Entry 20: Missouri Techknowledge Day

Yesterday I took four of my broadcasting students to Jefferson City, Missouri floor the Show-Me Techknowledge Day. This is the second year I have taken a group with me and it is amazing. You get to spend the entire day in the state capital at the rotunda and show legislators and senators how we are using technology in our school. This year the students were also able to meet our representative Tim Flook who was nice enough to have us recognized on the floor. The highlight was probably when the students had the chance to meet our senator Luann Ridgeway and she gave us a personal tour of the senate floor, the house floor, and many other parts of the capital. All in all it was a great day and I will update this blog with some of the amazing things I saw. Below you will see pictures of the students with Tim Flook, Luann Ridgeway, and presenting their project.

Entry 19: A Busy Man

Greetings from the frozen tundra of Missouri. I know I have said this before, but I have been quite busy lately. My schedule is only going to get more hectic in the future, so I figured I could let everyone in on what I will be doing in the near future.

* Next Tuesday (January 29th) I will be in Jefferson City with 4 of my broadcasting students for the Missouri Techknowledge Day. This is a great event where we get to spend the day in the state capital rotunda showing the Missouri representatives and senators how we are using technology in our school. We were invited to this event last year, and it was a great experience that they will never forget (how many people can say that they were recognized on the house floor?).

* The week after that (February 4th and 5th) I will be in St. Charles, Missouri at the METC conference. I am really looking forward to this event because they have some great speakers. I am really looking forward to hearing David Warlick speak and I also want to hear Steve Dembo speak also. Both of these men are dynamic speakers that make me excited about being a teacher every time I hear them.

* Then the week after that (February 15th)I will be presenting twice at my school district's annual conference called Empowering Excellence. I will be presenting from 7-8 in the morning on how to get the most out of Outlook (beyond just emailing). I will also be presenting a session for special educators on the technology we have and how we could be using that in our classrooms.

As you can see I will be pretty busy, so be expecting a lot more posts in the near future. I have also started another blogging project for my upcoming wedding. It is all about the wedding plans and how we are getting ready. Click here to check it out.

Entry 18: METC

As many of you know I will be presenting at the METC conference on February 5-6 in St. Charles, Missouri. I found out today that I will be presenting on Wednesday, February 6th at 1:00. So for those of you who are interested you can catch me and my presentation entitled Web 2.0 For The Special Education Digital Native then. For those of you who can't attend, don't worry because a copy of the presentation will be posted on this blog. Hope to see you at METC.

First Ice Storm

Greetings from my nice and toasty house. Today is the second day in a row that we have been out due to ice. It has been a nice break, but I do have to admit that I am going a little bit stir crazy. As you can see from the picture at the bottom I haven't been able to get out very much due to my vehicle being pretty well damaged beyond belief. I actually slid into another car because of icy roads and the result is seen below. At least no one was hurt.

Busy Month

It has been forever since I have last updated this blog, but things have completely changed in my life. Over Thanksgiving break I proposed to my girlfriend and we have been busy planning for our wedding on June 21st. It has been quite hectic, but a good kind of hectic. Well let me explain some things that have also been happening to me and some exciting blogs/websites I have been playing with:

- Let me start off by congratulating my good friend Eric Langhorst who was recently named Missouri Teacher Of The Year. What a great honor for a person who truly deserves it. Eric does amazing things with technology in his classroom and has been my mentor since we first met 6 years ago. If you have never had a chance check out his Speaking Of History blog and he has started a blog about what his experiences are like as the Missouri Teacher Of The Year.

- I will be presenting at two conferences in the near future. One of them is our district's annual conference called Empowering Excellence and the other is in St. Charles, Missouri (a suburb of St. Louis) at the Midwest Educational Technology Conference. The topic for both will deal with how technology can be used in the classroom to help special education students.

- My broadcasting class will be going to Jefferson City, Missouri at the end of January to show some of the Missouri state legislators and senators how we are using technology in our school. We did this last year and it is a great day where the students spend the day in the state capital and also get the chance to be recognized on the house floor. I am excited about this opportunity again.

Well I am hoping to keep this blog updated more now, so keep checking back and I'll fill you in on some more exciting things that are happening.

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First Week

Well the days of me sleeping in, having more than 20 minutes to eat my lunch, and actually being able to do things on the weekdays are over. Our school began this Thursday and I must admit that I am a little excited about the possibilities of this year. I figured in this entry I would talk about some of the technology goals that I have for my classroom this year. So here goes:

- I have a new document camera in my room and I would love to be able to incorporate it as much as possible in my classroom. Now how I am going to use it is still up in the air, but I can still see endless possibilities with it.

- By the end of the year I would like to have between 10-15 Ipod shuffles for our special education students to use. My ultimate goal would be for them to check them out and to use them at home to listen to books they are reading in class or to review for tests they may have coming up in their classes.

- I would like to make my blackboard website more parent friendly. Many times parents will tell me that they don't know when their child has tests coming up or what they are doing in class. My goal is to make my blackboard site show what students are doing in their core classes everyday and also inform them of when tests are coming up.

- The last goal I have is to use technology more efficiently to evaluate my students IEP goals. One way I would like to do this is by using Quia to do online tests with my students. I plan on doing this two times a month and students can take the test at their own leisure. I will discuss more about this later.

School has gotten off to a great start and I am hoping it will be a great year.

Entry 13: Using Quia

Do you ever get tired of grading tests and than analyzing the scores to see what the students aren't understanding? Well there is a program out there called Quia that will do this for you. Quia allows you to make your own tests using a variety of questions (multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blank, short answer, essay, chronological order, etc...) and than allows the students to take it online. Afterwards the students get immediate feedback with their scores and it breaks it down for the teachers as to how each student did and also what questions students struggle with. I do this frequently with evauluating IEP goals and objectives and it is great. Click below for the powerpoint notes over Quia and how to use it.

Powerpoint Notes On Quia