how else am I blogging?

One of my goals this year in teaching (yes, we have official growth plans) is to use more technology in my teaching. Actually, I've gotten that "I'm such a cool teacher" feeling as a result of this...yes, I laugh at myself over that too. The first time I got that feeling this year was with my grade 7s. I'd designed a unit on Elvis Presley and I was trying to figure out a way to show him as the performer he was. Thanks to YouTube, Blogger and and LCD projector, I did. I gathered up a few of his performances, starting with his first appearance on Ed Sullivan and ending with his last performance 3 weeks before his death in 1977 and posted them on a site. The kids loved it! I actually had a table of boys so enthralled that I caught them trying to style their hair like Elvis.
The current unit I'm teaching the 7's (yes, it is currently the grade 7's I'm trying to impress, 5 years of grade 7 music, maybe I'm starting to get it right) is Music Around the World. I was inspired to play Name that Tune by Country as our introductory lesson. Again, thanks to YouTube and Blogger and some help from Wikipedia, I was able to. I found 15 different music videos that represented 15 different countries and played them for the kids. They had to try to name the song, artist and country...I actually haven't shown them the videos yet, I just played the music on my laptop with the screen away from them. Again, they were captivated. The noisier and more difficult to impress class were so quiet you could have heard a pin drop, I couldn't believe it. There were some students who came late and the other kids were like "quiet, we're playing a game"...if you knew who the students were that said that, you'd be even more impressed.
If you'd like to check out my sites they are: http://elvispresleyvideolessons.blogspot.com/
and
http://aroundtheworldmusic.blogspot.com/
try your hand at name that tune (okay, some of them are labeled, some of them are not, but I'll let you know how you did)