Blog Post 14

For this assignment, we were to check out Jose Picardo's blog on technology and education, Box of Tricks. Mr. Picardo also created a video which is a great resource for adding more technology to your classroom. In the video, Mr. Picardo gave his top ten list of things you can do to incorporate technology in your lesson plans. Most of these things, we have explore in EDM310 (which didn't surprise me in the least). What I did find interesting was the last thing that Picardo said in his video. He said that you should only use technology in your classroom when you find that it can help you accomplish the mission of transmitting your objectives effectively and efficiently to your students. I think this is very important to remember. Sometimes it might be easy to get caught up trying to think of a new, technologically exciting way to present something and you end up taking away from what you initially set out to do. It can be better to keep it simple (stupid!).

Picardo's blog has a handy list of free internet resources for education. This was a GOLDMINE! I had no idea there was so much neat stuff out there. I will definitely be adding this to my PLN for future reference. Don't get me wrong, there are several things on this list that I've had the opportunity to explore through EDM310 this semester, but there is so much more out there than I even imagined. There are so many neat things my mind can't even process all the ways I might be able to use them for my classroom right now. One of the things I did find interesting in Picardo's video and from the list was Hot Potato or contentgenerator.net. These are both things I haven't explored yet but could use to make fun and interactive review games for my students.