Three* favorite websites: Chris Ausprung

It is football time again! And for me, that means fantasy football time! One of my favorite sites is http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/ This site is where I am a part of a public fantasy football league. It allows me to compete with people from all over the country. I’m not a fanatic, but I love being part of fantasy football. It gives me an interest in every football game. My wife hates that, but I love it.

O.k. I should throw in an education site, right? One of my favorites is www.unitedstreaming.com I started going there to find video clips to show to my class. I am now also using it to find pictures and lesson ideas, and to create online lessons/units. I joined the Discovery Educator Network through united streaming and am proud to be a part of this network of teachers who are interested in incorporating technology into their classrooms.

Another favorite of mine is http://schoolcenter.mpsd.k12.wi.us/education/staff/staff.php?sectionid=448 This is the address for my school center web page. I use my website to communicate with parents. I have my newsletter there, an explanation of what we are doing in each subject, and a daily update of the assignment notebook. I also have a “Useful links” page. I use this in the computer lab. My class no longer has to copy long confusing web addresses off of the board. Now they just go to my bookmarked page, click on “useful links,” and click on the appropriate link. This save a ton of time and headaches! There is also a calendar, scrapbook, and many other page ideas available.

*A close fourth is www.iTunes.com I got an iPod for Christmas, and this site can be very addicting! I’ll never again have to pay $14.99 for a C.D. in which I only like one or two songs. You can also download music videos and episodes of several T.V. shows.

Cool things on the web

I think the coolest thing I found this summer was Google Earth. I had read about it before, but was unable to download it onto my computer until recently. If you haven't seen or heard about it, you have got to! It can be downloaded as part of a "Google Pack" from the google home page. Google Earth takes Mapquest to a whole new level. In fact, it's not even fair to compare them. On Google Earth you can actually get a satellite image of your neighborhood (you must live in a fairly large city). Can you find your house? Go from one city to another, and Google Earth will "fly" you there. It is one of the neatest things I've ever seen on the computer (my wife wasn't quite as impressed as I). It is amazing the things you can do on a computer!

Also included in this pack is "Picaso"( a media program), "Google desktop", several free virus protection programs, among other things. It is a useful pack. I recommend giving it a try!

Time

How much time do I spend on the internet? My wife would say way too much. At least in this case, it's for a good reason. I felt really good coming out of the first class, and wanted to get right to work. Therefore, I went into school on August 8th and spent a good 6 hours going through the assignments. At that time, I thought that I was just about done. However, I checked back at the modules and assignments we were given, and realized that I still had some work to do. Over the past month, I have spent on average an hour a day online. I'll admit all of it isn't for class (iTunes is addictive and Fantasy Football has begun!) However, I do spend time searching teacher friendly sites for ideas and news sites for articles of interest to me. I love the ease of google news. I was especially interested in reading about the great Pluto debate. I teach the solar system in fourth grade and now much is changing. I plan on spending another couple of hours online to finish my assignments, and maybe another couple of hours to finalize my project. Happy surfing! I hope your google gets you to where you want/need to be.

Healthy self-image lesson

Along with being healthy, people should also have a realistic/healthy self-image. Because children watch so much t.v. and see so many advertisements directed at them, they need to critically evaluate those ads. At http://bam.gov/teachers/body_image_ad.html, you will find a lesson plan to help children evaluate ads and the message that is being sent. As the lesson plan explains, most women are 5'4" 140 pounds. However, female models in ads average 5'7" and 117 pounds. Children need to know that they are healthy even though they don't live up to the air-brushed, nearly impossible to attain, looks of these models. Teachers have been talking about teaching students to read critically for years. With all of the media exposure children take in, we must also teach them to evaluate these things critically. This lesson is a great way to do that.

Blogging and the Law

This was an article I read by Reid Goldsborough from Technology Today, August 1st, 2005. It was about following the law when you are blogging online. It talked about plagerism (hopefully I have adequately cited my source) and libel when blogging. I was most interested in the ideas about libel. There are limits to our freedom of speech. One of the things that makes me hesitant to accept/use blogs is the fact that people feel like they can just put down anything. They don't understand the accountability they have to what they are writing. It was bad enough when people could write a web page, but these blog pages are just so easy to make! I hope that people feel responsible to "speak the truth" on their blogs. I also hope that children learn to critically look at these blogs and not just believe everything that they read. I think for my class (4th grade), it is essential to discuss this with my students. It is certainly a higher order thinking skill, and is definatley an important one to develop. Anyway, the article does give several tips about blogging. It is basically a how-to not get sued for libel. I hope that bloggers take it one step further and hold themselves accountable to creating credible, reliable information.

Learning in the Digital Age

This was an article I read written by Carolyn Pool in Educational Leadership Dec. 2005/Jan. 2006. I found this article very interesting as it hit on several uses for technology in classrooms. It talked first about Wikipedia, which I had heard of, but not yet tried with my students. Check it out if you haven't yet! It is really cool! It also talked about a user-friendly search engine located at www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/blueweb. I was not familiar with this site, and was very impressed when I checked it out. I really like how they rate the websites, and found many helpful highly rated sites. I was most interested in two other topics in this article. The first was the topic of blogs. I think it is a fantastic idea, but am not yet totally sold on their usefulness. I was impressed by "Mr. Blake's Class Blog," but wonder how many blogs actually have useful information. Are they updated frequently by their creator? Is it safe for students to blog, or even read blogs that are out there? I know teachers are looking for ways to share ideas, and this is certainly a great platform!! I hope that it is used appropriately and can be helpful. I think you can see where my indecision comes form. Learning in the Digital Age also talks about podcasting. I have an ipod myself, and do listen to podcasts. However, I have struggled to find podcasts that I could use in my classroom. Hopefully through this blog, and through my graduate program, I can find answers to these questions. I found this article very interesting, and am always looking for new research and ideas about incorporating technology into my classroom.

Bacteria Activity

At http://www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/infection/ you can find a fun activity for students. They can learn whether a bacteria is helpful or not. It can be completed fairly quickly, and is a nice way to give students some basic background information on different kinds of bacteria.

Healthy living lesson

My first science unit of the year is a unit on the human body and healthy living. I think it is important for students to learn early on how to make smart choices about their diets. By going to www.mypyramid.gov, students can find what foods they should be eating and print a worksheet to help them keep track of what it is they are eating.