Week of January 29

At the moment, I am substituting in an elementary classroom, teaching gifted students. We are studying mysteries. As I watch the students complete the assigned activities, I have thought how much fun it would be to incorporate the use of different technology into the lessons. The students have completed activities on fingerprinting and handwriting analysis for which a little research online would have benefited them greatly. It would have been much more interesting if the students could have completed a short webquest on the topics. They are also writing their own mystery story for which I would like to let them type on the computer and then edit each other's papers.

Although it is taking me a great deal of time to complete the class assignments, I am certainly becoming more comfortable with some of the tools available. I find that I am using newly discovered formatting commands as I do things at work and at home. I am also making plans for a class website for my own classroom. I am still a little intimidated but am excited about being able to utilize some of the technology that is available.