Blogs

Wow!! This world of blogging is absolutely fascinating to me!! I had never entered this world until I had to start my own blog. After researching educational blogs on google, I am simply amazed not only by the number of blogs out there, but by how helpful they are to educators and to anyone else!! I researched the top 100 education blogs and found many sub topics. They included categories such as college, e-learning, education news, education policies, internet culture, learning, library and research, specialty, teaching, and technology. Though I did not agree with many of these blogs political views, being a conservative myself, I still found them extremely helpful and informative.
A history teacher can connect with other history teachers around the world to share ideas. A new computer teacher can ask for help from other teachers about what rubrics to use and how to challenge her students. The options are endless and it brings teachers together that can share not only their curriculum, but how to reach their students to make a lesson relevent. There are blogs on internet safety, education technology review, and tips for new bloggers (I liked this one!). There are blogs for health, saving money, and even cute animal pictures!! Blogs are beneficial not only for teachers, but for the students, as well. Students can use blogs to communicate with one another, to find out how to apply to college, and use the many resourses out there to connect with someone in their area of interest. Blogs are here to stay and they provide an avenue for anyone to not only write and express their views, but to connect and communicate with others in their field of interest.

Educational Journal

I'm posting my educational journal that is very relevent to my subject area.
It's the Health Journal and has wonderful articles about health, nurtition, and fitness.
Enjoy!!

http://health-journal.info/categories/fitness

PowerPoint as an educational tool

PowerPoint is an excellent tool for students to not only showcase what they know, but it allows them to be interactive and learn a powerful tool. It is not only educational, but fun!! It allows the students to be as creative as they want to be, or it can simply be informative. It is also a wonderful tool for teachers to present their curriculum to the parents.

Prensky

I agree with Prensky that immigrants need to learn the new way - how to reach digital natives effectively, by changing their teaching styles without compromising content. As a digital immigrant myself, I am amazed at the abilities of my digital native daughters. By growing up with computers, cell phones, ipods, etc., not only are they comfortable using this equipment, but they learn by playing with it!! That is so foreign to me! As effective educators, we need to equip ourselves by learning how to reach our students; but first we better play with the equipment and become familiar with it. Only then will we be effective educators!!

Introduction

I have been teaching physical education for 6 years at Sunset Elementary School in the Issaquah School District after spending 8 years at home raising my two beautiful daughters. I taught physical education at Woodinville High School for 5 years prior to that and coached basketball, volleyball, and tennis. My passions include anything athletic or fitness related, especially biking, reading, and spending time with my daughters and black lab, Kona.