I am finally finished!!
I really enjoyed exploring the Learning 2.0 tools. Of all the tools, I think my favorites were the RSS reader, Photobucket, and Del.icio.us. These are all tools that I will continue to use after the class is over in both my professional and personal lives. Not only did I find some great web 2.0 resources, but I also found ways to keep up with new tools that are being created right now.
Learning 2.0 has reminded me that it is important to keep up-to-date with information regardless of what field you are going into, and how easy it is to do that. I hope to keep using Learning 2.0 tools to keep informed about different topics in education, politics, and religion, among others. My favorite tool, the RSS feed, is an easy way for me to keep up with new Web 2.0 topics as well as everything else I am interested in.
When I began my blog, I was sure that I would have a lot of trouble using all of the tools and websites that were part of 23 Things. Much to my surprise, most of what we did was incredibly easy. I don't know if I underestimated my own skill level or if the Internet is getting more user-friendly, but I was pleasantly surprised.
Throughout my time completing the 23 Things, I have come to realize exactly how helpful the Internet can be for teachers. Whether you are looking for a way to spice up a lesson plan, seeking advice about how to deal with troublesome students, doing research for a school committee, or just wanting to vent, there are thousands of websites and blogs and social networks ready to connect you to an answer for every query and a solution to any problem. By using these tools I can be a more versatile and effective teacher.
I am still debating about what I want to do with my blog. I may keep it as a way to keep people updated on what I am doing, or use it as a portfolio of sorts about what I am doing in my classes. Even if I decide not to use my blog, I am definitely going to keep up with Learning 2.0 information. I have several technology blogs on my RSS reader (I wanted to subscribe to the Learning 2.1 blog, but they haven't posted for a year and a half so I don't think that will be very useful.). If anyone has any other ideas about what I should do with my blog, let me know.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Thng 23: Creative Commons
Creative commons refers to a group of copyright licenses that allow people to use work copyrighted work based on criteria (such as attribution and use) designated by the individual holding the copyright. As a teacher, it is important to be familiar with creative commons when using information created by others in the classroom or in my own research.
Much of the information in Learning 2.0- 23 Things for Teachers is based on programs developed by the Mesquite Independent School District, the California School Library Association, and Helene Blowers. Credits are provided on the sidebar of the Learning 2.0- 23 Things for Teachers blog.
Much of the information in Learning 2.0- 23 Things for Teachers is based on programs developed by the Mesquite Independent School District, the California School Library Association, and Helene Blowers. Credits are provided on the sidebar of the Learning 2.0- 23 Things for Teachers blog.
Thing 22: LiveBinders
With all the information that teachers share with students online, keeping up with everything that you are working on can be a struggle. LiveBinders seems like a great way to keep things organized and present them to students using one website.
We have seen a lot of different ways to organize information over the course of this class, and just when I don't think that I could possibly be more organized, another organization website is sprung on me. The one thing that seems to set LiveBinders apart from other organization websites is that it is very easy to allow other people to share and access your information in an organized way.
I decided to create binders based on literature, math games and science experiments. I was not too terribly creative with the titles, but I figured simple is better.
My first binder, and the one that I have chosen to share, is titled Children's Literature. So far, I have put three different websites in my binder, but I hope to add more. The first tab is the Project Gutenberg website. I love classic stories, so Project Gutenberg is one of my favorite websites. Project Gutenberg is a non-profit group committed to creating digital copies of classic literature on the Internet for people to access free of charge. Project Gutenberg allows you to download there books to your computer or to a portable reading device. They also organize books according to "bookshelves", or different interest groups. For example, you can select the Children's Bookshelves, which shows fifteen other bookshelves broken down into specific topics such as Children's Fiction and Children's Myths, Fairy tales, etc.
The second tab in my Children's Literature binder is the Newbery Medal Homepage. From this page, it is easy to find a list of all the Newbery Medal winners and the Newbery Medal honor books from 1922 to 2011. The third tab contains the website Storynory. Storynory produces free audio recordings of original children's stories, fairy tales, classics, and educational stories.
My other binders are titled Math Games and Science Experiments. They basically contain what the names say-- websites for parents to find math games that their children can play at home and science experiment websites that the whole family can enjoy.
LiveBinders would be a great way to set up a lesson for students to follow in the classroom or at home. It would be very easy for students to click on a binder and go tab by tab to finish an assignment. It would also be a great resource for students who might want to know more about a topic that interests them or for gifted students to work on more challenging materials. If I wanted to teach a lesson using mostly online resources, LiveBinders would be a great place to stay organized. I could create a binder for that lesson and then not have to worry about opening five different websites and taking the time to type each one.
We have seen a lot of different ways to organize information over the course of this class, and just when I don't think that I could possibly be more organized, another organization website is sprung on me. The one thing that seems to set LiveBinders apart from other organization websites is that it is very easy to allow other people to share and access your information in an organized way.
I decided to create binders based on literature, math games and science experiments. I was not too terribly creative with the titles, but I figured simple is better.
