We will be using this wiki for collaboration. Please add an entry to provide ideas on how the wiki format of collaboration could be used either in your classroom or with your colleagues as a professional development tool. Please include your name and a brief introduction to yourself in your wiki post.


Hi from Cheryl!
Well even after the bumpy beginning we finally made it into Wikiland! I was going to set this up as a forum, but many students already posted here… If I can move these posts effortlessly - I will!
I live in sunny southern California near Disneyland since 1995, but was born and raised in Scranton PA. It is so great to see students from everywhere! I received my undergrad at East Stroudsburg Univ and my masters at Misericordia University…. and am certified ( and certifiable) in Elementary, Special Ed, and Early Childhood with an emphasis on technology in teaching…………for more info, you can take a look at the profile in Moodle for a short excerpt :)
WELCOME!!!


Hello from Sacramento, CA! I have taught 6th grade, all subjects for 4 years now, 4 years in 4th grade before that in Milpitas, CA. I recieved a pink slip and at this point I am jobless, but crossing my fingers that I get a call back by August. My district just renovated our school. Every classroom received a built in projector, Smartboard, document camera, and surround sound with teacher microphones. We also have 8 computers in every classroom and a laptop lab in our library. With all this new technology, I'm excited to learn some new "tricks" to use in the classroom. I am taking this class and Differentiating Instruction with Technology at the same time…call me crazy!

My husband and I enjoy our weekends with our 1 year old son Nathan and our 2 dogs. Most days we are chasing him around the house…he's walking now! (Or should I say running?) Enjoying the summer sunshine too! Oh…and to my favorite topic of all, ice cream. We have at least 3 tubs in the freezer at all times! Old Fashion flavor is Mint Chip, but lately we have been diving into Dryers Drum Stick Ice Cream (Yeah…they mix the cone, nuts, and chocolate into vanilla…it's WONDERFUL!) and Ben and Jerry's Americone Dream. Highly recommended…check them out!

One idea I have for a kids' collaboration project using a Wiki would be to post the vocabulary words each week and have students create sentences, stories, or post quotes they have found with the vocabulary words in them.
gina_ripleygina_ripley


My name is Tari (pronounced like cherry) and I live in Vacaville, California; one hour north of San Francisco, two hours from the beach and two hours from the Sierra ski resorts. I have just finished my 25th year of teaching in the public school arena, with 17 of those years as a 6th grade teacher in a K-6 Elementary school. I am also the the Technology Coordinator for my school. I have been in love with technology since 1987 when we first started incorporating it into the classrooms.

Over the past several years I have dabbled in 2.0 applications, but have never had any concentrated instruction. I am looking forward to this class really exposing me to what is out there in cyber 2.0.

One exciting occurrence in my life is that I am leaving for my lifetime dream vacation to Greece in a couple of days! But, due to good ol' technology, I will still be able to keep up with our class!

Outside of school, I have a 20 year old daughter that just finished her sophomore year at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. After spending the summer at home she will be off to spend her junior year in Paris, France at the Sobourne.

And, the best ice cream in the world….or at least in Vacaville, CA, is Coffee Toffee Crunch!

I have just recently learned what a fantastic tool wiki's can be for collaborative work! In another class we were assigned a group project. My team mates lived 3000 miles away. We started out emailing each other, but the information would get scattered. Once we had our wiki up and running we were able to communicate with each other extremely well, with conversation strings nicely followed. We could post links for each other to take a look at, and edit each others ideas. It was a great experience, and a fantastic learning situation.

Tari


A bit more about Janell:
I just wrapped up another year teaching 9th grade English, special education and co-taught sections for a district in a suburb of Philadephia, PA. My special education sections were learning support sections in which the students primarily had difficulties with reading comprehension or written expression. I also co-taught regular education sections, which are considered academic sections. (Our district just did away with "tracking" so our levels of academics are learning support, academic, honors, and gifted.) This year has been a huge year of changes in our district!

Prior to being in 9th grade, I worked at our local vocational school teaching special education English to 11th and 12th graders. Despite some issues with adminsitration, I'm glad to have had the experience in a vocational setting. I also co-taught in a first grade classroom where literacy was emphasized and also taught third grade. (I'm PA Certified in Elementary Education, Special Education, and English 7-12).

The wiki is about the biggest web 2.0 tool that I have been successfully been able to implement in my classes. I have also seen (and experienced!) the power of a wiki for collaboration when we completed group projects in the PBL course. For the summer tech courses that I'm co-teaching, we're using wikispaces to aid in our planning. We originally started with Google Docs for our proposals but once approved, created wikispaces to aid in the planning. We figured it would be another way to show the use of a wiki. It's been a great tool as it also offers convenience. My co-teacher and I are able to add/edit what we will offer in our course. We also have a wikispace page for the English department in our district in which we add/offer lesson plans, websites, etc. It's so much easier to use rather than the public folders for staff on our district server.


