I think the biggest struggle I have with technology is explaining it to other people and convincing them to use it. For the past two years, I have been teaching at Granite Hill School in Newport, New Hampshire. It is a small school for students with special behavioral needs. This past September, I convinced the principal that we should begin using Google Calendar so we can keep everyone up to date. She liked the idea but getting people to actually use it is not easy. I gave all staff a quick training at the beginning of the semester but it was not enough. I think getting people (especially educators and other professionals who are used to doing things one way) to really appreciate and utilize new technologies takes a sustained effort.
I hope as we learn new tools in this course, we also learn how to make them useful to our colleagues who are not taking Computer Education courses and do not have the time for substantial amounts of training. I think as schools embrace technology and make it ubiquitous, they will need to provide ongoing professional development to help teachers use the technology.
My digital footprint consists mostly of my involvement on forums and other forms of online discussions. I use Diigo to share bookmarks with and learn from other educators, and I recently began using Google+ to network with others who are interested in Technology or Education. I have a few videos of YouTube, but most of them are from assignments I completed for school. I also use LinkedIn to connect with people I know professionally, and I have used Twitter as well.
About ten months ago I began reading about open source software and became very interested in its potential to make students' access to technology more equitable. I started using Linux and have now fully embraced open source software for all of my computing needs. Much of my KWL reflects my recent passion for open source technology.
Dan - One of my favorite websites to learn HTML coding is W3Schools I bought a book from this guy at Page Tutor Page Tutor and really liked it. I taught myself HTML coding and now teach it to my 8th grade students. It is pretty simple once you play with it a bit. I use TACO for the editor, but you can really use anything. Also a cool drag and drop way to introduce your students to websites.. or yourself.. I would teach the basic html first and then use this after they learned the code.. Weebly. Happy to have you in the class and by the looks of it Dan, you could be teaching it! :) I too share your frustrations with trying convince others in the greatness of technology! Little training tutorials are always a wonderful quick hit to help others understand how to use things such as google calendar. Jing is a fun way to do that and record your screen while you talk. It is less invasive and allows the person who needs the help an auditory and visual experience, all on their own time. We will definitely learn more web2.0 collaborative tools and the "cloud" computing to help with your staff and students!
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