One of the great things about being the ISTE 10 Newbie is that I am meeting great people and learning new things almost daily.  Recently Beth Still blogged about a book called Guess the Wordle and introduced me to the one of the authors – Jen Wagner.  As a result I purchased the book and spent some time dwelling on Wordles and how I can apply them to my 8th grade Social Studies Class.

Jen’s awesome book got me thinking of several different ways that I can utilize this free service in my classroom.

Some ideas:

1.  Review for a vocabulary quiz:  Make a Wordle from the definition and have students guess the term.  Students should also explain how they came up with their answer

2.  End of year review:  Create a Wordle from a set of terms related to a particular unit and have students identify the unit.   Again I think that having students explain their answers – even though they might be wrong is where the true learning comes into play.

3.  Class Starter:  I have a Promethean ActivBoard in my room and every day I give the kids something to do upon entering the classroom.  I could put up a Wordle that relates to the theme of the day and have my students write down their guess and an explanation.

What are some of the ways that you use Wordles in your classroom?

Jen has made the generous offer to give 10% of the sales from this book to the ISTE 10 Newbie Project. Thank you, Jen!

After much thought and consideration I decided on naming this blog – CONNECTIONS.  Originally I was going to try and tap the people in my PLN for ideas and suggestions, but the word connections just kept coming to mind for the last week or so.  After all when it is all said and done teaching boils down to making connections, right?

I like it because it’s open for interpretation and can mean many different things to different people. I like CONNECTIONS because we are connecting in so many different ways on different levels.  We are connecting to each other through the internet on social networks like Twitter and Facebook.  We are connecting  face to face at conferences.  We are connecting to our students – we need to get to know them so we can reach them.  We need to connect our students with the content we teach – often times students ask “Why do I need to know this stuff? – how is this going to help me?”  We need to connect our students to what is happening in the world currently so that we can hopefully prepare them for the future.

CONNECTIONS is simple yet all encompassing.  I just hope it is not too generic or cliche. Is this a good name for an educational blog?  Ok – so I am still asking for ideas and suggestions from my PLN  after all 

This week I participated in my third Teach American History (TAH) summer seminar and it was nothing short of amazing!  Every day a new presenter who is at the top of their field came in to talk with teachers in depth about a different topic.  The theme for this year was foreign policy.  I left every day mentally exhausted as the amount of information that was presented seemed to be more than I remember learning in any of my college courses as an undergrad (maybe I have just matured a little).  For more information and links to the professors who presented check out the wiki for the seminar here: http://tahforeignpolicy09.wikispaces.com/

This seminar was different because it was not about how to teach rather it was about the content that we can take back to our students and teach as we know best.  We were challenged to think differently about history and were presented with incredible depth.  What amazed me in addition to the depth of the presentations was that each presenter rarely referred to a set of notes- they seemed to talk from what they remember and could effectively answer most questions that were asked without hesitation.

The week was filled with free food, great conversations, tons of resources to take home and massive amounts of knowledge!  I came home each day exhausted  – but it was a good exhaustion!

I cannot thank enough the individuals that organized this massive undertaking:

Paul Benson @ZenAtticus

Rick Walters

Carol Shick

Rick Bates @MyHammock

The WSTCSS and the TAH grant have truly helped me to make new connections and improve my teaching in ways that I have never imagined!  Thanks!

Since first hearing about my selection as the next Newbie for ISTE10 I have been thinking how best to respond.  Blogging is something that is fairly new to me and I want to be sure to respond appropriately and not break any blogging “code of conduct” that I may be unaware of.

Since @bethstill first made the announcement on her blog -I have received many kind words and new followers -  I can hardly keep up with it all. It is very exciting to see so many educators online sharing their experiences – it is a great feeling to know that at any time I can go online and have a conversation with someone in my PLN regarding technology or teaching in general.  I believe that this has helped me to become a better teacher.

I do want to sincerely thank Beth Still for choosing me as the next “Newbie” as well as everyone else who has supported the project.  I am very honored and excited to be a part of this.

I look forward to learning even more from my PLN as a result of this project and hopefully I will be able to make a positive contribution to my ever growing learning community as well.

Thanks again PLN!  I look forward to learning with you!