My first binder, and the one that I have chosen to share, is titled Children's Literature. So far, I have put three different websites in my binder, but I hope to add more. The first tab is the Project Gutenberg website. I love classic stories, so Project Gutenberg is one of my favorite websites. Project Gutenberg is a non-profit group committed to creating digital copies of classic literature on the Internet for people to access free of charge. Project Gutenberg allows you to download there books to your computer or to a portable reading device. They also organize books according to "bookshelves", or different interest groups. For example, you can select the Children's Bookshelves, which shows fifteen other bookshelves broken down into specific topics such as Children's Fiction and Children's Myths, Fairy tales, etc.
The second tab in my Children's Literature binder is the Newbery Medal Homepage. From this page, it is easy to find a list of all the Newbery Medal winners and the Newbery Medal honor books from 1922 to 2011. The third tab contains the website Storynory. Storynory produces free audio recordings of original children's stories, fairy tales, classics, and educational stories.
My other binders are titled Math Games and Science Experiments. They basically contain what the names say-- websites for parents to find math games that their children can play at home and science experiment websites that the whole family can enjoy.
LiveBinders would be a great way to set up a lesson for students to follow in the classroom or at home. It would be very easy for students to click on a binder and go tab by tab to finish an assignment. It would also be a great resource for students who might want to know more about a topic that interests them or for gifted students to work on more challenging materials. If I wanted to teach a lesson using mostly online resources, LiveBinders would be a great place to stay organized. I could create a binder for that lesson and then not have to worry about opening five different websites and taking the time to type each one.
Thing 21: My Start as a Director
Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.
I hope you enjoyed my first foray into the world of movie making. I had a lot of fun making it. The pictures are from my senior trip with my family to Williamsburg, Virgina.
Animoto was really easy to use. The longest part of the whole experience was picking the pictures I wanted to use. In fact, I think that, out of everything that we have tried so far, this was the easiest to use.
My mom really loved the video that I put together. I definitely think that she might use it in the future. It would be a great tool to use to make videos for a wedding reception or any other event. In addition, teachers could make short videos about what they are doing in class to show parents. I know that I will definitely be thinking of ways to use it in my future classroom every chance I get.
Thing 20: YouTube
First, I would like to say how much I LOVE Taylor Mali's video about what teachers make. If you haven't seen it yet and are a teacher, studying to be a teacher, or thinking about studying to be a teacher, than it is a must see.
I explored YouTube and TeacherTube as part of this Thing. I have used YouTube before, mostly to look at videos that friends have recommended. I really like YouTube (and similar sites), and I think that it is a great tool for teaching.
I'll use my own brothers as an example. Both Andrew (age 11) and Matthew (age 13) love YouTube videos, particularly parody music videos. After watching one of those videos two or three times, they can sing each song and get all the lyrics (but maybe not all the notes) right. They learn the songs quickly because of the fun format they are presented in, and, believe me, the songs stick in their memories. My brothers are also voracious readers, but they have never remember complete passages from books, even ones that they really love. But they remember the songs because of the format with which they are presented.
Using movies in the classroom is a great way to engage students with what they are learning. However, you have to be careful about how you use videos in the classroom. There are some precautions that I discussed with my aunt who is a French teacher. The biggest thing that she had to say about movies was to be cautious about the length. Movies that are too long give students an opportunity to sleep, text, and talk. Movies that are too short don't get enough information across. It is important to have a balance when picking which videos to use.
I tried to find a video I liked on YouTube to put on my blog, but I ended up finally finding one that I liked on TeacherTube. The video is about people who appeared ordinary but went on to do something great.
I explored YouTube and TeacherTube as part of this Thing. I have used YouTube before, mostly to look at videos that friends have recommended. I really like YouTube (and similar sites), and I think that it is a great tool for teaching.
I'll use my own brothers as an example. Both Andrew (age 11) and Matthew (age 13) love YouTube videos, particularly parody music videos. After watching one of those videos two or three times, they can sing each song and get all the lyrics (but maybe not all the notes) right. They learn the songs quickly because of the fun format they are presented in, and, believe me, the songs stick in their memories. My brothers are also voracious readers, but they have never remember complete passages from books, even ones that they really love. But they remember the songs because of the format with which they are presented.
Using movies in the classroom is a great way to engage students with what they are learning. However, you have to be careful about how you use videos in the classroom. There are some precautions that I discussed with my aunt who is a French teacher. The biggest thing that she had to say about movies was to be cautious about the length. Movies that are too long give students an opportunity to sleep, text, and talk. Movies that are too short don't get enough information across. It is important to have a balance when picking which videos to use.
I tried to find a video I liked on YouTube to put on my blog, but I ended up finally finding one that I liked on TeacherTube. The video is about people who appeared ordinary but went on to do something great.
Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things by MissB924
Thing 19: Online Communities and More Social Networking
Online communities are a great way to keep track of interesting things occurring in an area of interest. I am a member of several online communities, mostly as a lurker, that cover a variety of interests from teaching to ASL (American Sign Language) to religion.
