Well, this week I got a good lesson in the necessity of planning ample time for anything new in the classroom -- especially unfamiliar technology!

Eager to bolster participation and excitement with a new, unenthusiastic group of 10th graders, I decided to add some pizzazz to an upcoming lesson with new technology. Since I'm introducing a text, I thought a word cloud created with  wordle would be an ideal way to ignite conversation and interest in the text.

The first obstacle I encountered was downloading java and reconfiguring the security settings on my brand-new computer, which I did with considerable trepidation, and only after consulting with my husband the engineer. :-) Then, thinking I'd be savvy, I typed in an extremely brief text to try out the tool. After a lengthy wait, it worked. Okay, I thought, I can type in the text I want to use. Well, after typing for quite a bit and pressing the "create" button, I sat and waited. I eventually realized that the program had crashed my Explorer. Undaunted, I tried again, this time copying the text with control C before pressing "create."  Explorer crashed again. Okay, I thought, Wordle isn't doing it for me. I'll just paste the text into Tagxedo. It will probably come as no surprise to anyone reading that the control V didn't work. I'm not sure where in the ether the text disappeared to, but it did disappear. Not one to give up on the idea so easily, I retyped the text into the Tagxedo application. It too crashed my Explorer.

I'm still trying to think of something to excite my 10th graders, but at that point in the process, I decided to abandon the word cloud idea and create a crossword puzzle for my weak 9th graders. Thank G-d, that worked without a hitch, although I had a bit of experimenting to do in order to copy and paste the crossword puzzle file which I had saved as a .pdf.

Apart from learning this week that new technology takes time to learn and does not always work the way it's intended to, I learned that I definitely have to try things-- programs, web sites, applications -- out on my own before I can plan a lesson centered around them!

Classroom. It's not necessarily a word that conjures up images of the latest technology. In my teaching experience and in my own children's learning experience, the words "classroom" and "technology" describe two almost entirely distinct realms of experience.

So how can technology successfully be harnessed to enhance learning? The following blogs provide some useful ideas:

As Michael Gorman of 21st Century Education Technology  writes, we have to keep a few things in mind when aiming to update our classrooms: 

• First of all, it's a step-by-step process. Implement and integrate slowly, while constantly assessing possibilities that are opened up by the tools already implemented. 

• Most significantly, make sure the children and their learning, are not overshadowed by new technology. As Gorman writes: It is important that we take a moment to admire the shine and then move on to real learning possibilities. How might the newest tools or resource allow for student learning of the necessary content standards? 

 A blog that provides lots of specific examples of sites and apps that teachers can use to enhance their students' writing and reading experience is  Free Technology for Teachers. Richard Byrne, this blog's creator, provides links and descriptions of some of the latest free tools for students and educators. It's less about the philosophy behind incorporating technology, and more about the nuts and bolts of what to use. Of the tools Byrne introduced on his latest blog entry, I particularly liked Zing, a site that provides free e-books in a variety of different subjects, on a variety of different levels. Teachers can choose a book and invite their "class" to read it together. While I don't envision being able to use it for my current students, I hope to survey the available titles to find something appropriate for my own children.

The final blog I chose to follow deals with technology and mobile apps useful for education: Educational Technology and Mobile Learning. While I won't presume to judge the blog by my initial encounter, I must say that the first link they provided -- to a site that looked really interesting, called, apparently Histography -- did not work in my browser, Firefox. When I searched for it in Safari (without using the hyperlink), I didn't find it.

So . . . I'll have to report later, when I'm not on my Mac and am using Chrome, on neat tools and links to follow from this site.

Introducing Myself

My name is Sharon Botesazan. I live in Kochav Hashahar, where I currently teach English at the local high school yeshiva. This is my third year teaching. I was hired on the basis of my bachelor's degree in English Literature, which I earned from Tulane University in New Orleans (my home town). I enjoyed my first year and, realizing the importance of really learning the profession, decided to enroll in the English Department at Herzog.

I expect this class will expand my technical knowledge and enable me to expand the tools I use, both in and out of the classroom. While the resources at my school are very limited, I am sure that there are many tools available that I'm unaware of. I look forward to learning them.