Erik’s Random Babble

Here is the PDF of my second unit plan assignment, which you may refer to during my presentation tonight.
Unit Plan 2 PDF

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http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=186
Finally got around to watching this from our very own Patrick Ledesma, and naturally a lot of what he talks about is stuff that is quite familiar. Patrick’s basically in the same trenches as I am, and I do think he makes a lot of good suggestions here. Personally, I would put his second step [...]

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This is a question that I have been asked a number of times, and anticipate I will face again when class play season returns in the spring. And I will admit that in the past, I have made copies for a teacher without really thinking too much of it (and imagine that I’m not alone [...]

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I found both Alan November’s and Larry Lessig’s podcasts very interesting and thought-provoking. Each of them mentioned things that connected to my own personal experience, as well as left me with a number of ideas which I hope to put into practice within my own role as a technology leader in my school.
November’s “Preparing Students [...]

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http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=151
This presentation by Silvia Tolisano, detailing how students were taken on a virtual trip to China coinciding with an actual trip made by the presenter, was very cool as well. She used a variety of Web 2.0 tools to support a curriculum of global awareness to help make students critical thinkers, which I agree with [...]

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http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=199
In this somewhat disjointed presentation, Vinnie Vrotny talks about several options for using social networking sites to connect with other people in the educational technology field. He first demonstrates how to set up and use the Twitter site to expand one’s personal learning network. Next, he walks through using the Ning community for extending the [...]

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http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=164
Needless to say, the first presentation that really caught my eye when browsing through the K12 Online Conference offerings was this “panel” about educational applications of the Second Life virtual environment, presented by Kevin Jarrett and Sylvia Martinez (but featuring contributions from numerous others). Though I am already fairly well versed in the whole Second [...]

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Over the past few years, one of my third grade GT teachers has been having his students create poetry books. They worked their way through various types of poems — haiku, cinquain, etc. — and *attempted* to turn them into a book. This particular teacher didn’t really specify what software to use, or rather let [...]

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This is a temporary placeholder post for the second week’s homework assignment, which, although having read the “Six Steps to Effective Vocabulary Instruction” chapter from Robert Marzano’s Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement: Research on What Works in Schools, I didn’t yet do as the assignment details weren’t posted on the SBTS EdTech blog. Unfortunately, [...]

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In the very general sense, I see instructional technology as any tool, hardware or software, that can be used to help facilitate instruction and enhance learning. It can be something the teacher uses to help illustrate, model or communicate the information they are trying to pass on to the students, or tools that the students [...]

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