My favorite online communities are usually informal, with a mix of both normal people and experts that come together as equals (sometimes that is the hardest criteria to fill) to discuss a topic. The best discussions happen when everyone enters in willing to be both a student and a teacher.
Social networking sites are a great way to find new discussions. I decided to look at Gather and Ning to search for relevant groups on the topic of special education. I can't say that I am entirely thrilled with either site. A lot of the groups that looked interesting and had a lot of members weren't current. I was able to find a few interesting groups on Ning, but Gather was a bit of a dud. I also looked at the other social network sites for books. Both Shelfari and GoodReads look like good places to read book reviews and discuss books with other people. I always hate it when I really enjoy a book and then cannot find anything similar to read after I am finished, but both of these websites seem like a good way to solve that problem.
Social networking websites and online communities are a great way to keep in touch with people who share your interests and to increase your own knowledge through collective learning.
My favorite online communities are usually informal, with a mix of both normal people and experts that come together as equals (sometimes that is the hardest criteria to fill) to discuss a topic. The best discussions happen when everyone enters in willing to be both a student and a teacher.
Social networking sites are a great way to find new discussions. I decided to look at Gather and Ning to search for relevant groups on the topic of special education. I can't say that I am entirely thrilled with either site. A lot of the groups that looked interesting and had a lot of members weren't current. I was able to find a few interesting groups on Ning, but Gather was a bit of a dud. I also looked at the other social network sites for books. Both Shelfari and GoodReads look like good places to read book reviews and discuss books with other people. I always hate it when I really enjoy a book and then cannot find anything similar to read after I am finished, but both of these websites seem like a good way to solve that problem.
Social networking websites and online communities are a great way to keep in touch with people who share your interests and to increase your own knowledge through collective learning.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Thing 18: Social Networking
Of all the topics that we have covered so far, this is the only one that I really had any knowledge about before we started. Social networking has become such an important part of life that even I have jumped on the bandwagon (even though I really only have a tentative grip on the edge).
There are a lot of different social networking sites, but the only one I use regularly (if you can call it that) is Facebook. I mostly use Facebook to keep track of what other people are doing, look at pictures of my family and friends, and send messages. I am still a little leery about putting information on the Internet, so I don't actually put a lot on my own account. Private seems to mean something new everyday, and that makes me uncomfortable.
Social networking seems to be one of those hot topics in education. Before every field observation, the class I am in gets a visitor that talks to us about the do's and don'ts of social networking. In addition, more teachers than ever are using social networking as an idea generator for lesson plans.
I am much more interested in using social networking sites professionally rather than personally. I can definitely see how both Facebook or Twitter could be used in the classroom. Teachers should try to meet students where they are, and most students are glued to a computer monitor. Whether you think that is a good thing or not, teachers might as well take advantage of that knowledge and use it to turn everyday computer use into learning time. Social networking websites are a great way to keep up with people, its what they were designed for. As a student, the only time I ever really got into trouble was when I forgot to do an assignment. Using social networking would be a great way to help students keep up with assignments, and think about how much time teachers could spend teaching if they did not have to repeat the assignment ten times in a class period to make sure every student heard. And I'm sure there are millions of other practical ways to use social networking in the classroom.
Since I actually use my Facebook account, I decided to provide a link to my twitter. I haven't tweeted anything, but you can find links to other accounts that I find informative and/ or entertaining.
There are a lot of different social networking sites, but the only one I use regularly (if you can call it that) is Facebook. I mostly use Facebook to keep track of what other people are doing, look at pictures of my family and friends, and send messages. I am still a little leery about putting information on the Internet, so I don't actually put a lot on my own account. Private seems to mean something new everyday, and that makes me uncomfortable.
Social networking seems to be one of those hot topics in education. Before every field observation, the class I am in gets a visitor that talks to us about the do's and don'ts of social networking. In addition, more teachers than ever are using social networking as an idea generator for lesson plans.
I am much more interested in using social networking sites professionally rather than personally. I can definitely see how both Facebook or Twitter could be used in the classroom. Teachers should try to meet students where they are, and most students are glued to a computer monitor. Whether you think that is a good thing or not, teachers might as well take advantage of that knowledge and use it to turn everyday computer use into learning time. Social networking websites are a great way to keep up with people, its what they were designed for. As a student, the only time I ever really got into trouble was when I forgot to do an assignment. Using social networking would be a great way to help students keep up with assignments, and think about how much time teachers could spend teaching if they did not have to repeat the assignment ten times in a class period to make sure every student heard. And I'm sure there are millions of other practical ways to use social networking in the classroom.
Since I actually use my Facebook account, I decided to provide a link to my twitter. I haven't tweeted anything, but you can find links to other accounts that I find informative and/ or entertaining.
Thing 17: Del.icio.us
Now this is what I call an organization tool! While I feel more comfortable scheduling my daily life using pen and paper, keeping up with websites is a lot easier to do online. I am constantly online looking for information, and being able to bookmark websites makes research (either for school or personal enrichment) a lot easier to keep track of. Del.icio.us is the best tool to manage websites online.
