This morning I coached a session on something I didn’t think I would need to coach on.  It was all about tracking changes in Microsoft Word.   It was one of things I took for granted in my technological life.  I assumed teachers knew about it and students used it.  Why?? Because I use it.  As a coach it was a great experience in not taking things for granted.  Not one of the students had ever seen it and they all found it extremely useful to their writing practices.  One funny part was that students thought that Bill Gates made track changes so teachers could check up on students editing skills.  I asked them to broaden their approach to software and they began to see other possible uses for track changes.

Later in the session the discussion went to blogs and the students were not overly interested after the track changes information.  This made me laugh to myself !  Here we are trying to make things more engaging to students and here they are saying “No Thanks” it is not necessary.  However I will not give up on my blogging battle as I believe it is great to write for a web audience and next week we will be writing up a reflection after viewing the teenage affluenza video below.  This class can sometimes be very unresponsive and I am hoping it will ellict some emotions from this grade.  The reflection will then form the first article in their new class blog.  I will post it up next week.  The video I am showing is below if you have not seen it before.

I have been enjoying my holidays immensely.  Twitter has helped keep my mind on technology throughout the holidays and I am loving it.  It is so inspirational to see what other educators are doing, writing and thinking. 

Over the holidays I have also purchased a Ninetendo wii, granted it was for my enjoyment as I never have liked watching Alex on the xBOX, so if you cannot beat them, join them and I have !! Whilst playing I have been thinking about the educational opportunities the wii has in the classroom.

Some of the ideas I have had so far are:

• Physical Education classes when the gym is booked and it is raining
• Use of wii fit to improve core strength in PE
• Use of wii with opera web browser to allow interactivity with webpages
• Use of wii sports in maths to look at angles
• Use of this technology to support students with language difficulties

I am extremely interested in hearing if anyone has been using wii’s in their classrooms and how the reaction was from the students and other staff members.  I am very wary of this technology being dismissed as just a game with no educational opportunities.  So far i have found this site where the wii is being used http://www.wiiwii.tv/2007/10/07/teacher-uses-wii-in-the-classroom/ . 

Please share any other ideas for this technology or experiences.