Since I really need to get my income tax stuff together and finish my recipe scrapbook that I started prior to taking this class, I am somewhat glad this is the last thing to do. However, if I didn’t have those two things looming, I would rather continue to learn more about Web 2.0. I’ve really enjoyed the class and can say I’ve learned so much. It was worth every bit of the $75.00!
This class opened my eyes to current technology. You know, it’s easy to think that you’re fairly “up” on new technology: try to read techy magazines, work with techy people, enjoy trying new applications…in other words definitely not a tecno-phobe…UNTIL you’re exposed to something like this class and you’re suddenly put in your place…like me! I’m not so naive to believe that there wasn’t much more I needed to know to be effective as a media specialist, but at the same time, I obviously missed the Web 2.0 boat! Maybe I was knee-deep in Infinite Campus or just having a good time doing other things.
Now I want to pass the info. along. I’d like to teach my own Web 2.0 class adapting it as you all have done to come up with the class we just finished. After searching the web a bit more, I’ve discovered there are many Web 2.0 or Learning 2.0 courses out there and all I’ve seen are open to others using them making whatever adaptions necessary for their needs. I would even like to do this in Moodle. This would be yet another new experience for me…one I think I need as teachers might and probably will eventually utilize Moodle for online discussions, etc. This is one of my goals.
Thanks to all. It’s been a great experience for me. Oh, and I hope ETTC doesn’t get cut (as I’ve heard) because there are other classes I’d like to take. It’d be such a shame. You’re a wonderful resource!!!
First of all, visiting Classroom 2.0 was (and still is) an experience that just kept opening doors for me! Honestly, I’d not heard of all the 2.0 stuff, but am now very much interested in learning much, much more and sharing that info. with teachers/students. Hence, the Classroom 2.0 site and several others kept me busy for a few hours. Once again, I had to stop or I’d never get this “thing” done! I love all the cool tools out there to make learning fun and relevant to the 21st century.
As for the social networking aspect of this “thing.” I like the idea and see it can be done via any number of interfaces depending on how it’s setup: blogs, wikis, moodle, ning, etc. However, I can’t say I’m all that impressed with Ning. I’m sure it’s just a personal preference, but I don’t like the interface…dull no “curb appeal” so to speak. It’s just dry for me. Though it may, it just doesn’t seem to have so much to offer. I don’t even have that much to say about it. My time there was “forgettable” as Simon Cowell would say!
Again, I like the idea of students being able to go in and interact with each other and teacher in an online environment. I think that setting may encourage some who would not ordinarily speak up to do so this way. Some are much better written communicators rather than oral…myself included. I did notice some who voiced concern in some of the Ning groups of students under 12? Is this an issue? Do students have to have written parent permission to participate in social networking sites even though they are school-related? I also noticed someone had a wiki AUP. I think that would be a good idea applicable to whatever type of site the teacher was using. It would be more specific than the regular Internet AUP the school district may utilize.
Wow, what a neat tool! I didn’t realize there were SO MANY fun tools out there that could be used in the classroom. Once again, I’m so glad I took this class! I see Pageflakes as another source to organize information. As far as classroom use, let’s say students were studying a particular unit in whatever subject. Both the teacher and the students could gather info. from the web from a variety of sources: video, pics, links to sites, etc. These could all be organized and put here. Students could refer back to the Pageflake page to complete assignments/projects. Yes, blogs and/or wikis could also be used OR all may be used if organized and arranged carefully to avoid overlap and information overload/confusion!
I had fun playing with my Pageflakes page. I didn’t change out all the flakes on my page because I felt I’d spent enough time with it for the moment, but I did make it more ME! Here it is!
The feed I chose to read for this “thing” is from the blog “Infinite Thinking Machine.” The article is called “Friday Five from Wee Web Wonders.” This was a great article for me. I found it concise, to the point, interesting, and most importantly, applicable to both my situation as a media specialist and that of the classroom teacher. The students would also both benefit and find the sites mentioned fun to work with.
The article was a highlight of Dr. Jackie Gerstein’s classroom in Arizona. It was described as a constructivist classroom where every student was fully engaged in activities that challenged them to take charge of their leaning. There were several websites mentioned that this teacher utilized to accomplish this goal and that is what I want to highlight here.
This is an site where students can write and publish their story on the web. Story starters are available if desired. There is also an option available for parents, etc. to purchase a hard or soft cover of the book for about $20.00. Looks impressive. The online book has pages that turn like a real book!
Students used this site to organize all the books they’ve read. They also read and write reviews here. They also use widgets to put this info. on their wikis.
The students used My Studiyo to create quizzes and embed them on their research wikipages. Then they facilitated group decision making about the answers to each question as they proceeded through the quiz using the classroom projector for their presentations.