While I was exploring Del.icio.us, the wheels in my head were turning on how I could use it in the classroom. The most obvious way that a teacher could use Del.icio.us is to gather resources and share them with his or her students and colleagues. Teachers could encourage students to use Del.icio.us to do research for projects. Del.icio.us could also be an easy way to keep track of websites that teachers want to use for web quests.
One thing that I really like about Del.icio.us is how easy it is to find tutorials. By narrowing down the topic using tags, I was able to find tutorials on everything from basic addition to writing haiku (By the way, did you know the plural or haiku is haiku?). I am one of those people who learns best by being taught, so I can definitely see myself using Del.icio.us to find tutorials to help me learn.
While I was exploring Del.icio.us, the wheels in my head were turning on how I could use it in the classroom. The most obvious way that a teacher could use Del.icio.us is to gather resources and share them with his or her students and colleagues. Teachers could encourage students to use Del.icio.us to do research for projects. Del.icio.us could also be an easy way to keep track of websites that teachers want to use for web quests.
One thing that I really like about Del.icio.us is how easy it is to find tutorials. By narrowing down the topic using tags, I was able to find tutorials on everything from basic addition to writing haiku (By the way, did you know the plural or haiku is haiku?). I am one of those people who learns best by being taught, so I can definitely see myself using Del.icio.us to find tutorials to help me learn.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Thing 16: Getting Organized
Everyone needs to be organized, but this is something that I tend to have a lot of trouble with. While exploring Thing 16, I was looking for something that would be practical for me to use in everyday life.
The first things I looked at were the customized start page. I already have a Google start page, so I was really just looking to see if either of the other start pages were any better. I really like Google, and I spend so much time using Google, so having a Google start page is just practical. I did not see a significant difference between iGoogle, PageFlakes, or Netvibes. They all do basically the same thing, allow you to add widgets or gadgets to a start page, and many of the gadgets are the same on all three websites.
I also tried Remember the Milk. Several people have told me how useful it is, so I figured it would be something that I could use pretty easily. I decided to try and write a To-do list of what I needed to get done over Spring Break. I ended up getting really frustrated with the whole thing because I could not get it to do what I wanted (I think a little more exploring could help me figure it out, but right now I just want to get it done). I decided to switch to Ta da List, which took me a total of ten seconds to do. It was a lot easier, but it also doesn't have as many features as Remember the Milk.
I also looked at the PDF Converter. I figured it might be an interesting tool to look at, although I am not exactly sure what I would use it for. I converted my gradebook to PDF, and it looked nice. If I were ending an Excel file to someone, and they did not need to edit it, I could convert it to PDF for aesthetic reasons.
Of all the tools for getting organized that we have looked at in this class, my favorite is definitely Google Calendars. It is one of the only tools that I can see myself using in my personal life. it is a really easy way to share your schedule with people, especially my family in Memphis.
All the other tools that we have looked at are nice, but most of them I have either used before or don't have a use for. I make to-do lists all the time, and have never used a computer to do them. It is easier for me to just pick up a piece of paper and a pencil than to log on to a website. We organization is great, but I might stick to doing some things the "old-fashioned way".
The first things I looked at were the customized start page. I already have a Google start page, so I was really just looking to see if either of the other start pages were any better. I really like Google, and I spend so much time using Google, so having a Google start page is just practical. I did not see a significant difference between iGoogle, PageFlakes, or Netvibes. They all do basically the same thing, allow you to add widgets or gadgets to a start page, and many of the gadgets are the same on all three websites.
I also tried Remember the Milk. Several people have told me how useful it is, so I figured it would be something that I could use pretty easily. I decided to try and write a To-do list of what I needed to get done over Spring Break. I ended up getting really frustrated with the whole thing because I could not get it to do what I wanted (I think a little more exploring could help me figure it out, but right now I just want to get it done). I decided to switch to Ta da List, which took me a total of ten seconds to do. It was a lot easier, but it also doesn't have as many features as Remember the Milk.
I also looked at the PDF Converter. I figured it might be an interesting tool to look at, although I am not exactly sure what I would use it for. I converted my gradebook to PDF, and it looked nice. If I were ending an Excel file to someone, and they did not need to edit it, I could convert it to PDF for aesthetic reasons.
Of all the tools for getting organized that we have looked at in this class, my favorite is definitely Google Calendars. It is one of the only tools that I can see myself using in my personal life. it is a really easy way to share your schedule with people, especially my family in Memphis.
All the other tools that we have looked at are nice, but most of them I have either used before or don't have a use for. I make to-do lists all the time, and have never used a computer to do them. It is easier for me to just pick up a piece of paper and a pencil than to log on to a website. We organization is great, but I might stick to doing some things the "old-fashioned way".
Thing 15: Wikis
I just got finished exploring wikis. Even though I understand the different uses for them, I still have some reservations.
