The Laptop Learning projects have been such a learning experience for me this year. Having a laptop that I could take with me to planning sessions, training, and home, helped me be more efficient with my work. We have learned so many great technology concepts, from keeping current on educational bloggers to blogging ourselves. We have created our own Google Homepages and dabbled with podcasting and geocaching. If technology leaders of our schools are not learning new concepts and keeping up with the growing tends in technology, then the entire school will be falling behind.
I have been able to bring many of these concepts back to the students and teachers at White Oak Elementary. Many adults underestimate what elementary children can do. White Oak’s students were able to begin taking the concept of podcasting and creating presentations in Powerpoint and Photostory3 with narration. While the students did not create blogs, we used Gaggle to do discussion threads. The county’s GPSs are coming to White Oak next week for a little geocaching with fourth and fifth grade.
We are already making plans for projects to do next year. There were so many things the teachers and I wanted to do with the students, but there was just not enough time or space available in the computer lab to get to everything.
