surroundings.  

My biggest love of all is my family!  I have two extraordinary daughters.  The oldest is 12 and the youngest is 9.  I am married to the love of my life, he is an engineer with great ideas and designs.  We also have two dogs, a Shepard and a black lab.  It doesn't end there though, we have two chickens too.  A Rhode Island Red and an Americana.  We have them mainly for eggs, every once and a while they hang out with us in the yard.