Sunday, January 29, 2006

Plans for the week

Am hoping, no, make that planning, to start up a couple new things this week in class.

First will be teaching the kids how to use Inspiration to map/plan ideas for their upcoming "book" in writer's workshop. I spent $300 last summer for the licenses, but haven't gotten around to using it yet. I know the kids will get it pretty quickly - and I'll soon be learning from them, because my knowledge of the program is pretty shallow - but my biggest concern is how they will be swept away by all the glitzy possibilities, wasting precious class time on look, not content. Very much like PowerPoint. I'll just have to be up front with them about my concerns. And then closely monitor, let them use the glitz in stages, after they've accomplished a certain amount on content creation, etc.

Next comes podcasting. Just gotta try it. The major reason I've not moved on this before is that I've had problems getting mp3's to play on our school computers. Think I'll try a sample one from home today, put it on Billy's blog - which all my kids know is really me - and see if I can hear me from school. Now I've got to come up with some content.

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