When I was a little kid, there was a TV comedy series called "The double life of Henry Phyfe"(ABC,1966). In this series, the protagonist, a regular person, has this resemblance to a Russian master spy, U-31, who is run over by a car because he had not been trained on how to cross the street. The show always started on how Mr. Phyfe was convinced of impersonate U-31 "one more time" for his country, then he was trained on some activity for the mission, like skying, golfing, martial arts, dancing, etc, for which he was completely incompetent. At the end, by pure luck, he completed the mission. This show lasted only one season, it did not survive competing with "Get Smart" or "Mission Impossible", and the tapes of the show seem to be lost.
As a teacher, sometimes I feel like Mr. Phyfe: too many tools, too little time. Jing may be one of my favorite tools, if I can teach the students how to properly use it. The I-touch looks very promising, if we can find the right applications and pod-cast for them. Youtube is a personal favorite, but currently I don't let my students use it.
As an activity for my students, I'll like to have literacy circles in which several students read a book, make a summary and comment on it, and read the comments of the others, probably through wiki. Perhaps we can even use the wikis for the scientific process: each student will make a Hypothesis to predict the outcome of an experiment.
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You're right-so many tools, so little time. (that's how I feel about books, too!) It can be overwhelming. I just have to remind myself that I won't be able to do everything expertly that we've been exposed to with 11 Tools, but pick a few and utilize them with my teaching.
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