First, wikis can be really disorganized. I opened one to many wikis that were too disorganized to make them useful. One of the reasons that I might find these wikis confusing is because I am not always sure what I should be looking for. My favorite wikis are wikis on a single subject or group of related subjects, such as books by a particular author. I know exactly what I can find, and I can look for specific information.
Second, I am still a little confused about how to protect wikis from being modified to contain incorrect information. I remember being told over and over again in high school not to use wikis because they are not moderated and anyone can put any information they want on them. If I was going to use a wiki for my class, I would want to be able to ensure that all the information on the wiki would be relevant and correct.
Despite my reservations, I can still see how a wiki would be a useful classroom tool, especially for student projects. Using the Internet is something students find easy and enjoyable. Students might be a lot more interested in building a wiki as part of thier book report than they would be if the assignment was to decorate a cereal box (my least favorite project of fourth grade). I think if I spent a little more time researching the uses for wikis, I would be able to get over some of my reservations.
I also made a contribution to the APSU 23 Things Sandbox wiki. I decided to create a page about Thing 6. The link below will direct you to the page.
My Sandbox Post
First, wikis can be really disorganized. I opened one to many wikis that were too disorganized to make them useful. One of the reasons that I might find these wikis confusing is because I am not always sure what I should be looking for. My favorite wikis are wikis on a single subject or group of related subjects, such as books by a particular author. I know exactly what I can find, and I can look for specific information.
Second, I am still a little confused about how to protect wikis from being modified to contain incorrect information. I remember being told over and over again in high school not to use wikis because they are not moderated and anyone can put any information they want on them. If I was going to use a wiki for my class, I would want to be able to ensure that all the information on the wiki would be relevant and correct.
Despite my reservations, I can still see how a wiki would be a useful classroom tool, especially for student projects. Using the Internet is something students find easy and enjoyable. Students might be a lot more interested in building a wiki as part of thier book report than they would be if the assignment was to decorate a cereal box (my least favorite project of fourth grade). I think if I spent a little more time researching the uses for wikis, I would be able to get over some of my reservations.
I also made a contribution to the APSU 23 Things Sandbox wiki. I decided to create a page about Thing 6. The link below will direct you to the page.
My Sandbox Post
Thing 14: Flow Charts and Mind Maps
Well, I really enjoyed exploring flowchart and mind map websites. I was unsure which websites I wanted to explore, so I decided to choose the first two: Gliffy and Bubbl.us.
The flowcharts and the mind maps were fun to create. Students, especially those in elementary school, would probably like to use the online version over drawing Venn diagrams in their notebooks.
If you can't tell by my uncharacteristically short post, I find flowcharts a little boring. However, Gliffy has a lot of features that are very interesting. I wasted a lot of time today creating a classroom layout complete with desks and chairs and bookshelves. That was a lot of fun. Anyone who likes to fantasize about what their future class will be like might like to check it out.
The flowcharts and the mind maps were fun to create. Students, especially those in elementary school, would probably like to use the online version over drawing Venn diagrams in their notebooks.
If you can't tell by my uncharacteristically short post, I find flowcharts a little boring. However, Gliffy has a lot of features that are very interesting. I wasted a lot of time today creating a classroom layout complete with desks and chairs and bookshelves. That was a lot of fun. Anyone who likes to fantasize about what their future class will be like might like to check it out.
Thing 13: Web-based Application
Alright, here goes nothing. I have decided to try and write my blog on Zoho Writer. As soon as I am done typing, I figure I can copy it to Microsoft Word in case of accident (by the way, it didn't work).
I have never used either Google Docs or Zoho productivity apps. I guess if I can use Microsoft Word than I can use an online word processor. I do not usually use word processors for anything other than basic typing, and I can share documents pretty easily through email, so I am not sure if I would use online word processors in my personal life. I can understand the appeal of online spreadsheets though, especially if you are sharing the spreadsheets with a large group of people that need to add their own information. I actually used a Google Docs spreadsheet to sign up to carpool for a club trip the other day.
I decided to try to write my blog post on Zoho and chose to create a drawing using Google Docs. Here is a copy of my drawing.
Online Applications would definitely be useful for teachers. It would be a lot easier to put a document on Google Docs than to have to email it to each student or parent. It would also be a great place for students to collaborate on a project. Once they learn to share documents, than they could create all kinds of projects. For example, say your students had to make a tri-fold display about a book. They could set up a spreadsheet that says who needs to bring what supplies and create documents to discuss ideas or set up a template that shows where they want to put information. It would be an easy way to create the project before they had to make a hard copy.
Zoho Writer and the Google Docs are very similar. I would probably use Google just because I use a lot of other Google tools and so I am almost always signed in on Google. Getting to Zoho is one more step that I don't need if I am trying to create a document quickly.
Thing 12: Google Tools
So far, this class has been full of really useful information.
After looking at all the Google Tools, I can say that I would use almost all of them. My favorite is Google Calendar. I decided to set up a calendar for the Newman Club Catholic Campus Ministry because even though we are small we are also fairly busy. And everyone keeps getting confused about where to be and when to be there. Setting up a calendar was really easy. I have not gotten any feedback from the people I attempted to share it with, but hopefully it will all be positive. Here is the Newman Club Calendar.
