Marie Antoinette

For one of my graduate classes, we are beginning multigenre projects on any topic of our choice. For this assignment, I chose to research and write about Marie Antoinette. I am still in the early stages of drafting but I am finding many parallels between my life and hers. Obviously, hers was quite a bit different and more extreme but there is a lot to be said for her struggles. I remember what it felt like to be gossiped about, thrown into uncomfortable situations, and the classic problem of trying to make someone love you. Her story could really relate to many people no matter their race, gender, or background. A huge part of the connection I have with Marie is also the love of nature that was shown through her endless floral prints, gardens, and her retreat. I’m excited to see what this project has in store for me. I think there will be a great deal of discovery about Antoinette if not even more about myself in the process. 

Untitled by Jean-Marie Hullot

Cool Tools

When I look at the increase in technology in schools since I was a student, it makes me pretty jealous. My generation is the start of the “digital native,” and yet… I hardly ever had the opportunity to use the tools I was interested in at home when I was at school.

For one of my classes this past week, we broke into groups and researched a “cool tool.” These are sites and applications being used in schools to get students excited about learning and invested in what they are doing. My group worked with the social bookmarking site, Diigo. I was so shocked to learn that such a tool existed. Diigo allows you to highlight sections of websites, add sticky notes, and save all of this information into a database you can access remotely on all of your electronic devices.

The other tools explored by groups were: Penzu, GoAnimate, Google Forms, Tagul, Screencast-O-Matic, Evernote, Storybird, Linoit, Edmodo, Wix, and Tiki-Toki.

All of the tools I saw would have been incredibly fun and helpful when I as a student. I’m glad we are making such strides to harness and help our second generation natives learn to use technology for educational purposes.

Are there any other "Cool Tools" that you know of or use in your own classroom?