BP1_2009121_iGoogleScreenShots

Google Homecoming!

I am very excited to return to my iGoogle page. Over the course of the last 3 months it has been extremely difficult to merge the FSO world with my Google world. I'm a veteran Google suite user since the 2007-2008 teaching school year, my final school term. Then, I was looking for ways to integrate technology. Research writing was a part of the 8th grade ELA curriculum and I just knew there was a more efficient way of handling all the parts of the writing experience, i.e. a virtual concept mapmaker, a virtual notebook, etc. Once I figured everything out like my fellow course mate,Christina Hewitt, it was time to put my new learning to use. I had my students to create Google mail accounts and add the notebook tool to their home browser. Like I've said in numerous posts on the Full Sail Online discussion post boards, this was the best teaching and learning experience in a regular classroom setting that I had ever had. I still have the communication from this experience archived from the following: Google chats, emails, docs, and notebooks. This experience was the one thing that was nagging at me when I decided to leave the classroom because I wanted to use Google the following year (my action research before I knew of such a thing). I'm really grateful that spiritually much of what I have thought about has been solidified by my participation in the FSO program and the network of friends I've met here. When my course instructor, Rena Hanaway, shared her story, it was like she and I shared a journery, only in different states. I, too, believe that public education could use an overhaul and revolution led by it's strongest ally, the public school teacher.