I also signed up for Google Alerts. This is great, because I definitely do not have enough time to go searching through the news to find information. It is a bit like the RSS Reader in that it cuts down on a lot of the time that I spent looking for information, and now I don't have to skip the news on days that I am extra busy.
Google Calendar and Google Alerts are definitely my favorite Google tools, but I also am fond of Google Translate. I am just a little wary of translation tools because they are not always correct. While I don't plan on using it for anything important, I might use Google Translate to translate single words or simple phrases.
The only Google Tool that I don't like is Picasa Web Albums. I have become accustomed to using different photo sharing sites (PhotoBucket is my favorite), and now it is hard to get used to something else.
I can definitely see myself using Google Tools in my classroom. Keeping a classroom calendar with due dates and classroom plans is a great way to keep both parents and students up to date with what is happening in the classroom. It might also encourage parents to come and help in the classroom if they see something on the calendar that they are interested in. Google Alerts could also be a fun way to keep up with news that is interesting to your students. For example, if students decide that they would like to learn more about marine biology, then they can sign up to get alerts on marine biology. It would be a great way to incorporate current events into the classroom routine and show students the importance of keeping up with the most current information in their chosen fields.
After looking at all the Google Tools, I can say that I would use almost all of them. My favorite is Google Calendar. I decided to set up a calendar for the Newman Club Catholic Campus Ministry because even though we are small we are also fairly busy. And everyone keeps getting confused about where to be and when to be there. Setting up a calendar was really easy. I have not gotten any feedback from the people I attempted to share it with, but hopefully it will all be positive. Here is the Newman Club Calendar.
I also signed up for Google Alerts. This is great, because I definitely do not have enough time to go searching through the news to find information. It is a bit like the RSS Reader in that it cuts down on a lot of the time that I spent looking for information, and now I don't have to skip the news on days that I am extra busy.
Google Calendar and Google Alerts are definitely my favorite Google tools, but I also am fond of Google Translate. I am just a little wary of translation tools because they are not always correct. While I don't plan on using it for anything important, I might use Google Translate to translate single words or simple phrases.
The only Google Tool that I don't like is Picasa Web Albums. I have become accustomed to using different photo sharing sites (PhotoBucket is my favorite), and now it is hard to get used to something else.
I can definitely see myself using Google Tools in my classroom. Keeping a classroom calendar with due dates and classroom plans is a great way to keep both parents and students up to date with what is happening in the classroom. It might also encourage parents to come and help in the classroom if they see something on the calendar that they are interested in. Google Alerts could also be a fun way to keep up with news that is interesting to your students. For example, if students decide that they would like to learn more about marine biology, then they can sign up to get alerts on marine biology. It would be a great way to incorporate current events into the classroom routine and show students the importance of keeping up with the most current information in their chosen fields.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Thing 11: Finding Good Feeds
Most of the blogs that I follow have been recommended to me by word of mouth or by one of the blogs I already read. Actually looking for blogs has been a little more difficult than I thought it would be.
I am not a big fan of any of the blog search tools that were provided on the Thing 11 page. Of the four, Google Blog Search was the easiest to use and the most helpful. I was able to find a few good blogs about special education, but it took a lot of wading through to find what I was really looking for. Once I got some practice at finding blogs, it was a lot easier to find relevant information.
I did not find the other very useful. If I were to rate the four ways to find RSS feeds from best to worst, the order that I would use is:
Google Blog Search
Technorati
Topix.net
Syndic8.com
If I wasn't so picky, I probably would have been able to find good blogs at Technorati and Topix.net. Syndic8.com was totally useless; I was confused the whole time I was searching. When I did think I found something useful, it was usually a dead link, which was incredibly frustrating.
I did finally find some good feeds to follow. My favorite finds were Unwrapping the Gifted, Irresistible Ideas for Play-based Learning, and Easy IEP Help.
Unwrapping the Gifted contains information on, you guessed it, gifted education. Gifted education is something that I find interesting, but I am not sure that I would ever want to teach gifted students. Hopefully this blog will give me a better idea about how gifted education works.
Irresistible Ideas for Play-based Learning is a website run by two early childhood education teachers from Australia. The project ideas on the site are a lot of fun, and the pictures of their students are adorable.
Easy IEP Help is an interesting combination of quirky news, personal insight, and useful information. The writing is wonderful, even if the posts on actual IEP help are few and far between.
While I'm glad that I took the time to look at these ways to find RSS feeds, I think I will probably still use the recommendations and word of mouth technique to find useful blogs and websites about education topics.
I am not a big fan of any of the blog search tools that were provided on the Thing 11 page. Of the four, Google Blog Search was the easiest to use and the most helpful. I was able to find a few good blogs about special education, but it took a lot of wading through to find what I was really looking for. Once I got some practice at finding blogs, it was a lot easier to find relevant information.
