I have learned about some great new technology tools which I hope to be able to use with students this year. One of the sites I learned about, called Wordle, uses a “tag cloud” technology where the words that are used most often are displayed in a larger, bolder font than others. Based on my blog I created the following Wordle image. You can take any block of text and paste it in, or use a blog or website address which has an RSS feed to create an image. What an interesting use of technology to investigate what are the most prolific words used on a site or in a block of text.

Another piece of technology I have been researching is a type of clicker which uses radio frequencies to send data to a computer in order for the teacher to get instant feedback on student assessments. Imagine asking students a question during a lesson and instead of calling on one student to answer, each student is able to give their input. Although the tool is cheaper than using laptop computers, there is still a fairly large sum to incorporate this technology into the classroom. I hope, down the road, we will be able to find the monetary funds to support these new interactive technologies.

Overall, I have to say I had a very productive summer. I took two online courses, attended one three-day conference, and read numerous books from the YALSA 2008 Best Books for Young Adults List. I have also had the opportunity to meet a couple of times with my colleagues to plan for the coming school year.

In addition to my professional development and reading for enjoyment, I also found time to spend with my family. You probably saw me with my family biking and walking around town. We even made it to North Shore, Lake Tahoe for a few days where we biked even more and went rafting down the Truckee river (I highly recommended this for a family trip). Needless to say, all these activities have kept us busy and the summer has flown by.

As I begin this new year I am excited about the possibilities that lie ahead. I am particularly excited about returning to a core where I can incorporate the Social Studies curriculum with Language Arts. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me (my preferred mode of contact) or contact me at school via voice mail. In addition, I encourage you to sign up for my blogsite through a news aggregator service (see my parent resources page) in order to stay abreast of news in the classroom. I try to post at least once a month. You can also subscribe to my wikispace pages for each of my courses in order to stay current with content covered in class and homework. In closing, I would like to say thank you for your support and I look forward to a productive and enriching school year.