I checked everybody's blog tonight and it seems that I'm the only one who did the work of week 2. Of course I realize that it's only the first day, but Sunday is my day off, and I was hoping to share and get feedback from the other students. I guess I'll have to be patient and control my curiosity.

So I've been surfing and searching...A lot of sites looked interesting, but I bypassed many them because I wanted to find things that would help me on a practical level with my teaching, On the other hand, I wanted to locate sites that had varied things offer.

I finally chose three sites, but I suspect that I will be lurking on several others to which I've been exposed. Now that I've bookmarked them, I can peek whenever I have a free moment at the computer.

One of the things that I found interesting about these sites is the level of security of each one. My first  choice was http://www.teachertube.com, a site which posts various types of videos. In order to sign up for this site I had to fill in a registration form, create a password and enter an anti-spam code. I had some trouble at first, but my persistence was rewarded, when I found a video about another site called http://www.prometheanplanet.com which has interactive whiteboard activities. Since I've felt for a long time that our board is underused, and this site has postings from Israeli ESL teachers, I felt that I'd already hit the jackpot. In any case, I wondered at the level of security, especially when the next site I checked out had no security at all.

My second choice was http://www.theorganizedclassroomblog.com/index.php/blog/latest. I'm not sure it will help me on a practical level, because many of the ideas presented aren't appropriate for my students, but they are interesting, easy to read, and may generate other ideas. One article I read there was about using Google Drive. Although I've filled out forms in it, I have no idea what to do with it. The article sparked my interest, and I hope to look into it further.

My last choice was http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet, because I wanted one place for just reading what other teachers had to say; a site where theories and unusual thinking were put forward and pragmatism was out of style.

I've always been fascinated by computers and the Internet. For a while I was spending an inordinate amount of time playing all sorts of games, like Zumba, Freecell, various forms of Solitaire, etc. until one day I decided that I was wasting too much time. I made a firm decision: no more games! The only game I occasionally allow myself is soduku. I haven't even allowed myself to be seduced by Candy Crush, although almost everyone around me is playing it (at least the younger generation).

I often try to use multimedia in the classroom, although the school is sorely lacking many necessary tools. However, I generally stick to youtube or Powerpoint, which I'm familiar with, because I'm well aware that I'm pretty ignorant in this area.

I find the technology so compelling that I considered studying the use of it for my M.A. in another college. Why I didn't? Maybe another time.....

I really hope I come out of this course a lot wiser than I'm going in...