I did not find the other very useful. If I were to rate the four ways to find RSS feeds from best to worst, the order that I would use is:
Google Blog Search
Technorati
Topix.net
Syndic8.com
If I wasn't so picky, I probably would have been able to find good blogs at Technorati and Topix.net. Syndic8.com was totally useless; I was confused the whole time I was searching. When I did think I found something useful, it was usually a dead link, which was incredibly frustrating.
I did finally find some good feeds to follow. My favorite finds were Unwrapping the Gifted, Irresistible Ideas for Play-based Learning, and Easy IEP Help.
Unwrapping the Gifted contains information on, you guessed it, gifted education. Gifted education is something that I find interesting, but I am not sure that I would ever want to teach gifted students. Hopefully this blog will give me a better idea about how gifted education works.
Irresistible Ideas for Play-based Learning is a website run by two early childhood education teachers from Australia. The project ideas on the site are a lot of fun, and the pictures of their students are adorable.
Easy IEP Help is an interesting combination of quirky news, personal insight, and useful information. The writing is wonderful, even if the posts on actual IEP help are few and far between.
While I'm glad that I took the time to look at these ways to find RSS feeds, I think I will probably still use the recommendations and word of mouth technique to find useful blogs and websites about education topics.
Thing 10: My New Favorite Thing
I love RSS Readers!
Keeping track of information is a huge problem for me; I tend to be very forgetful and I get distracted easily. As you can probably guess, that is a really bad combination. One of my biggest problems is remembering what I read on a particular blog so that I can start at the next post. Google Reader is a wonderful tool for me, because it remembers what I have read and what I haven't read, making it very easy to keep up with everything. And it is all in one space, which removes the need for me to visit blog after blog only to realize that nothing has been posted.
One of the features that I love about Google Reader is how easy it is to sort blogs into folders by category. I can easily see how much I need to read in each of my folders. So far I have folders for Education 3040, Special Education, General Education, Catholicism, and News.
RSS Readers are a great way for teachers to have quick access to information on a variety of topics, from lesson plans to assistive technology to education law. Teachers could also use RSS to keep track of blogs written by their students. Instead of having to visit every blog to check for updates, they just get new posts all in one place.
Keeping track of information is a huge problem for me; I tend to be very forgetful and I get distracted easily. As you can probably guess, that is a really bad combination. One of my biggest problems is remembering what I read on a particular blog so that I can start at the next post. Google Reader is a wonderful tool for me, because it remembers what I have read and what I haven't read, making it very easy to keep up with everything. And it is all in one space, which removes the need for me to visit blog after blog only to realize that nothing has been posted.
One of the features that I love about Google Reader is how easy it is to sort blogs into folders by category. I can easily see how much I need to read in each of my folders. So far I have folders for Education 3040, Special Education, General Education, Catholicism, and News.
RSS Readers are a great way for teachers to have quick access to information on a variety of topics, from lesson plans to assistive technology to education law. Teachers could also use RSS to keep track of blogs written by their students. Instead of having to visit every blog to check for updates, they just get new posts all in one place.
Thing 9: Online Image Generators
I have spent the last few hours playing around with a few of the sign generators. It's times like these that I wish I was more creative. I started with the Happy Face Generator. I think that the different smiley faces are really cute, and they are also quite practical. At the therapy group I used to work for, we had a poster on the wall with different emotions represented by smiley faces. Most of the students we worked with were nonverbal, so the chart was there to encourage the children to share their emotions by pointing to the pictures. With the smiley face generators, you could even add little talk bubbles that say things like "I am mad" or "I am frustrated" to the pictures to encourage verbal students to speak their emotions after they identify them.
I decided to use the Happy Face Generator sign generator to make one of those motivational signs that you see all over classroom walls. Here it is:
It was actually really easy. You just replace the text with the words that you would like. Sometimes you have to mess with the placement of the words a little, but with a little trial and error I was able to make sure that the words fit into the sign.
I played around with a lot of other image generating sights, and I really liked ImageChef. The problem is, I am really picky and a bit of a perfectionist. I tried to make a few different things, but nothing really turned out like I wanted it to look. I'm going to try and go back to ImageChef, but I will need a lot of time if I ever want to use it for a project.
I decided to use the Happy Face Generator sign generator to make one of those motivational signs that you see all over classroom walls. Here it is:
It was actually really easy. You just replace the text with the words that you would like. Sometimes you have to mess with the placement of the words a little, but with a little trial and error I was able to make sure that the words fit into the sign.
I played around with a lot of other image generating sights, and I really liked ImageChef. The problem is, I am really picky and a bit of a perfectionist. I tried to make a few different things, but nothing really turned out like I wanted it to look. I'm going to try and go back to ImageChef, but I will need a lot of time if I ever want to use it for a project.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Thing 7: Flickr
I was excited to be able to check out Flickr, especially to find pictures that I could use for a project. Like I said in a previous post, I am not much of a photographer, but I understand the importance of using images to enhance people's understandings of concepts and ideas. So I had a little bit of trouble choosing between option one and option two for Thing 7. I decided to do some of both.
