Tech-Mr. Osweiler
Welcome to the Technology Page!
This is our new Blog. We are working on creative ways for communication of homework and important dates between teachers, students, and parents. Feel free to comment on a way that works well for you/class/organization/etc.
Mr. O
Entries (RSS)
September 26th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Great Site!
October 2nd, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Mr. O, you left a comment on my classes blog.
We have not used Google Earth in the classroom as much this year as last year. Last year I had a 1:1 laptop environment. I changed schools and do not have that access this year. I do have a SmartBoard, so we use Google Earth on that a lot.
We use it to view parts of the world that we are talking about. In science recently we were talking about geysers, so we went to Yellowstone in Google Earth then watched Old Faithful erupt on their webcam.
Last year we used it for math quite a bit in geometry. We would find certain polygons, then measure their lengths and angles.
Here are some links I find useful for Google Earth:
mrwilliams.edublogs.org/2007/01/13/geometry-lesson-shapes-in-google-earth – My Geometry lesson mentioned above – on my class blog.
bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/659255/an/0/page/0#659255 – GE Community – Multimedia Maps discussion board. I have a few posts on there with GE files.
bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/14989/an/0/page/2#14989 – GE Community – Educational Placemarks discussion board. This has a lot of good educational content.
http://www.gearthblog.com – Google Earth Blog – Good blog about Google Earth.
Hope these help or at least give you some ideas. The “wow” factor students have when using GE the first few times is incredible.
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:59 am
G’day everyone in Woodbridge, VA! My name is Andrew Robitaille, and I am the eLearning Integration Teacher at Good News Lutheran Primary School in Brisbane, Australia. You can learn more about my elearning program by visiting http://www.ekids.net.au. It sounds like Mr. Osweiler is doing some exciting things with technology at your school. SmartBoards are very cool, as well as podcasts and other Web 2.0 technologies. What I particularly like about Web 2.0 is that it connects us all. Learning is no longer confined to a classroom. We can expand our knowledge and share our ideas instantly with the click of a mouse. I have some ideas to help Porter Middle School connect with other schools globally. This blog is a great place to start. Encourage everyone to use this blog as regular part of teaching and learning. Then promote it. Connect with other schools and try collaborating some writing projects with them. You can search for other blogs at http://www.technorati.com. Visit other schools’ blogs, and make comments on their postings. Once you start commenting on other people’s blogs, they will often comment on yours. I also recommend taking advantage of collaborative writing via wikis. I use http://www.wikispaces.com, but there are many others out there like pbwiki. You can view an example of a wiki I made, and I encourage you to contribute to it. Go to texttalk.wikispaces.com. I’ve recently discovered Ning, a place where people create social networks about all kinds of topics. I’d recommend joining globaleducation.ning.com, education.ning.com and edubloggerworld.ning.com. I also recommend epals.com to connect your students with email pen pals from other countries, as well as great collaborative lesson ideas. I hope you find this useful. All the best!
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Hello,
You are getting some great advice! Since my school is primarily 5-10 year olds, we don’t do some of the fancier things that middle and high schools do. However, we are using epals to hook up with kids in other parts of the world; we use blogs to allow our 4th and 5th graders a greater audience. We are beginning some digital storybooks and hope to be able to share them so others can read them!
Good luck to you!
October 6th, 2007 at 12:28 am
G’day you guys and girls over there in VA, and hi from Sydney Australia.
Mr O dropped me a line to tell me what you were up to and I thought I’d check out your blog. Looks like you are starting out on a big adventure with this whole blogging thing! Don’t be afraid to write, express your opinions and get some conversations started… that’s what it’s all about!
Look forward to seeing what you all create!
Chris Betcher
October 8th, 2007 at 7:26 am
Ryan,
I posted a reply on my blog, but in case you miss it–You might want to check out Kerpoof.com . It is a fun site for creating student artwork. Also, given the ages of your students, digital pics would be a great thing to explore. Picnik is a tremendous tool for editing images. Scrapblog is another good site. This one allows students to create visual blogs in the form of slideshows, including text, graphics, photos, and music. Hope this helps!