A Mad Scientist

I received great news Friday.  A local businessman and a god friend has decided to sponsor my classroom tech project.  He has donated the necessary money for me to purchase 10 laptops for the class.  I am very excited!

Here is my plan.  I have created four websites for my class to publish and communicate what it is learning.  The key here is that the students will be creating the content for the sites.  It is theorized that students learn 90% of what they teach… far more effective than any other strategy available.  Also, I hope to really communicate to the families and community what we are accomplishing in my room , and more broadly across the district.

I will use this blog, amadscientist.edublogs.org, for students to post a message to have others respond to.  I will use the wiki, amadscientist.wikispaces.com, to communicate student learning and knowledge.  I will use the website, amadscientist.com, to host student created podcasts and vodcasts, and also to host my general lesson plans.  Finally, I will use the forum to create a student virtual learning community.  All of this will be protected by requiring all posts and information to be approved by me digitally before it will display on the web.

As for my overall technology plan for the classroom, last year my parents sponsored my classroom and bought me a SmartBoard with Senteo remote response system.  This revolutionized my teaching as it provided me and the students with immediate feedback and a way to interact with our lessons.  This year my class sponsor will add 10 laptops to increase opportunities for students to publish their knowledge.  Next, I will seek a class sponsor to increase the amount of funding for classroom experiments.  We do a lot of hands-on experiments, but I still feel that we can do more.  Also, I am looking to replace the furniture, but that is not really technology.  If you are interested in helping to transform my classroom, please let me know.