What:

This week in class we learned more about UEN and how to navigate around it. It has allot of fun info and things to do for both students and teachers.

So What:

Our homework for this week was a scavenger hunt on UEN. I really struggled with this one. It was only suppose to take us about four hours to do but I have spent three hours a day for the past three days and I'm not done yet. On the first day, after about three hours I tried to save my work on google doc. but it wouldn't save. I tried several different ways but each time I tried to exit out the computer said " There have been changes to this page that were not saved. Stay on this page or leave this page." After several tries I finally just copied and pasted it into word then I excited out. It deleted everything but I was able to copy and past it back into google doc from word, I didn't loose anything. But today I found out I have been doing the wrong scavenger hunt. On our class web site there are two places to down load the scavenger hunt. If you down loaded it from deliverables you got the old one. If you down loaded the one from resources you got the correct one. I did the wrong one so now I need to copy what I do have done into the other one.

It took me quite awhile to figure out how to do the portlets but I think I finally got it figured out, I hope. I will finish the assignment tomorrow.

Now What:

I really like the UEN web site. My son is actually using it for his English class. He has to do a research paper and the only Internet site he is allowed to use is UEN. I know I will use this allot as a teacher to help guide my students to many fun activities and web pages that are safe and pre- approved. I also like the idea of being able to find continuing education class for my self. After seeing what UEN can do, I wish more of my children's teachers would use their own personal UEN web page. It's a great way to stay connected to your students and their parents.

Video:

I agree with this 150%. From the time a child is born until they are five, they learn about the world through their senses, using their entire body,falling down and getting back up again. But when they turn five we put them in school and make them sit for hours on end using just their sense of sight and sound. In my opinion creative dance should be part of every schools curriculum. Last semester I took a wonderful class called Dance for Elementary Teachers. We learned how to use dance to teach other subjects and how to teach children problem solving skills.

I am thankful that my children have had wonderful, creative teachers that have found ways to help them learn at schools. As teachers we need to let our students know that it is OK to make mistakes, try new things and have wacky ideas. That is how we learn.

Maybe I'm idealistic, but in my classroom I plan on using dance, music rhyming and hands on practicle ways to teach my students the Utah core curriculum. We can't afford to have our children loose their God given creativity.