Tate enjoying his breakfast. Cereal is huge at the Pfantz house. Yum!

Awwwwww

More pics

Kisses for sis

Tate's already trying to tackle his little sister. Good thing Tess is amused by it!

Photo op. Didn't go so well.

My pretty little sweetie

Central Trick or Treating!

We went on a Halloween outing on Thursday night. Tate and Tessa were a cute duo in their Fireman themed outfits. Tess slept the entire time but Tate was on a mission to get candy! When people asked who he was he said, "weee ew weee ew" (the sound of a fire truck) (o:

Webquest/technology

I also wanted to add to my previous post that it is very important to make sure the site you want to incorporate into a lesson is working correctly. There were many sites that I tried viewing that no longer worked or did not direct me to where I needed to go. This would also be important if you tried using the same webquest each year as the site may change. Always good to be prepared!

Webquests

I have been researching different webquests that would be interesting to use in the classroom with students from K-3rd grade. I was frustrated early on as there are numerous webquest sites, most of which did not include what I was looking for. The best webquest site I have found so far is webquest.org. This site lets you chose the grade/age and than the topic. Although a little limited it did offer some very neat webquest activities and they were all developed and organized very nicely. The two I am currently looking at deal with reading and astronomy/geography. I could definitely see myself frequently using webquests in the classroom for group and individual work. I could incorporate them at the beginning, middle, or end of a unit or lesson. I think the kiddos will love them!

Emerging Technology

After watching the clip on the new technology in progress I was pretty speechless initially. A device that can allow you access to any info on a product or person and than can display that info by a projector on any object available is pretty amazing. What really struck me is the fact that these engineers were talking about the possibility of implanting this technology in your brain. What? Who would do that? I thought it was an impressive invention but I don't know that it would make my life much easier, possibly more complicated in fact. I can't believe how many new devices have come out in the past two years; it's a little overwhelming.

Intro to Instructional Technology - blog #3

Flickr - Google - Pandora - Skype

I really enjoyed all of the above sites and would easily be able to incorporate them in the classroom. Google of course is a great resource that includes different tabs or searches such as "Google Scholar". I use this when writing research papers.

Flickr is a great interactive, creative site that all students could get involved with. You can create collages, posters, compile photos from a class field trip, etc.

Pandora is a music site where you can type in a certain song, artist, genre, and than Pandora chooses music to play that is similar to what you chose. This would be great to have playing in the background while students are working on group projects. The students can have input on what music they want.

Skype is a great way to keep in touch with family, friends, or for the classroom possibly an international friend. Classrooms can communicate to eachother, you could even use it to work on group projects without leaving home!