What a Relief!!!

Congratulations! We have reached the end of this course with much success! I know so because we each had to do presentations of our assignments and I saw the evidences of the your hard work.I am so impressed with the different levels of technology knowledge and skills demonstrated. But I have to say that I am so proud of myself. At the beginning of this course I was so intimidated by the required assignments. But with all your encouragement and support I can say that I have gained so much new information and my technology skills have greatly increased and improved. Thank you - all of you - your encouragement went a long way in keeping me committed to completing the required assignments especially the geo-narrative and course management and to completing this course. I wish all of you a successful academic journey. May you all reach the goals you have set for yourselves. I look forward to seeing some of you Literacy majors in the next two semesters. Have a great Christmas. Rest, relax, have fun and be ready for the Spring semester.

photo: Pyrocanthus in Turkey

Teaching is not a profession; it's a passion. -- Unknown
When we have passion we have boundless enthusiasm, powerful emotions or appetite, zeal, ardor and fervor. Take these and apply them to your students and instruction and you will have unbelieveable success. Any profession, especially teaching, is dead without the passion.

Thank You!

I would like to express my gratitude to you, my ED 638 colleagues and Dr. Rivera for your guidance and support in making this class a wonderful learning experience. I can definitely utilize the knowledge and experience that I have gained with using the Internet as a teaching tool in my work. I have the confidence to share the Internet tools with my colleagues at school so they could also benefit with the technology of the times! Farewell to you all, may God Bless You and Your Family during this holiday season and always!

Image by chewoo.thodin.org

Merry Christmas

It has been a pleasure being classmates with all of you. Through this course, I was able to learn a great deal of things from you all. It was amazing to see how we all come up with creative and interesting things that we can incorporate in our classroom. I hope everyone has a safe and joyous holiday season and I hope to see you all in other graduate courses.

~GOODBYE & MERRY CHRISTMAS~

It was a pleasure taking this class and taking that opportunity of learning so much about what the internet has to offer to make learning more fun for our students. I had fun learning in and out of class whether through moodling, emailing, blogging and class presentations. Everyone did an awesome job. I truthfully regret not making in the last day of class due to a fever. But I didn't want any one to get sick nor feel sorry for me. So good thing I got plenty rest and got better today. Once again, thank you all for the great times and wonderful learning experience. Now we can in turn teach our students what we have learned and instill that learning through the internet is gaining useful knowledge that will be carried on throughout all the years of schooling.

Farewell everyone, keep in touch, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all and your families!

Farewell Message

Dear ED638 Students,

Happy Holidays, and thank you for all the wonderful educational technology presentations! Thank you also to those who wished me a belated happy birthday! I guess we can't stay young forever! In any event, it has been a pleasure having all of you as students this semester. I’m happy that you’ve gained much knowledge on teaching with the internet, applying technology to develop students' higher order thinking skills & creativity, and so much more! I encourage you to continue to apply what you’ve learned to empower your students to excel! Good luck in all your endeavors!

Warmest regards,
Dr. Rivera

This is the end, my friends.

I'm relieved that we all got through the semester unscathed, maybe a little weary, but still beaming with smiles. I enjoyed our last session last night and I especially enjoyed sharing my portfolio with everyone in class. Good luck with all your future endeavors. Happy Holidays!

(Image from BBC)

Google image

Great Class, Awesome Mates....put up the lights and let's celebrate!!-Mar

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion to clarity...Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow." - Melody Beattie

Thank you all for the support and encouragement. It's been quite a adventure. I wish you all well in your future endeavors.

Clip art source: google.com

ADIOS...

It was great meeting all of you and exploring the different technology tools out there. I have a learned a great deal from you all because we are all unique people. This class has taught me much more then just surfing the internet. There are many tools out there we can use in our classrooms. I forward to having classes with many of you in the future.
Merry Christmas and Blessings for a Prosperous 2010!! (thanks for the picture DAR)

Farewell

It was a pleasure taking this class with all of you. I hope you know that I value everything each one of you had to say even if i didn't reply to your post. I will you all the best of luck in you future academic pursuits.

It was a fun semester!

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”-- Anatole France

This semester has gone by really fast and I am kind of sad to see that our class has finally come to an end. I hope that everyone is more tech savvy now than they were a few months ago. I know I am. I am glad I took this class because I have been using some of the tools in my classroom. It was a fun trip and hopefully I get to see all of you again in another class. Happy Holidays!

"One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done." -- Marie Curie

This quote would fit today! Everyone scrambling to get the final touches done before they present. Funny how it's always the same in every class, even as teachers we find ourselves rethinking if the work accomplished or completed is done correctly. This is every student's life cycle. As for mine, it is just the beginning! Sure wish I am almost done or half way at least like the rest of you.

