Welcome to the world of ICT!

Well, here I am, starting out on an adventure!

It's not the same as other adventures... in fact my sister just started a blog entitled "Courtney's Going on an Adventure!" that is much more adventurous than mine. She's on her way to Uganda for a semester of school, and I'm on my way to learning how to integrate technology in to the classroom; different adventures but both adventurous in their own way!

Blogging for me has been something I've wanted to try, but have never been able to start. I love reading blogs (especially cooking blogs) and I've wanted to write them, but something always stops me from getting one going. Sometimes while I'm cooking I will come up with a great blog entry and I'll be saying it out loud as I add the ingredients (sad, I know). I even came up with a great opening entry for starting up my cooking blog but alas, I still have not begun. I'm thinking this blog will be exactly what I need to become comfortable with blogging!

This blog is specifically for my class, Using Information and Communication Technology in Education. Here I will reflect on what has been talked about in class, as well as my thoughts on what I can try in my classroom!

So, on to my reflection -

This week has been pretty much an intro to the class as well as a bit of an intro to curating our online resources. I am a big fan of Pinterest and I love pinning sites I can come back to. Two of my biggest boards are (not surprisingly,) food and education. I use Pinterest all the time when I'm cooking, and to help keep my recipes organized, I've also created a "recipes I've tried and loved" board to move all the frequently used recipes to. Online organization is so important because there are just so many things out there! I just googled "chicken recipes" and got 195,000,000 results! Thank goodness for Pinterest where all my favourites are pinned and ready for me to use!

One thing my husband Gary has been trying to get me to do is to make use of my Youtube account and subscribe to channels and save playlists. I hate having to search through tons of videos to find that one that I found really funny but can't remember the name of. A New Year's resolution of mine was to get organized... why don't I start online?

Dropbox and Google Drive are two other ways that I plan to get organized. Too many times I've lost files because of computer issues, or have forgotten to email an assignment to myself at school so I can print it off. If I can get all of my lesson plans, worksheets, units, and everything else I need for teaching synced to my Dropbox or Google Drive accounts, they'll be accessible whenever I need them. In fact, that's the next thing on my to-do list for tonight; get those accounts set up and organized!

I'll keep you filled in as I learn more and more about using technology in education. I'm looking forward to learning new stuff and trying things out!