Late to the form! 2nd grade quiz

There are so many excellent applications to do with students that can be integrated into the curriculum. I stumbled upon one that has been around for a few months (a year?) or longer and tried it this week.

I have made a google form for the 2nd grade classes I teach. It is very easy to make and an excellent tool that I will use on other occasions. I had taken surveys that other professionals had done using google forms but this was my first attempt at trying it myself. You need a gmail account to do this. I simply made a link to the form and put it on the website that I use for teaching every day. I accessed the results back in my google documents immediately and print them out for the classroom teacher to review with their classes if they would like. There are so many uses for a form that really your imagination is the limit!

Why? It's a good question.

Yesterday a very effective and technology savvy teacher became frustrated. We were working together on updates to her website. In the past 5 years we have had many changes in technology applications and it does seem ridiculous to continue to teach and reteach simple things that really just need tweaking.
Our elementary teachers have used Appleworks, Microsoft Word, First Class and now Pages to make weekly newsletters for classroom communication. Each of these applications have had extremely different ways in which to save and upload to our district website. Images, calendars and other assorted extras that make a difference to how the website looks are changed too. The teachers just want a way to have a website without needing an advanced degree in technology and can be changed in a few minutes time.
User friendly (in this case teacher friendly) technology is critical if you want people to be enthusiastic partners in our quest to partner with school, community and parents.
Often I have asked myself if new is better. Many times I have thought that applications from the not so distant past did a remarkable job in keeping things simpler and user friendly. I can agree most heartily with my fellow educators in regards to wanting to keep things for longer than a year or two. One just gets proficient at using something and just as fast, something new comes along and we have to change AGAIN!!!!

a thought about winter

For the past week or so I have taken a break from updating this blog. I am not a daily photographer- never was and most likely never will be. I thought perhaps that the challenge would be of interest to me. This time of year is not my favorite. I hope to photograph more outdoor things when the weather is warmer.

Winter is tiring- driving, dressing for the cold...it is not my season. I can appreciate its beauty but it is enough now. I am ready for spring, longer daylight and warmer days.

There is nothing profound to say about this. I can feel in my body this yearning and desire for growing plants, migratory birds flying north and no ice (except in my drink) and melting snow. I want to go on walks again and not feel the biting winds. In a short time, spring will be here, followed by summer and fall. When winter comes again, I will wish for it to be over soon.

it's here!

Last night my husband and Tim (my daughters boyfriend) moved in the new sectional. It had arrived more than a week early. It looks lovely and sitting in it is wonderful too.

snowy dog

After weeks of no fresh snow, things around our house were looking really ugly. There was lots of yellow snow around :P so it was nice to get a fresh dusting (2 1/2 inches) today. My dog came inside very snowy and I snapped this picture before she could shake.