Thank you once again for your acquaintance and your great ideas. It was a pleasure being in class with such a wonderful team!

Good luck to all of you and I hope to share a class with you again!

Last Post

"Confidence comes not from always being right, but from not fearing to be wrong."

I really appeciate this inspirational quote especially because part of my learning to gain confidence to teach with the Internet was to begin with "not fearing to be wrong" over and over again.

Gaining confidence to teach with the Internet has been a great learning experience. This course required hands-on application of a variety of Internet tools that was disseminated in several of ways.  First, an Internet tool was explored, next, we were tasked to implement the tool in a classroom and finally we were tasked to share it with our classmates in this course. As I reflect on the past four months of this course, I am convinced without a doubt that it was the hands on application of the Internet tools that provided me with the confidence to teach with the Internet.  Thank you all for being a part of such a great experience.

It's Over!

This class has been very challenging but I am so happy to have learned so much! I am now more technologically literate and feel like I am able to hold my own in this field of instruction. Thank you everyone for your support and encouragement because without it, I would have given up. Good luck to all of you.

Image of flowers taken by FKaible in Thessoniki, Greece November 2009.

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"Optimism is the faith that leads to acheivement, nothing can be done without hope and confidence."- Helen Keller





I keep coming back to this quote, maybe it is because it reminds me of ED638 and all the hope and confidence my colleagues instilled in me! Thank you all for the encouragement

"Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude." Zig Ziglar

How far you go to achieve your goals in life depends on your perserverance, not your natural abilities. So no matter how smart or talented a person is, without dedication and enthusiasm, there is minimal, if any success.

As educators, we must believe in what we do for our students in order to be successful. When we do our best, we are able to make a difference in our student's lives.

We presented our Geo-narratives during our previous class session. I enjoyed seeing how different subject areas and grade levels can benefit by using Google earth. Being able explore Google earth and record a tour was awesome. I plan on further exploring or playing with the website during Christmas vacation.

Good luck to you all on your final presentations! See you in class!

Image by google

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Class on Thursday was great. I had the chance to watch my colleagues present their Geo Narrative. They all had excellent ideas on various lessons utilizing Google Earth. I was missing my standards for my lesson plan so given the option to present on Dec. 3 was the best date for me to present. Days are going by so quick that we only have one more class meeting to go. I can't believe we are so close to ending this semester. So have to buckle down and getting working on LIVETEXT uploads and Finalizing my Geo Narrative Lesson Plan N.E.T.S. Taking it day by day but it will all get done.

Before I leave I want to wish everyone and their family a Blessed Thanksgiving!

It was more than Turkey!

"A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action, for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows and rows of natural objects, classified with name and form." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Sorry, I missed class today and that I didn't get to see your presentations. But my students and I had a pre-arranged event. We hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for the manamko at Guma Trankilidat; this is our 5th year to do so.

This quote is quite fitting for this evening for me because after the function, as we were waiting for everyone to be picked up, my students expressed their experiences and thoughts of this evening. They all seemed to feel good about themselves hearing that the residents of the home praising them for a job well done and how the made them feel "alive" again with our presence. The kids finally understood why they were there and that the residents really appreciated them visiting.

One girl asked me if we could come back and do this kind of activity again, she asked me this and then started to cry. She told me that she felt guilty and that she regrets not spending time with her grandparents. Another student also declared to the group that they aren' t going to take people and the passing days for granted anymore.

All in all, the emotions that spilled out today made me feel that I accomplished something different, something more than a number grade; that I had reached a new teaching standard/ method. So if you ask me what content standards I used today, I wouldn't just have 3 to justify the lessons learned - I used ALL of them!

In this video, President Napoleon is giving his thanks to us for coming. I sure hope it plays.

We're almost done

"They may forget what you said but they will never forget how you made them feel." - Carol Buchner

Sometimes I wonder if I am wasting too much energy when I teach because it seems that my students aren't listening to me, however I think that the energy and enthusiasm I bring to my classroom make my students happy to be there.

Today was a short day in class and I enjoyed the presentations, I am a bit disappointed with myself because my place marks were not saved properly. Overall I think everyone who presented did a great job and I am looking forward to seeing the others present in our next class meeting. So we are almost done with the semester, lets not stress out too much with our portfolios everyone.

GEO NARRATIVE

Tonight we looked at different geo-narratives and lesson plans. It was nice to see the different creative styles we each have. Using google earth was fun and there is so much more to explore with it. It did take some time to learn but after a few trial and errors, and information given in class it turned out to be a success.

Have a Blessed Thanksgiving!