Lightbulb Moment

As early as last week I was despairing about my enormous lack of knowledge in the area of Web 2.0. I am amazed how confident I am now feeling about blogs and wikis etc. My class wiki is well underway. Be sure to visit it as it has lots of great links as well as some planning (http://m3rbs.wikispaces.com). I am even beginning to learn html which is quite exciting. My school begins its journey as a lead school on the government funded ICT contract. We have our first cluster meeting tomorrow and I am really looking forward to it!

Finally!

I have made the decision at long last to stick with my original choice of novel: Peter and the Starcatchers. If you would like to 'borrow' the novel study unit I have prepared to go with the novel this term then visit my wiki http://m3rbs.wikispaces.com. I also have every intention of creating a blog to support the novel for the students to comment on. We'll see how that goes!

Novel Concerns

I have now spent a ridiculous amount of time browsing the net trying to find a new and exciting novel to start the school year. I have always managed to find something a little different to hook the kids in from day one. Here are some I have read in the past: Percy Jackson series,Far North,Running Out of Time, Karazan Quartet, Lion Boy (kids weren't that keen), and others. At this stage I have found a couple of options: Coraline by Neil Gaiman (although I am concerned this may be a little scary for the start of the year as I teach Year 5/6), Eleven by Patricia Reilly Giff (there are absolutely no reviews of this book available at all!), Tuck Everlasting (seems to be popular) or Skullduggery Pleasant (again too scary?). I really wish there were a website designed for teachers to go to find novels with reviews and teacher notes (aside from the biased publisher websites). If anyone knows of one or can make a recommendation for a great novel, please put me out of my misery!!!

Here we go... I was inspired by this video viewing it on a very useful blog (room3tai.edublogs.org).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx2Slxp0TkM

Yay!

I have managed to embed the talking avatar! It only took all day. Worst still... I have just set up broadband for home (will be great for teaching) but it seems to be very unstable - web pages keep 'not responding'. Will have to get in touch with Telstra....again!

Silly little avatars

It has started already. Not content with having a non-speaking avatar on my page I had to have one that actually talks! Can't actually figure out how to 'embed' it in the page though! Hmmm...

From the beginning

Today I have begun a journey and thought it would be a good idea to create a blog that will record my struggles, frustrations and success as I make my classroom a better learning place. I am learning so much about new tech tools online that I feel I need to make a note of my learning so that others can identify the same overwhelming sense of enormity that I have been feeling towards all this digital stuff!