Journal+for+November+22-29

This week my team worked on creating our student needs assessments. We actually have two separate assessments, one for the students' home technology knowledge and access, and another for their school knowledge and access. One of the surveys will be done on paper, while the other will be online, using survey monkey. The video for this work was interesting. While I agree with several of the points about changing our classrooms and methods from those of 40 years ago, we still have many roadblocks to achieving some of them. I have limited space in my classroom, old desks which don't fit together well for group work, and no ability to change the technology layout of my room, due to old and limited wiring. If we are able to chnge the furniture in our classrooms, as well as get laptops with wireless connectivity, it would be much easier to incorporate some of the ideas from the video. I would like to try some of the global learning communities sites, as that would go along well with the curriculum of my social studies class. The readings for this week were very confusing. As I went to each of the pages, I wasn't sure exactly what I was supposed to be reading. Many of the links led to pages with information we seemed to have already read about and discussed. It also seemed that each link led to another set of potential links, on the page. I felt like I was trying to get to "the end of the internet." I assumed this was not what I was supposed to be doing. Please let me know if I am correct in my assumption. I did feel much better this week about my ability to easily navigate my various sites and pages, and add the attachment and link I needed to. I also think I have finally remembered all of the passwords I need. Hopefully this will be the last time I have issues with that. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving.