December 21, 2009

Only 5 days until Christmas! I am really getting excited now that school is over and my final project for my graduate work has been completed. Last night I had quite a scare--I couldn't upload the attachments on my WebQuest. . . I guess that the Google site was not fully operational, because this morning everything was fine. Talk about an anxious night!!!!! Hope everyone reading this is blessed with happiness, health, and joy during this special time of year. Merry Christmas!

December 14, 2009

Only 5 more days remain before the Winter Break begins! I am so excited to be coming down the home stretch at school and with my graduate work! This week at Garrison Mill we began our "Holidays Around The World" unit. My country is China--we are learning about Chinese New Year, the lion dance, the red envelopes with money, firecrackers, and more. The children always love participating in the activities during this unit, and the fast pace makes the day go by quickly!

I continue to work on fine tuning my WebQuest on American Symbols. I emailed Denise my link this weekend so that she could proof read it and make suggestions. I am getting a bit frustrated with the formatting, as the WebQuest looks different online that it does on my computer. Hopefully I will be able to figure out the glitches and get it posted to myLesley this week.

December 5, 2009

Preparations for the holidays are now in full swing. . . the girls and I spent the day shopping for Christmas. We had a great day together! We purchased gifts for family and I found a dress for our Christmas party tomorrow night. The girls and I also shopped for new linens and art work for their shared bathroom--it was a miracle that we found something they both liked! Looks like I will be painting next weekend. . .

This week I continued to "tweak" my webquest. I hope to have it finished by the end of the week! I also watched the video of our next instructor reading the syllabus (on myLesley). It sounds like a fun class, complete with taking apart and re-assembling a computer! Let's hope Denise and I can help each other through it!

November 30, 2009

Today was the first day back from Thanksgiving Break. . . it was good to see my class again and hear about their adventures with family and friends. I had a wonderful time with my own family--we shared lots of good meals and had fun visiting and shopping, too! We also celebrated my older daughter's and my husband's birthdays during the Thanksgiving week. I will really have to watch what I eat after all that turkey, dressing, and birthday cake--whew!

I continue to make progress with my WebQuest on American Symbols. I spent lots of time exploring the Google Sites templates and finally decided on one that will work best for me. I figured out how to create backgrounds and change font and layout styles. I worked on uploading the video clips and documents that will be needed for the WebQuest. I also found some additional websites to bookmark on my Delicious account.

Things are really moving along. . .

Janie

November 22, 2009

Whew--the end of a busy week is finally here! The past five days with my kindergarten students have been filled with lots of excitement and activity. We spent the first part of the week making final preparations for the Grandparents' Luncheon. Wednesday was the big day where we performed our class play and songs for our families. Now I can look forward to a week at home--cooking and shopping and visiting with family! I might even get started decorating for Christmas. . .

This weekend was the second weekend of our class with the Lesley cohort. Yesterday we had our class presentations on the text book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. There were many creative and interesting presentations from our classmates, and I received some great handouts about each chapter.

I am very pleased that my website is now complete! I created a four page website using my honeybee theme (of course). I am excited about uploading it to my school website as I feel it has information that my parents will find helpful. There are even some great educational links for students, too! All that remains for this course is to complete my WebQuest and continue blogging and bookmarking websites on my Delicious account--I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 15, 2009

Another week has flown by and only 5 more school days until the Thanksgiving break begins! This past week has been very productive with my graduate work. I submitted my completed WebQuest draft on American Symbols, and I am anxious to see what my instructor thinks about my plans. I hope it is approved, because it is definitely a technology lesson that I will use with my Kindergarten students!

Denise and I went to Dodgen again to work on our website assignment. I have gotten the layout for each page competed and have selected the graphics, websites, and documents that I want to include; however, I am having trouble figuring out how to link websites and documents to my pages. Also, I need to learn how to link each page of my website so that it can be navigated from one page to the next. If I have time this week, I am planning to do some research on Atomic Learning. Hopefully there will be some tutorials for Dreamweaver available there. If not, I will have to wait until class this next weekend and get direction from our instructor. That's all for now. . .

November 7, 2009

This school week really seemed to fly by! I have been extremely busy helping my Kindergartners prepare for our Thanksgiving program . . . learning lines for the play, teaching lyrics to songs, designing play costumes, writing about things for which we are thankful, along with all of our other required activities and curriculum. Whew!

It has been a productive week with my graduate work, too. Denise and I planned our classroom presentation for the chapter on Weblogs. We even managed to incorporate food, so hopefully everyone will be engaged in our presentation! I posted my response to the second discussion question and was able to read the thoughts of my classmates regarding the educator's responsibility to use technology in the classroom. I have done further research on my WebQuest idea--recognizing and identifying American symbols. Many online resources have been found such as virtual tours, puzzles, and learning activities. For planning purposes, I have begun to complete the WebQuest document as assigned--hopefully my ideas will be approved so that I can create an online activity directly related to our SS standards. I also received feedback regarding my Survey Monkey assignment. My group members were able to provide suggestions for its improvement, and I will certainly consider their ideas as I plan to use this parent survey with my class next fall. That's all for now--I am headed out to enjoy the beautiful autumn afternoon!