Finally, the first week is over...

Now I can take a breather, as this week involved a lot of running and lots of lack of structure in my day. However, now the students are feeling more comfortable with the wikis and have started conquering the world of blogs. And they are not doing too bad! I was impressed with their ease of communication about their beginning life in Globaloria. I am also learning alongside the students. We have introduced them to creative commons, which I am still quite confused about. Do we use any images we can find through that site or need to be picky? I migh sound like a food for wondering about that but I'd rather ask. Yesterday I spent considerable amount of time putting the profile links on the wiki user gallery- I am getting more and more comfortable with using the provided templates instead of shying away from adding something new or something I don't know how to add to the wiki. I might even become comfortable with Flash before the year is over:D

You live, you learn...

Today was an interesting day. Our students have finally gotten to experimenting with their profiles and finding the pictures to add to their pages. Well, that was a huge learning experience for us! Obviously, the students use tons of stuff from Photobucket, but that stuff is copyrighted and cannot be put on their profiles (thank you, Maitreyi!), so tomorrow is going to involve tons of explanation and learning about copyright, as well as exploring http://creativecommons.org. I am kind of glad it happened because it presented a good teaching opportunity for the students. I thing, I cannot get over enough is their constant collaboration. When one finds out how to do stuff, he or she goes over to their friends and shares. As long as they get their stuff done, I am welcoming it!

The first day of school

Today was the first day of school for the students, which, as always, proved hectic and full of running around without accomplishing much. BUT, the one class that went as planned (for the most part) was Globaloria! We managed to talk about Globaloria, explain the essence of the program, and get the students to take the survey. During the class, we also had students sign up for gmail to be able to set up their blog easier later on.

To my mind, the kids are very excited, puzzled, and intrigued. We have quite a mix of abilities and talents, but all the students can work well together, which is a key. We will probably need to slow down the curriculum, as some of the students are taking more time to do explore the content or set up an account, being more scrupulous than the others. However, it remains to be seen, as they may up the speed as we go along and they get more comfortable with all the components of the course. As for now, testing their gmail accounts, they have already added each other to their contacts lists, so really communication comes naturally for these digital natives.

Once some of the faster ones finished, Sara and I let them explore the games and the avatar gallery, which was such a hit! I honestly did not think they would get so excited over it! We'll see what tomorrow brings, but we are planning starting the course overview, getting their profile started and setting up the blogs. Should be fun!

A clear vision or a mud on the windshield?

I am slowly becoming more comfortable with the program. The initial panic settled in for a while and gave way to a growing confidence that we can do it. After going through the steps of working through the two units, I feel less anxious even though the total relief is not anticipated any time soon. However, healthy anxiety never hurt anyone:) !!! Before school starts, I will need to browse the wvwiki and the SRMS sites and add more RSS feeds to the Google Reader to become as prepared as I can be for the upcoming school year. However, the method of trial and error as well as tweaking the instruction to fit the student needs and frantically emailing Denise, Lee, or Stewart will be invaluable in the process of learning to facilitate this course. Sounds like a great year ahead of us!!!

Teacher Leadership Institute

I am listening to the first session of my last day in TLI. The boot camp experiences was what it was- a bootcamp, full of frustration and hard work, which eventually resulted in tremendous learning opportunities. I was able to authentically engage in problem learning experiences because our county team had a global awareness PBL project. Now I got a better understanding of the project as a whole and how easily I can implement the skills I have acquired to work within Globaloria program. I am ready to let my students use their learning skills to find resources and work collaboratively for a common goal. This learning experience, however, frustrating and challenging to think outside the box, was invaluable in seeing the benefits of PBL in the classroom and getting ready to be "the guide on the side", not "the sage on the stage". It's hard to abandon my TTWWADI (That's The Way We've Always Done It- Ian Jukes), but I am ready to work on it!