Technology Fear Factor in Education

This is a very creative video demonstrating how some teachers feel towards technology.

Wikispaces

Wikispaces is a place where I plan on having my students share a lot of their writing assignments. It is a great place for everyone to be able to edit and add to each other's posts. Parents can even add to these posts very easily. My Wikispace is dedicated to finding technology projects that all teachers can use. Recently, I signed up for a project called "The Seven Wonders of the United States". This is an amazing project for the upcoming school year, and I am very excited about it. The GlobalSchoolhouse has numerous projects teachers can join. An educator can even create their own project for others to join.
This is a link to my Wikispace: http://techcoordinatordb.wikispaces.com/
I added our school mascot in the upper-right corner and a picture of myself. My technology survey is included as well. It will be a lot of fun adding new features to this wikispace. Please feel free to inform me of other items that I can add to this site to enhance its looks. Thanks

Bloglines

Bloglines is a great way for me to keep track of all the technological changes in electronics. I will no longer subscribe to magazines to find out information that is usually two months behind. The process was self-explanatory.
The first thing I did was going to www.bloglines.com and created my own aggregator to collect several RSS feeds. I choose mostly technology feeds from bloglines. Then I search for “school technology coordinator” at www.feedster.com and discovered a blog designed for technology coordinators like myself. It was simple to subscribe to this feed by clicking on the RSS button on his site. From there I was able to copy his site feed address and return to my own blog settings. In my blog settings I added the site feed element and pasted his address. Once I saved my new settings, his blogline appeared on my own blog. I then subscribed to several other feeds that appear here on my page. Next, using the tools at bloglines, I created a Subscribe To Bloglines Button and posted it to my blog. The last item I added to my blog was links to all my feeds from bloglines. This will help readers to understand where most of my information comes from.
After setting up feeds to various sites, I realized how easy it would be now to keep track of your students’ blogs. All a person has to do now is subscribe to each students feed, and from there you will know when someone has updated his/her blog. This is very exciting for me and I am extremely anxious for the upcoming school year to begin(not too anxious though).

Technology

Technology Coordinators have a difficult time keeping track of which teachers or administrators are have problems or questions. I plan to use my blog as a communication tool between all the staff and myself. My job description for next year is to train all the staff on how to use their equipment. Another part of my job is to help them develop lessons for them to incorporate technology. A blog will allow teachers to post topics they are covering that month for various subjects. Then I can comment to their topics with suggestions on how to integrate technology such as SmartBoards and Interwrite Boards. As we progress through the school year, teachers will comment to each other on ideas they have for those lessons. My blog should be very active.

This blog will also include links to support our curriculum. Technology Standards are to be included in these lessons as well. My goal is to help teachers utilize what they have to the fullest. The computer classes I teach will support what they are covering as well. As mentioned in Miguel Guhlin’s web page, Personal Learning Networks will give us numerous resources and people to ask questions and guide us through our journey.

My blog will also link to a website I am creating for next year. I want parents to have access to resource links as well. This site will offer links pertaining to the various grade levels and subjects. Between the two sites, I hope to offer a lot to our school’s network. As I become better at maintain an active blog and website, I hope to get students trained to help the senior citizens we have I our small town to create their own blogs. These seniors have a lot to offer our students, and I hope they can share some of their own stories about life in a small community.