February 11, 2008
E-Journal Entry #2:
EDT598
Dear Journal,
This has been a pretty good week for technology, albeit the learning curve this week was fairly steep. Most of what we are learning in EDT598 is new to me. The part of this week’s assignment about changing, adding to, and otherwise manipulating our personal blog site was very challenging for me. I was thankful I had Karen to help me get through it when I got stuck. I think I will need lots of repetition before I will learn to negotiate blogs smoothly and effectively.
I have almost caught up on all of our reading. I enjoyed my chosen article, “Blog On”! In general, this is an article that promotes blogging to support learning in public education. Besides individual and collaborative blogs which we are learning about in EDT598, this article spends a lot of time discussing classroom and staff development blogs that can be created to promote more in depth communication and excitement for learning.
The common thread in this week’s reading seems to be the in depth sharing and learning that can happen when students and staff are using technology to communicate, further a discussion, encourage Q&A on class topics, and the like. Students especially seem to enjoy the kinesthetic feel of manipulating a computer and experimenting with programs. There is not the fear of the technology with young students like there is with me and so many of my colleagues in education. Maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks, but it is as slow and arduous a process as watching the grass grow!
Shawn.