These were useful tools (sites) and I’ve included them in my delicious account.
Though I’d heard about Google Docs, I’d not used this feature of Google. I really didn’t see what use I would have for it. I didn’t know about the form part and like that feature. I’ve used online survey makers..one called SurveyMonkey and was satisfied with it. Google just keeps making life easier with their “One Stop Shopping!” Reminds me of Walmart. I think these two may move to take over the world some day!
I like it that Google Docs looks a lot like Word making it very easy to use. I can see where all this could come in handy with student work and communication with the teacher on that work. At school though each student has an account on the network. They work on projects there and the teacher has a desktop shortcut to the folder that contains every student’s login. This works satisfactorily, but the drawback is students don’t have access to it from home. With Google Docs, they would.
I chose to upload a BookTalk presentation I created with PowerPoint last spring for new arrivals to the media center. I thought it looked great. I did notice that the closing music didn’t play. Maybe I did something wrong but don’t know what or maybe it doesn’t have the capability to play sound. Either way, I found no solution. It still works great though and I’m thinking of maybe using Google Docs this way to share other booktalks with lang. arts teachers and whatever else I happen to come up with with the other teachers. I also decided to publish this presentation to see how that worked. Here’s the URL
Overall, I’m very impressed with Google Docs and plan to share its perks with the teachers. I wonder how many know about and/or use them some way? Maybe I’ll send out a survey and ask!
Well, I did spend a few hours doing this thing because I found some really interesting videos plus I’ve never spent ANY time with You Tube videos. Frankly, I pretty much felt it would be a waste of my time. I still think a lot of those silly videos would be a waste of time, but I now see the educational possibilities that are out there…especially on Teacher Tube.
For this thing, we were to find four videos to hightlight: 2 that relate to our content, 1 that is a “how to”, and 1 that’s just fun. Well, I don’t quite know how to divide mine up because all of them could meet all of the requirements. They’ll be highlighted and linked below. Then I’ll choose one to embed.
1. From You Tube…The poem “I Am” by John Clare. Someone used Crazy Talk 5 with it, which is animation software, and it’s most provacative. I like everything about it and want to look into this software for student use. I’ll embed this one because I want all to see it. It’s rather dark in nature…here’s a bit of background:
Most of John Clare’s poetry is simple nature poetry, beautifully observed and remarkable for its complete freedom from the slightest tinge of anthromorphism. Clare was self-educated and from a very poor background. Normally at the time he was writing this would have been an absolute impediment to any form of literary pretension and it’s fair to say in fact that for most of his life he was largely misunderstood, though the extent to which this contributed to his subsequent bouts of ‘insanity’ is debatable. These famous lines – as famous as anything in literature I would suggest – were in fact written during one of his various incarcerations (I use the word advisedly) in Northampton Lunatic Asylum. It’s a bitter irony that although Clare was clearly never mad – the bolts of insight alone that this poem contains are clear proof of that – he came to believe that he was so. And what greater punishment can there be for a sane man than that? . For all that, Clare produces poetry here that has entered the language in a way that otherwise only Shakespeare has. ‘I am the self-consumer of my woes’, ‘ a living sea of waking dreams’ are phrases that are not just memorable, they have become both iconic and lasting and even hard-bitten anti-romantics like me can barely read that final stanza without a tear in my eye.
2. There are videos where students used Movie Maker for their book reports. I like that idea and think students would enjoy learning this program..something a little different from PowerPoint. Here is Bethanie’s example. She’s in an elem. school but this IS just an example. Middle school students would be expected to expand on this.
3. A Moment in Time showcases high school students’ photography. It’s set to music by Enya and is beautiful.
4. For this one, fourth graders share their favorite books and reading tips. Students could do booktalks this way…that’s kind of what these students are doing.
5. Finally, I had to include this one (actually it’s in 3 parts but I’ll link only the first one). High school students created thisvideo collage called “Altered Books” which showcases writing composed and compiled by freshmen at Peninsula High School for their final project of the year, altered books. Altered books are a way for students to synthesize, evaluate, and improve the writing they have drafted. They find an unwanted or unloved book, a book on its way to the dump or trash or recycling bin, and save it by making it their own. They find stanzas, paragraphs, and sentences strong enough to stand on their own — Golden Lines, if you will — and remove them from their original context. These lines can be phrases from anything: poems, character development papers, annotations on sticky notes, advertisement analyses, formal self-reflections, and more. In addition to these excerpts, students select two pieces of writing to include in their entirety. They glue these pieces and excerpts in their books and find relevant imagery to match. Some people say the books are darker than they expected. Some people call them unabashedly optimistic. No one calls them dishonest. This is very thought-provoking….I really like this one.
