Keeping up with the pace…

WOW! We are back from Disney World! I’m pretty sure I’m more excited about being home than I was about going to Disney World. Don’t get me wrong, we had a great time! But there’s nothing better than being home!

Before going to Disney World this year, my dad and I decided to do the 2 hour Segway “Around the World” tour at Epcot. When we got to Epcot at 7:00 in the morning on the day of the tour (those who know me know that is WAY early for me!), I was nervous and excited at the same time. It turned out that Dad and I were the only two attending the “early” tour, so we were one-on-one with our trainers.

We started the training session first. As the trainer demonstrated the Segway, I remember thinking, “Wait a minute, this looks much harder than I thought it was going to be!” The trainer demonstrated stepping on to the Segway, and told us to make sure we didn’t put much pressure on the handle because if we did, the Segway would take off without us! What?

Okay, so I practiced the steps in my head… bend my knees, step up on the platform, don’t put pressure on the handle, put my other foot on, stand straight with slightly bent knees. All of this had to go perfectly or the Segway would take off without me…

Believe it or not, Dad and I both got on the Segway without major incident. Then, as we stood there, I started to notice that my feet and legs were really hurting. I looked down at my watch. I was 15 minutes into a two hour tour. We went through some basic maneuvering techniques and then it was off to tour the “world” at Epcot. The first 20 minutes were torture. We were so tense. My feet felt superglued to the Segway. I was not going to let it “take off” without me.

As we entered the United Kingdom, I started to notice that I was really enjoying the tour. Dad seemed much more relaxed and we both seemed more comfortable with the Segway. We started to take more risks, started to speed up a little, putting pressure on one or the other foot so we could steer the Segway in different directions. Although we were still learning, we were much more comfortable. My feet were no longer aching!

The remainder of the tour was fabulous. The picture above was taken half way through the tour when we were really enjoying ourselves. As we were riding back to turn in our Segways, Dad and I were talking about how we had gotten so comfortable riding on the Segway, and it even felt “natural.” The trainer told us that it was going to take a while to get steady on our feet again, and it really did!

So what does our Segway tour have to do with Tablet PCs in a one-to-one environment?

I’ve been in ”back to school” mode for a few weeks now… constantly thinking about Krimmel, our awesome teachers and staff, and our great kids! When we finally got back to the cabin the evening of the tour, I started thinking about how much the tour had in common with our first year of the one-to-one implementation. We were all nervous and excited at the beginning of the year. There were probably times some of us thought, “we’re only 3 weeks into the year, and we have 33 more to go??” But, after a while, teachers started to get more comfortable… willing to take risks. I heard teachers talking about new and exciting ways that they were integrating technology into their already awesome lessons!

We are all still learning and finding new ways to integrate technology, but I think the majority of our teachers would agree that it would be hard to go back to only four computers in a classroom!

My daughters and I were listening to Radio Disney yesterday, and we heard a short interview (see below) the DJ did with Abigail Breslin. In the interview, Miss Breslin says that the hardest part of playing Kitt Kittredge in The American Girl movie was learning how to use the typewriter. She had never seen one before, and even had to ask, “Where’s the monitor?” I listened intently to the interview, and then my daughter asked me, “Have you ever seen a typewriter, Mommy?”

Doesn’t this bring home the reality that we face each day as educators of digital natives?

radio_disney_now_080714

Tags: digital native

I’m trying out two new tech tools: Twitter and Jott.

Twitter answers the question: Wonder what Stephanie is doing right now? It’s new to me, so I’m still trying to figure out its usefulness. It was all the rage at NECC. At one point, I was sitting in a session, on my tablet of course, and the lady behind me must’ve seen me messing around on Twitter. She tapped me on the shoulder and asked me what my Twitter name was and told me she was going to “follow” me. I remember thinking, “Wow, I’m on Twitter and someone I’ve never met wants to follow me… COOL!”

Then, at the Laptop Institute, one of the keynote speakers explained Twitter something like this: “You can use Twitter to find out what your friends are up to without having to call them and engage in a 30 minute conversation.”

If you look over at the right side of this blog, I have a Twitter widget installed so you can see my last tweet. I do have a nagging concern about Twitter though. Are my “followers” going to think that my tweets are relevant and interesting? My life just isn’t that interesting…

Jott is a free service that helps those of us with teeny tiny memory spans. You call an 800 number, record a message, and Jott converts the message to text and emails it to any email address you choose. You can use it for reminders, to store to do lists, etc.

I’m definitely excited about using Jott. I’ve stored the number as a contact in my cell phone, and using my bluetooth headset, I can say, “Call Jott” and remind myself to read my Blog feeds when I get home!

Photo by Thomas Hawk licensed under Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial 2.0 Generic.

Tags: EdTech, Web 2.0

Wow, I can’t believe summer is almost over! Time has flown by, and now it’s time to start thinking about the new school year!

I learned a lot this summer at NECC and at the Laptop Institute in Memphis. Incorporating Web 2.0 technolgies into the classroom was a common thread. Web 2.0 is defined by Wikipedia as

a term describing the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users.

Enhancing creativity and collaboration… are there any teachers that don’t strive for these two things? 

Blogs, wikis, and social networking sites are all examples of Web 2.0 technologies. Most of our students have been using Web 2.0 technologies even before we knew what the term meant!

How could a blog and/or wiki be used to enrich your curriculum and your teaching practices? Are you up for a challenge?

Tags: Web 2.0