Two of My Dogs

I know something was asking about a picture of me, and this picture is old. I do still have both dogs though...

My Thoughts from Sept 24-29, 2007

Well, this week was definitely a learning week as I was reintroduced to concept mapping and finally figured out how to add a picture to my blog! If anyone ever tells you that Help doesn't work with technology, I would beg to differ. I hope to add more pictures later this week.

I'm really looking forward to working with a group on this project, but we seem to be struggling to find common times to "talk" about what we want to do. I think we all want to be as involved as possible, but work and family schedules aren't jiving for us right now.

I rediscovered some reading I did about online learning. I created a link to the titles and hope to add more information about those titles as time goes on. The resources were wonderful and very useful to me during my class. I believe they will be one of my driving forces as I begin my own online teaching.

I can see concept mapping being a key element in online learning; however, it would be nice to have a free version of the program. Inspiration has some aspects about it that I don't like which is why I haven't purchased the program. It used to have a pretty static layout in that it only went one direction. As I was working with it, that may have changed. The other issue I had was that it only printed in landscape format. Once I have access to a printer, I want to see if that's changed as well.

I really enjoyed reading "The Perfect E-Storm" and can relate to a lot of the changes and issues discussed in the article. For example, I am 31 years old this month and learned to type on a typewriter when I was fifteen. If you would have asked me then or even five years ago if I would be posting these thoughts online, I would have laughed in your face. I love that the article provided the list of 30 Emerging Technologies for us. I'm very interested in MMOG's because I can see how the huge amount of interest in online gaming would make such an impact in education. If only someone was working on this...
I already do some work with online quizzes and assignments, and my students love that they can use the computer to access this information. I hope to do more of this as my students start reading because I believe the survey questions would work wonderfully with anticipation guides.

Overall, this week has left me extremely excited for the remainder of this course, and makes me wish I had more time to explore all the options that are available out there!

More thoughts next week...
Laura Meyer

Concept Map

I'm still struggling to add pictures to my blog; however, after doing some trouble-shooting, this should work...

Using Blogs

When I think about using blogs, I haven't even used them to their full potential. I decided to create my bog at blogger.com because it was highly recommended by a classmate. Upon working with blogger.com, I became frustrated because I didn't think the elements were adding like they should. Therefore, I went to edublogs.org and created a new blog there. Then I came back here to copy what I had already included, so that I could finish my assignment. Upon returning here, I discovered that my chosen elements were listed. I'm not sure why I couldn't see this right away; however, the only part of this site that frustrates me is the inability to load a picture right now. I'm still checking into this.

When I think about using blogs in my classroom, I really want to give this a whirl. I can see the value in book discussions more than any other item right now. I hope to soon be able to post questions concerning the novel reading students should have done. I really like that I can check the time that students posted as well as the day.

Overall, I see a blog as a useful tool as long as it is in a controlled environment. With one of the classes I teach, I have to have control over the comments students make because of their inappropriate behavior. I hope to do some exploring over the weekend, but as I look at my screen, I should be able to do what I need to for my students.

Thanks,
Mrs. Meyer

Reading Interactive Survey

I finished the interative reading survey, and I was impressed at the setup and detail. I would love to have the opportunity to set a quiz up like it as the self-correction was awesome.

I consider myself to have more of a learner-centered classroom, and this did turn out to be the case after I answered the questions concerning my classroom.

My biggest ideas are as follows and all are in learner-centered classrooms.

Teaching and assessing are intertwined.
The instructor's role is to coach and facilitate. The instructor and the students evaluate the learning together. Assessment is being used to promote and diagnose learning.
Emphasis is on generating better questions and learning from errors.
Instructors and students learn together.

The problem with most school systems is that the assessment system is set up as a teacher-directed situation. Things are slowly changing, but it has taken a lot of time.

Thanks,
Mrs. Meyer

My Story

My name is Laura Meyer; however, I still show up here as Laura Johnson (I'm still working on the name change).

Laura is goal-oriented, determined, and focused.

Laura chose UW-Stout for her master's because of the user-friendly format for those that have to work full-time. She has a goal to become an on-line-educator soon. This has been the impetus behind getting the graduate certificate.

Currently, Laura is a 7th and 8th grade reading teacher in her 8th year at Nashua-Plainfield Middle School. She is already pretty tech- savvy, and has a website for both her students and her. She sees the value of the internet, and wishes to share this with her students as well. Feel free to visit this (well-done) site at http://lmeyer.iowapages.org. 

One thing that most people don't know about Laura is that she collects frogs. One of her best friends and her sister share her affinity for collecting frogs. They started around relatively the same time, but didn't find out about one another's shared hobbies until their collections became extensive.

Another cool fact is that Laura got married this summer. Her husband is the special someone that she couldn't give up because he always supports what she does, even if he may not quite understand the effort and time put forth to pursue some goals.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about Laura. She is sure to add both technology and teaching experience to our group, as well as friendliness.