Thing #10- Wikis

August 1st, 2009 by

In the article “What is a Wiki?” www.libsuccess.org/ there is a simple graphic showing the correlation between wikis and email that completely clarified for me what a wiki does, regardless of its specific content. It showed 6 “people figures” and the multiple pieces of email that would have to circulate among them concerning a common thing. The other picture showed all 6 people’s input going to one place-the wiki. So wikis save time, confusion, effort, etc.
Projects or tasks requiring the ideas/input from several people or groups could benefit from a wiki. Or teachers within a school could have a wiki sharing teaching tips, discipline tips, etc.
A wiki I would like to start would be for my science classes to report on important scientists. Students would report on the scientist’s life and times, the discoveries made/research done, and the impact of the discoveries on life today. As students learn and progress we can add links, photos, etc.; over the course of the year, we will have learned research, writing, and technology skills, and have developed a fantastic ‘famous science person’ wiki.

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Thing #9 Web 2.0 application exploration and a little social networking

July 29th, 2009 by

This has been my least favorite assignment so far, but I think I’ve learned quite a bit: Web 2.0 is here to stay; the amount of information on it is staggering; what to do with all that info (such as integrate it into education) is also staggering; hence, the social networking sites dedicated to discussing and using it!

Web 2.0 Award Winner 2008 @ http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0 had lists of award winning sites (1st, 2nd, and an honorable mention). That would help to narrow down searches for tools to those voted best. I checked out several, but found nothing that I would use any time soon.

The Complete Web 2.0 Directory @ www.go2web20.net/ is another collection of tools and apps organized by name, but tags are available also. Through this index I found  DropMind -http://web.dropmind.com/, an interactive mind-mapping tool that could be used for students to work out concept maps.

Web 2.0 for the teacher @ www.kn.att.com/wired.fil/pages/listweb20s.html  is a list of links to resources that includes a brief description of the tool-very helpful. Here I found Bubbleshare www.bubbleshare.com/new , which allows you to make a narrated slide show online-a fun activity to document and share a project, field trip, etc.

The Ning networks have lots of potential-School 2.0 http://school20.ning.com/ is dedicated to the more serious side of 2.0, discussions about how it will or should change education, etc. Classroom 2.0,  http://www.classroom20.com/, in which my membership is pending, focuses more on how to apply the 2.0 technologies in the classroom.

 

 

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Thing #8 Free Technology Tools Blog

July 29th, 2009 by

The http://www.freetech4teachers.com/ Blog is truly a vast resource; you could spend days perusing its contents. Out of the dozens that I have checked out so far, these five will be particularly useful to me:

  1. “…a good place to locate and download free music for multimedia presentations without violating copyright” is Podsafe Audio @ http://podsafeaudio.com/
  2. Math is Fun @ www.mathsisfun.com is a great place for students to learn and practice math skills.
  3. Project Look Sharp-Media Literacy Curriculum is “a collection of ten comprehensive curriculum units for teaching media literacy;” eight are for middle-, highschool level and two are elementary level. It includes videos, slideshows, worksheets, and teacher guides.  www.ithaca.edu/looksharp
  4. As of today, 783 newspaper front pages from 75 countries are available from this site (unedited, viewer discretion)  http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/flash/. This is a great demonstration of free press and democracy useful for social studies, history, etc. as well as foreign languages.
  5. Get Bodysmart is an interactive, online examination of Anatomy and Physiology with tutorials and quizzes- http://www.getbodysmart.com/index.htm.

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Thing #7 RSS Feeds and Blog Readers

July 27th, 2009 by

Now that I’m getting used to using the Web 2.0 tools, I wonder how I ever managed without them! I’ve been sharing lots of them with family and friends. RSS feeds just make life so much easier-much more efficient; I read more in less time and who wouldn’t like that?

