Introductions

Please introduce yourself, let us know a little bit about you, and where you are from.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Colleen Krakauskas on July 11, 2009 at 11:24pm

Hello all,
My name is Colleen, I am from Philly. I teach Social Studies. I have been teaching in the Philadelphia Public schools for four years, prior to that I taught in private school for 10 years. I have just been enlightened to the web20 technology and I am ready to jump in with both feet. I have some anxiety about my school's equipment (totally outdated) and trying to cope with what my students have to work with, not much. Anyone have any suggestions about sites where my students can create things??? This whole year will be trial and error, in terms of what is blocked or unblocked, what machines need upgrades or not, and how my students will respond. I am so excited for this new adventure. It is amazing.

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Permalink Reply by Amy Pahl on July 12, 2009 at 10:30am

Hey there! I am just starting Classroom 2.0 and I discovered it when I took an archived webinar on technology and math. In the future I am considering taking Teaching and Technology as my masters program, so I have been trying to brush up on my knowledge and use of the medium. I hope that networking with other teachers who are using technology in the classroom will help me grow and find new ways to use innovative teaching methods.

Currently I am part of a teaching team that works with fifth graders in a summer school program. It has been an outstanding experience thus far and I am excited to go to work every day! During the school year I work at a Setting IV school for high school students with emotional/behavioral disorders. We are starting to see more progressive work, but I really look forward to a time when we can better use technology with this population as it is highly engaging and has so much to offer educationally. I suppose that could be said of every classroom though.

Anyway, that is a little about me... :)

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Permalink Reply by Alice Aichele on July 12, 2009 at 11:35am

Hello everyone! My name is Alice Aichele. I teach 8th grade American History in Columbus, Ohio. I am also the IBMYP Coordinator (our school is going to submit Application A in spring '10). I love to collaborate and am looking forward to extending collaboration outside of my school. If anyone is interested in setting something up let me know!

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Permalink Reply by Susan Kerr Jenkins on July 12, 2009 at 12:27pm

Hello! I am Susan Kerr Jenkins from Bullitt County, Kentucky. If you are on Twitter, you probably know me by ssjenk6. I am so excited to have gotten connected here to learn from the group!

I am a District wide Technology Integration Specialist in my district. I serve 7 of our 23 schools training and collaborating with teachers to integrate technology into day to day instruction!

www.bullittschools.org/tis

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Permalink Reply by Aviva Dunsiger on July 12, 2009 at 5:49pm

Hi Everyone! I'm Aviva from Ancaster, Ontario, Canada. I've taught Kindergarten for eight years, and I'm "moving up" to teach Grade 1 next year. For the past couple of years, I've had a SMART Board in my classroom, and I use it all of the time for full-group and small-group instruction. I also used a SMART Document Camera last year, and I was so impressed at how independent my students were at using all of these technological tools. This year, I want to use Skype with my Grade 1 class. If you have any suggestions of different ways to use Skype, or you're interested in partnering with me to use Skype, please let me know. Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Brande Stephenson on July 12, 2009 at 7:00pm

Hi my name is Brande Stephenson. I teach high school science at Walton High School in Defuniak Springs, FL. My certification areas are Biology and Chemistry. I teach various classes from Environmental Science to Physics.

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Permalink Reply by Sarah Joy Haberman on July 13, 2009 at 11:13am

HI! My name is Sarah. I will be going into my 4th year at MSUM majoring in elem/sped ed. For one of my on-line summer classes one of our assignments is to start blogging on an educational site. I am looking forward to reading blogs posted by other individuals and participating in blogs myself!

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Permalink Reply by Joel Garcia on July 13, 2009 at 12:08pm

Hello, my name is Joel Garcia. I live in Long Beach, California. I would like to say thank you Steve for opening my eyes to Linux Terminal Server technology. We spoke 14 months ago during the CUE conference and talked about how you created your portable Linux lab, 32 computers strong for around a $1000. I made a diagram of your lab and did a bit of research. In September of last year 2008, I put together a lab of 14 recycled computers that run sweet using Edubuntu 8.04 LTS. I have a website for my students and recently created a blog and now I have joined Classroom 2.0. What is so fabulous about this is that my students are using technology to learn; we have two more labs running strong with two more in the making; and the fact that we are doing this in the midst of a funding melt down in our district at no cost to my school or the district.

Thank You for your EMPOWERING model.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Wysard on July 13, 2009 at 3:05pm

Hi, I'm Nancy Wysard. I'm soooo excited to be part of Classroom 2.0, yay! thanks!!
I'm Puerto Rican but Hawaii is my home now. I love teaching Spanish. I got my Bachelor in Education since Spanish is my native language and got a Master of Spanish (Literature) so that I could teach about all Hispanic countries. I consider myself a fun teacher lol! so I have to constantly search for new innovative ways to get my lessons to my students. I don't know if I'm a beginner in this type of teaching but I have much to learn. I am definitely expanding my teaching style and stepping out into the 21st century LOL! It is definitely a fun adventure. I teach Spanish 1-4 and it will be my third year teaching 8th-12th graders. Fun Fun!

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Bennett on July 13, 2009 at 3:05pm

Hi. My name is Jez and I am originally from London. I am currently teaching in Leeds and looking to develop my teaching using smart boards and ICT. I have recently completed a scheme for year 7 using Darren Shan's 'Cirque du Freak' as a class reader (the kids just love the suspense and gore!). I used the resources from the TES website and also made some of my own. There is also a smart notebook slideshow for every lesson/youtube downloads/kinaesthetic activities/bad jokes etc. This scheme has been really successful and we had a lot of entries to our homework competition. I am looking to share schemes and ideas with other teachers - particulary those who are developing their teaching using ICT.

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Permalink Reply by Becky Schwerdtfeger on July 13, 2009 at 6:34pm

Hi all,
I'm Becky Schwerdtfeger from Goochland, Virginia. I will be teaching 7th grade English for the first time this year, after several years with 6th graders and one year with 8th graders. Looking forward to learning the ins and outs of Classroom 2.0 and seeing what other educators are doing with technology in their classrooms. I'm a bit of a computer dunce, so speak slowly and clearly! Is there a Ning for Dummies out there?

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Permalink Reply by Emily Sills on July 29, 2009 at 6:49am

Hi Becky,

I too will be teaching 7th grade English for the first time this year, after several years teaching 8th. I'm brainstorming ideas to expand on the old pen-pals idea, maybe long distance writing partnerships, to enhance students' use of technology. Would you be interested in something like this?

Emily