Yeah - I'm in!
My name is
Denise Whiteman and I have been the elementary librarian for Otto-Eldred School District for 25 years now. I love my job and everything I get to do with it. I also teach elementary keyboarding and technology skills and have taught after school sessions using platforms like Alice 3-D animation to 3rd through 6th graders. I am my district's OPC for Blended Schools and I love learning about any kind of technology use I can use with my classes. Though it seems like a lot more because of the amounts new technologies I have learned how to use, this is my 6th Instructional Media class. My other interests include working at the Erie Zoo (2 hours away) and doing animal handling (the baby alligators and other reptiles are my most favorites), geocaching, traveling, technology uses, reading (though I don't have much time for it anymore - odd for a librarian!), and puzzles.

I am hoping that I can get more time with my classes in the computer labs so I can start implementing some online collaboration projects. Through my other Wilkes classes I have come up with some ideas that I am dying to try out. Now that I am getting the hang of WikiDot I am seeing some advantages over WikiSpaces (and also some disadvantages), though at this point I am still preferring WikiSpaces (but that may change!). My technology coordinator asked me to create a document to share online to aid her and the HS librarian with Panther quirks (there are a lot of tips, cheats, and reminders that aren't used every day and thusly difficult to remember and share easily). The Panther is our awesome handheld scanner/computer that we use with our automated library circulation and cataloging program. It is still pretty new for us and the HS librarian is fairly new to the position so I am the duck with the most practical experience with it. I did create a Google document that I shared, but I am thinking that using a wiki might be a better option. I am hopeful that if my district releases some control for more online collaboration that I can begin created some online projects for use with my 4-6 classes. I want to delve into some creative writing projects with students in other countries. My district will not allow email, but with wiki forum and other options I am now learning about, I can probably still make it work. I also desperately want to maintain a library site for my students and teachers. Wiki sounds like the ticket! I am very excited to be learning about these platforms so I can take my classes to the next level in the 21st century.


Hello to all! My Wiki name is Taylor Kindt-Zander.wikidot.com

(Jennifer) Taylor Kindt-Zander. Ok, let explain the confusion with my name. I'm in process of going back to my maiden name, which is Jennifer Taylor Kindt. But no one but IRS calls me Jennifer. I go by my middle name due to the numerous Jennifer's in grade school.

I have lived in Florida on the island of Sanibel and here outside Philly due to family in both states. I graduated from college with a BS in Business Admin/Marketing/Computer Programing Degree in 1988. Was a corporate computer trainer and consultant for a few years until wanting to stay at home to have children. Went back to college during that time to get BS Business Education so I could teach in public schools. I have been teaching computers in public school since 2000. I earned my Masters in Education/Computers K-12 in 2005 and now starting this new program at Wilkes in IM.

I am hoping to learn all about Web 2.0 so that I can compare it to Blended Schools Blackboard which I use in my classes and use the parts that work the best for my courses.

My Ideas- I believe the collabortion will be wonderful in the Entrepreneurship course I teach. The students have different positions and need to keep each other posted on whats going on in their department. Wiki will be perfect for that class.

In my Career Exploration classes the wiki use of research site and theorganization of that info will be excellent. I need the students to keep a journal from beginning of year ot end on their search and rationale behind eliminating certain careers and continuing exploring other. This course culminates with the students presenting a presentation about one career of their choice. I can imagine it possibilities utilitzing Wiki tools.

The last course I teach is going through as major curriculum change in which we are attempting to use wiki over the summer to develop curriculum while we are all on vacation.


My wikidot account is moc.todikiw|nesdnarFennaerB#moc.todikiw|nesdnarFennaerB

Whew! That took awhile. I clicked on the invitation, but wasn't able to join. I then saw that you had to click "accept invitation" on the bottom. (Hopefully that helps those that were not able to figure this out)

My name is Breanne Frandsen, and I teach at D.H.H. Lengel Middle School in Pottsville, PA. I graduated from Shippensburg University in May ‘07 with a B.A. in English. I received a teaching job in the same school that I attended not too long ago. I work with many of the same teachers that taught me, which is an interesting situation. I feel that even though I am a new teacher, I am able to help the “veteran” teachers because I am more experienced with computers.

I think that technology in the classroom is very important, and is a tool that should be used as much as possible. I was one of the few teachers that received a “SmartBoard” this past year, and have been finding ways to use it daily. I conducted a survey with my students about what learning style they think works best for them, and many of the students said they are “hands-on” learners. I am excited to find new and creative ways to use more technology in my classroom. I believe that all of our students are geared towards working with media. Many students are more knowledgable about computers and media than we are. I still cannot figure out how to switch between my dvd player and VCR in my classroom. Everytime, I end up having a student do this for me! Digital media engages the student, and I believe produces a higher quality of work than we have seen before. This is a technological age, and we are responsible for preparing our students for the real world. This is my fourth graduate class at Wilkes, and I am really excited about finding new ways to help my students be prepared for the real world in a fun and exciting way.

I believe that collaboration is necessary in the classroom as well as between faculty. We are in the process of rewriting our curriculum so that we do not repeat the same information, or the same stories, in two different grades. If we had a google document that listed the stories that we are covering in our grade, then other teachers in our district would know what we taught and build on this rather than reteaching it.


Taylor- I totally understand the name confusion, I also go by my middle name so I feel your pain in having to explain! :)
~Breanne

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License