It is already February and...

I am so excited to say that January was a very techy month for me and my classroom. First of all we set up Skype and have video chatted twice with our pen pals in CO, we have also set up a Moodle account for our own classroom and one with our pen pals in CO, and finally I actually got Twitter going in my classroom with the help of my students of course. It has all been very exciting!

I have to say the first time we Skyped with our pen pals in Colorado was one of my favorite days in teaching thus far in my career. It was so neat to see the kids faces as they talked face to face with their pen pal they have been writing to since the beginning of the year. Even though we have exchanged several letters, there is something so much more personal about seeing someone as you talk to them. My friend, Julie, and I prepped our students before the chatted by having them write a script of what they wanted to say. It was helpful because a few of them did get a little camera shy, but others could have talked for hours. One cool connection I saw was between one of my little girls,Kate, and her pen pal. As they were going through their script and chatting, they noticed that they were both in competitive gymnastics and both on the same level in competition. This meant so much to them even though the rest of us did not really know what they were talking about. Kate was then so excited to write her a letter and find out more about her. The connections built through the video chat were amazing.
We then Skyped about a week later to set up our pen pal Moodle account. I had the help of my TIS and Julie had a few other hands in her room too. We were all on laptops and the Skype was set up on my computer connected to the whiteboard. As Leslie, my TIS, taught, both classes were able to see and hear her to follow the instructions. My class was more familiar with Moodle because we had been using it in our class already, but this was brand new to Julie's class. The kids did great and after about thirty minutes all of the students were chatting back and forth with their pen pal in Moodle. It was another very cool experience for me and my students. Since then we have set up a Friday chat discussion forum and created math story problems for each other to solve.
Finally the last thing I wanted to share with you is that after four months of my Twitter account for my classroom sitting with no new tweets, I decided it was time to put it in the hands of my students. They loved this idea. I showed them what Twitter was and how to use it. I have to sign in and put in my password, but then it is up to them to share with others what's going on in Miss Womac's class. The technology guru for the week is in charge of the tweets. They can type whatever it is they want to share, but are not aloud to upload it until I check it. I have about 12 parents following me and a few other classes from other HP schools.
Like I said, it has been a busy January. I will use Jing to show you some of these cool things we have done once I get to school tomorrow. I hope this sparks an idea for some of you on the technology train!