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Thing #6 Image Generators

July 19th, 2009 by

I’ve spent the past 3 hours playing around with the image generators. There are countless ways to use them in the classroom for instruction or just for fun. Right now I’m thinking ‘field trip’-we’re going to Kennedy next April. This image would be good for a web page promoting our trip and encouraging fund raising, etc., as it is rather expensive. We could add other things to enhance it, also. The sign was found at Image Chef, a site with many cool applications.

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Thing #5 Flickr and Photo Sharing

July 19th, 2009 by

EyeSad to say I’ve been living in the Dark Ages-all of this amazes me; I looked at photos for well over an hour and had to make myself stop. There are so many photos that are beautiful, awe inspiring, fun, etc. This one caught my eye (no pun intended) as unique and funny at the same time.

Flickr is really a great tool, you just have to manage your time if you enjoy looking at amazing photos. My favorite part is the geotagging and being able to see photos from your vicinity that others have posted. I plan to use Flickr in my classroom this year in several ways-journal writing prompts, geographical and current event/news references, and more as I work it into lesson plans. 

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Thing #4 Searching the Web

July 18th, 2009 by

This was a goldmine of valuable information! The first ”discovery exercise” had a link that gave some great instructions on how to use Google Advanced Search, how to find more information within a site by trimming the URL, and on using some other search fields to find similar pages. These tips help you search more specifically and therefore more successfully. They were not difficult and could be taught to my middle school students easily. The second step also had a link to a site with a chart of subject directories that was available to print-it would make a good classroom resource. Besides learning to be a more efficient searcher, I discovered that I can check phrases in student reports that appear to be plagarized or at least not annotated. Checking out the different types of search mechanisms by using the same topic was a great way to understand their unique offerings. All of this information can be easily modified for my students and will be of tremendous value to them. Now I won’t be hearing “I can’t find anything on it” nearly so often!

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July 17th, 2009 by

Thing #3: iGoogle and Google Suite

When you are learning something new the time investment can be major, thus adding to frustration. My problems with Thing #3 were due to my ineptness with technology-it wasn’t really hard at all. My first mistake was in spending too much time “shopping” for themes and gadgets for the iGoogle home page. Then, when I was in “documents,” I couldn’t get back to the homepage-the back arrow wasn’t available nor was there a ”home” button. I decided to close some open windows and accidently closed IE instead. When I reopened iGoogle, everything was gone, so I started over, couldn’t find my theme and several gadgets again…. and it wasn’t until much later that I discovered how to get off the “documents” page.

Now that the setup phase is over, I love iGoogle and the Google Suite! Everything is available from one page; Google Reader is especially helpful in managing blogs-a super time saver! I am excited about the possibilities the documents feature adds for use at school: teachers and admin can communicate easily on everything from organizing events to development projects. Student/class events, assignments, and projects can be facilitated well through the documents feature also.

The paradigm flip presented in the assigned article “Flip That Library” definitely raises some issues. The article makes the valid point that technology is here not only to stay, but to grow, increase, and dominate all communication. When one considers the programs placing laptops in the hands of children in areas of the world where most people don’t have adequate food, water, clothing, and shelter, this cannot be denied. Traditional methods of teaching are just not going to be effective for many anymore; using technology in schools at the level presented in the article will not just be the trend of the future, but an absolute necessity to produce excellence in education. However, it will take time and money to make it happen. Many families don’t have computers or internet access and many school systems are struggling to stay afloat financially.

Wow! I feel exhausted from all of this communicating. I’ll get to work on Thing #4 for the next post.

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Clovis 23 Things

July 4th, 2009 by

Thing #2 Create your blog: I have so feared and resisted learning to use anything beyond basic computer skills; I haven’t even used the MySpace page my spouse created for me a long time ago. This is a huge leap forward and it is kind of exciting, so….we’ll see!

So far, creating the blog has been easy. Here’s a link to the professional development program that is providing this challenge for me: http://clovis23things.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/register/. Now, I’m off to start Thing 3.

 

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July 4th, 2009 by

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