November Entry
I have put off doing much with the science method problems.  Hopefully, I will get to that soon. 

The lesson plan we created on the microscope,  I’m sure will be very useful when we start to learn the parts of the microscope.  The web page will allow me to have the students look at the parts as we name them and discuss their function. 
     http://www.wisc.edu/botit/Botany_130/Microscope/Unlabelled_side.html
     http://ofcn.org/cyber.serv/academy/ace/sci/cecsci/cecsci006.html 
     http://www.mpcc.cc.ne.us/steinbeck/orientation/lssn1-9.html
  I also will be able to show a variety of microscopes that we do not have access to.  I hope to get to this lesson in the next two weeks.  Right now we are doing the paper work on how to figure the total power of magnification. 

December Entry
I have had my students using the county Christmas sites.  We’ve sung and played games.  I’m finding that they have not had much experience on computers.  I have to admit that several times I had a couple of the students help me as well as other students.  We have not visited the project I chose, but I have told them what we can do.  They seem excited.  I still have cold feet using it in class.  My husband heard of a web site off the radio called “Bugscope”.  I have visited it and it is wonderful!  It is through a college where you have to register.  They then tell you how to prepare slides to send in. You then can view the slides using their electronic microscope.  You are also able to view other schools slides.  Great site for my unit on microscopes. 

January  Entry
I finished my PowerPoint presentation with help from Jennifer Campbell.  Once I got started again it wasn’t so bad. In fact I enjoyed it, but I’m still hesitant about pushing buttons.  I had already finished my lesson that I made my power point presentation on, but I did go ahead and share it with my class.  It was a hit!  The kids thought it was great.  I’m sure that it would have been useful had I used it during that lesson.  It is a great motivation for those students who need that extra “ump”. 

I am using the laptop almost every day.  I loaded my grade book program on it and now can do my grades at home.  I also used the laptop to finish my power point presentation.  I have used it to compose several work sheets at home and then carry my disk back to school to print.  It is a great tool for a teacher to have at home in preparing for lessons when she has some extra time at home. 

February Entry

March Entry
I finished my TLG rubric at the last class, but have yet to hear anything from an evaluator.  I have taught my lesson and will update my survey and do my reflection today.  Hopefully being finished! 

Internet Project – I have had three students to use Ask the Expert.  We haven’t had any response from any of our questions.  We’re still waiting! 

Internet Resources – Now that we have all the new computers up and going I have had the children working on the county web site. They enjoy it. 

PowerPoint – I have done a power point presentation on action verbs. Short, but sweet, and I DID IT!!!! Yea for me. My kids were impressed. I just don’t have enough time to sit down and prepare another one 

April Entry
Since our last meeting I have ventured out to get my class on the computers more.  I actually had a lesson on how to use Word.  Some of the kids already knew about Word, but even they learned a few techniques that were new. I now have a student who is doing all of his science notes and assignments using word.  His fine motor skills are terrible and this enables me to read his work and give him the grade he deserves. 

I have been blest this six weeks with a great student teacher. She has showed me some of the neatest sites. Together we have created and used power point presentations. We have even had the kids creating their own biome web pages. I used the computers to have the class get all of their pictures off the net for their food webs. They were so excited! The newest site I’ve been using is www.brainpop.com. I showed a great video on the water cycle. 

After our last class, I had all my kids do and record their scores on the Quizstar on science. It was great review for Terra Nova. 

These classes have been great for me this year. What a long way I have come from our first class. Oh, but how much more I need!!!!!!! 

May Entry
At the start of this year I had no knowledge of how to incorporate the Internet in my classroom, less alone, get my students using it! Through this class, I was taught where and how to find sites that we could use in class.  Even though the TLG grant had several problems.  I learned so much about how to use TrackStar, how to copy and load sites, and how to show my students to go to particular sites that I had found and used during our class. One of the projects I chose was “Ask the Scientist” and we even did that a couple of times when we were working on the cell unit, although we were disappointed when we didn’t hear back..  My usage is one–hundred times more than last year.

The unit I developed on ecology had several lesson plans to be used. They were lessons I could teach objectives from and also interactive sites that the students could go to for extra activities on that objective.  I also found that there were so many activities on the web that I could pull in and incorporate with lessons I already had and had been teaching for years. Yon can teach an old dog-new TRICK!!

ICQ is the neatest technology a classroom teacher can have. It has become so handy in communication with my co-workers.  No longer do I have to send a student with a note or find a time to leave my classroom.  Being able to communicate with the office has also become of great use.  The class no longer hears the questions I’m being ask or asking.  From this class I have learned how to use my E-mail and ICQ to get files off the net and send them to other teachers, students and friends.  Many of my students E-mail me at home about events of the day and it is really nice to have the class talk to a student that has moved and wants to stay in touch. There are so many usages of both these forms of technology.

I had been using Works and just panicked when told, “ You really should use Word, it’s much better.” Through this class I have learned Word and feel pretty comfortable with it, through there are still things I would like to have more classes about and learn how to do with this program. I actually had a couple of days with some lack time and showed my class some tricks they didn’t know about.  One of my students came back the next day and told me how her mother wanted to know how the paper clip became a cat!!!  Before this class I would never have felt comfortable doing something like that.

PowerPoint is still hard for me in some ways. I wish I had more time to practice and work with it. I have done a couple of short presentations and used them with English lessons.  I hope to get better with PowerPoint this summer and come for more classes.  I would like to be comfortable enough with it so I can teach my students to do their own.

My students found that my classroom site a neat site.  We discussed how useful it would be for next year and students coming into six grade.  My co-workers and I want to turn it into a grade site containing general information and comments for each teacher’s class.

One of the major benefits for me was gaining confidence using the computer.  Connie, you have such a way of making everyone feel so at ease, no matter at what level your computer knowledge is.  Having a day to come to these classes has been wonderful. So often classroom teachers are just not given the time needed to explore and find what is out there to use. I have done more this year with my computers that I have since I became a 21st Century Classroom. Now, I wonder what I would do without them! 

Providing us with a laptop enabled us to practice at home what we had covered during class.  There is just not enough time at school to practice or use what we learned in class.  The laptop let me practice Word and PowerPoint as time allowed me at home.  I prepared many activity sheets, letters to parents and even downloaded my grade book program so I could work on grades. I wish we had it for the summer or that we each had one per grade level.  I know, DREAM ON!!

I don’t know I can measure student achievement this year with what I have learned in this class.  Maybe I can do that better next year. I do know that my classes have been a little more interesting with what I have learned this year and shared with my students. One of the neat and fun things I have done was on the Saturday we were in school.  Since it was such a small group I planned to teach those who were there how to use the scanner.  I then had then use Print Shop and their picture they had scanned to make a Mother’s Day card.  We had so much fun. It was a learning experience for all of us.  Just seeing the kids find something on the web and then print it out is accomplishment for me!

Finding out that there was other teachers like me who needed help in knowing how and what to do with the computer in the classroom has been one of the most beneficial aspects of this project.  You can be told and told, read and read, but until you get hands-on instruction does it make a difference and becomes useful to you.  This has been worth every penny the county or whoever has spent on me! I would like time like this.  Having another teacher in my school was an asset.  When one of us would forget how to do something, the other was there to help out.  Many of the sites I found and used were shared with co-workers and knowing how to use ICQ and E-mail has also been useful in helping others.  You should plan to do more! This has really been the best thing I have been to as for as getting me on and using my computer.  Another thing that helped this be so productive for me, was having my machines at school updated, so that when I got back to my classroom I saw and had the same material to work with.  Connie, you do an excellent job!! Thanks for your patience and time. Looking forward to taking some classes with you this summer.