Heather Houston's Blog on Literacy and Technology

Thank you Pageflakes.  I am going into my 9th year of teaching and just now have created my very own homepage.  I was able to do this for FREE through www.pageflakes.com.  I am going to use mine as a school page that my students and parents can access to keep up with what is going [...]

During my Literacy and Technology class this week I learned about Webquests.  After learning about Webquests, as an educator, I find that webquests can be helpful tools.  A Webquest may be time consuming, but are a great way to create meaningful projects that are well organized and can be easily accessed by your students.  Also, [...]

I am loving Jing.  There are so many restrictions to what we can get to on the web at school.  Jing eliminates a lot of those problems.  I can use Jing to record any video I want.  Granted it will only video five minutes at a time, you can always do more than one, it [...]

Finally, thanks to my Literacy and Technology class, I am now a Skype user.  I feel, in a sense, I have shortchanged my students of past years, since I am just now beginning to use Skype.  I see Skype as being a very useful tool in my classroom that can connect my students to people [...]

Before this class I was unaware what social bookmarking was or that it even existed.  Boy, I have been missing out.  What a unique tool that is going to make my life much easier.  Not only does social bookmarking provide people with convenience, but the social part is great too.  I don’t know about other [...]

Microblogging is often appealing as millions are now hooked on Facebook.  I do believe that microblogging could be beneficial to students.  First, it is a “cool” way for them to use their literacy skills in conjunction with technology.  I mean, anyway I can get students to communicate is a plus.  I also see how it could [...]

After creating blogs in two classes now, I have become a fan of them.  I have yet to create one in my own classroom since only learning to do it during this past spring semester, but plan to do so this coming school year.  I believe letting students be involved in blogging will give them [...]

After our readings and discussions from class today, my definition of literacy consist of reading, writing, listening, and speaking so that one can communicate in a competitive world.   Technology, on the other hand, is anything tangible that can be used as a tool to enhance peoples’ lives.  Technology can be anything from math maniupulatives [...]