The more time I spend with this class, the more work I see before me. Though a little daunting, it’s also exciting. When to get it all done? I’ll have to think on that!
To begin with, I’m not totally new to podcasting though I certainly can’t call myself adept either. I’ve used Audacity to record a sample podcast for the RMS website thinking I would like to include some made by students to the site. Well, you know what they say about good intentions. I’d talked to one teacher about using some of her students to do this but nothing ever came of it. Not to blame her though…teachers just have too much going on at RMS to consider anything more than getting done what has to be done. There are few “extras” these days, sad to say.
Well, back to topic…to begin with I looked at the ones created by students and was really impressed with RadioWillowweb. I liked how the students were talking about what they had been learning. Students could podcast things like this and also use the casts as means of review, quizzing, celebrations, news, etc. I also like the website in general. I learned how they are also using handheld computers ( palms ) in their school. It’s something I’d like to bring up with my principal to see if it’s something he’d like to do.
I also listened to a couple of casts from The Tech Teachers under the Educators tab. I didn’t find them all that useful as they basically highlighted “tech toys.” It was just okay for me. After this, I looked at the selections of Podcast Alley, Learn Out Loud but only found them to contain marginal collections. It’s probably because I was looking for fun things to do with technology in education and the tech tabs were not that. So I decided to download iTunes. Wow! It truly is the big dog in the pack. What a selection. I’m also impressed with the interface. Now I’ve not spent a huge amount of time poking around in the collection because I’ve got to move on here (been 3 days attempting to do this “thing”), but I decided to look for something library-ish and found “The Classic Tales,” but to tell you the truth, I can’t remember where I started to get there. I’ll go back and look later, but really like it. At one time, for a short time, I could tune into One Word Radio which is broadcasted out of the UK. It’s programming was strictly literature where parts of English lit were read aloud…portions every day…different titles throughout the day. Well, soon US IP addresses were blocked. Oh well, it’s now no longer in business, but the point is I liked that kind of thing and could not find anything like it in the US. Well, this chapter-a-day stuff that some of the podcasts offer is pretty close. This I like. I’ll check out the tech stuff more later.
Yes, I could see how all this could be used in a classroom setting. The podcasts that pertained to subject areas studied could be downloaded and students could definitely create their own. I think they’d like that and I know it’s not difficult to do it. I’ll try again to get something going.
I heard about Del.ico.us a few months back and I remember thinking then that I didn’t think it was something I would ever need since I added sites I wanted to keep in my Favorites. I’ve changed my mind now, particularly for sites that I think I or other teachers might like to use in their classrooms. I definitely see the benefits of being able to access my favorite sites from any computer and especially the added perk of others doing the same. I take care of the RMS website and have lots of links to sites I think teachers would find beneficial, I now believe that keeping up with them via Del.icio.us would be even better. I’ll look into adding them at some point.
For this exercise, I’ve added a total of 21 sites so far. I’ve not imported my Favorites yet. I think I might do that from the Favorites folder on my computer at school. That’s where I have several I can add applicable to several subject areas. I tagged all of them. I’ve noticed that most so far have a Web 2.0 tag. I supposed that’s beneficial but seems overdone at this point. However, I suppose most of what I’m looking at right now does fall into that category. Others won’t.
I think it would be a good idea to allow other teachers to add sites as they find relevant ones.
I’m doing this one out of order because I can do it quicker than Thing 15, which will be my next post.
I found Library Thing interesting and enjoyed “poking around” within the site because I do love to read and like to read fairly widely. In fact, I’m part of a book group. Not only do I read titles for that but read other books simultaneously. In addition, I listen to audio books while driving. That said, the verdict is still out for me regarding Library Thing. At this point, I don’t feel the need to catalog my library. Besides, though it’s relatively quick to create entries, it would still take a significant amount of time and I just don’t believe it warrants it.
I also looked at 50 Book Challenge, a link from our syllabus. Now this, I’m still thinking about. I like this concept and would love to see the students at RMS participate in something like this. No contests, gimmicks, etc. attached…just a forum for students to post titles they are reading, provide short reviews, their opinions, etc. I think it would also be fun for students to post reactionary statements to posts. I’d like the ability to post images: book covers, photos, etc. I imagine this is a Web 2.0 thing…just how would I make this happen? Would I use a blog, wiki, or a specially designed website? Hmmm……Anyone have suggestions?
This is my 25th year in education! I’ve enjoyed every one of them because I’ve been fortunate to work with wonderful people. Though most of these years were spent in a lang. arts classroom, I now work in the media center and love the mix of technology, books, and people (not necessarily in that order)!