Having access to a picture bank, which contains more photographs than I could ever hope to take, is exciting. I love historic places, but I don't get to travel to any very often (I'm usually overruled by my three brothers). Seeing pictures is the next best thing.
I decided to do a search for pictures from Colonial Williamsburg (My very favorite place in the world). I searched through the group on Colonial Williamsburg and the Williamsburg tags for a picture that I would like to blog about.
This is the picture I chose:
I chose this picture because it reminds me of one of my favorite vacation memories. The man in the picture is a reenactment specialist at Colonial Williamsburg who plays Lafayette. He talked to my family, in character, for almost an hour about the history of Williamsburg and Lafayette's role in the Revolutionary War. Even my younger brothers thought he was interesting (it is hard to get 12 and 10 year old boys interested in anything to do with history).
I was surprised by how easy it was to find pictures. I tried to search for a few different topics before I settled on Colonial Williamsburg, Each time, I found exactly what I was looking for without having to try seven different synonyms and twelve different spellings for each thing I was looking for.
I also uploaded some pictures of my family, including my puppy dog.
His name is Gibson, and he is a lab/ rat terrier mix. He is the sweetest dog in the world, and I don;t get to see him enough.
Setting up an account was easy, and uploading pictures wasn't much harder. It's rather exciting when things go smoothly.
In an earlier post, I wrote about my experience with Photobucket. I like both sites, but I would use them for different things. Flickr is better to use if I am looking for pictures that I do not already have. Photobucket is better for editing photos I do have. If I was working a project, I might use both; Flickr to find the photos to include and Photobucket to actually create the project.
I think that photo sharing sites do have a place in the classroom. First, photo sharing sites are a quick and easy way to share information. Have you ever tried to get information about a class project from a first grader, or a high school boy? One is unable to clearly share information, and the other is (usually) unwilling. Images are an easy way for parents to see what is going on in the classroom. Students can also use photo sharing websites to share information and to create projects.
I'm not sure I would use photo sharing sites to share personal photos on a regular basis. First, I don't have that many to share, and second, I can already share photos with the important people in my life on Facebook.
Here is the link to the top image:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/treehuggergal/4843936181/
Having access to a picture bank, which contains more photographs than I could ever hope to take, is exciting. I love historic places, but I don't get to travel to any very often (I'm usually overruled by my three brothers). Seeing pictures is the next best thing.
I decided to do a search for pictures from Colonial Williamsburg (My very favorite place in the world). I searched through the group on Colonial Williamsburg and the Williamsburg tags for a picture that I would like to blog about.
This is the picture I chose:
Photo by Jim Frost
I chose this picture because it reminds me of one of my favorite vacation memories. The man in the picture is a reenactment specialist at Colonial Williamsburg who plays Lafayette. He talked to my family, in character, for almost an hour about the history of Williamsburg and Lafayette's role in the Revolutionary War. Even my younger brothers thought he was interesting (it is hard to get 12 and 10 year old boys interested in anything to do with history).
I was surprised by how easy it was to find pictures. I tried to search for a few different topics before I settled on Colonial Williamsburg, Each time, I found exactly what I was looking for without having to try seven different synonyms and twelve different spellings for each thing I was looking for.
I also uploaded some pictures of my family, including my puppy dog.
His name is Gibson, and he is a lab/ rat terrier mix. He is the sweetest dog in the world, and I don;t get to see him enough.
Setting up an account was easy, and uploading pictures wasn't much harder. It's rather exciting when things go smoothly.
In an earlier post, I wrote about my experience with Photobucket. I like both sites, but I would use them for different things. Flickr is better to use if I am looking for pictures that I do not already have. Photobucket is better for editing photos I do have. If I was working a project, I might use both; Flickr to find the photos to include and Photobucket to actually create the project.
I think that photo sharing sites do have a place in the classroom. First, photo sharing sites are a quick and easy way to share information. Have you ever tried to get information about a class project from a first grader, or a high school boy? One is unable to clearly share information, and the other is (usually) unwilling. Images are an easy way for parents to see what is going on in the classroom. Students can also use photo sharing websites to share information and to create projects.
I'm not sure I would use photo sharing sites to share personal photos on a regular basis. First, I don't have that many to share, and second, I can already share photos with the important people in my life on Facebook.
Here is the link to the top image:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/treehuggergal/4843936181/
Thing 6b: Exploring Grooveshark
So, when I looked at Thing 7 I realized that we were already supposed to explore a photo sharing site, so I decided that it might be a good idea to comment on a second site. I chose to comment on Grooveshark, because that I have become pretty familiar with in the last two weeks (I wanted to check it out after Dr. Luck talked about it on the first day of class).
I cannot get work done when it is quiet. I have three younger brothers, so my house was always loud growing up. Quiet makes me nervous, because quiet means that someone is planning something nefarious.
When I use Grooveshark, I can create playlists like the ones used on iTunes without having to pay for the music (although if you want to make it portable you have to subscribe to Grooveshark Anywhere). Setting up a playlist is fairly easy. You can search for either the artist or the song that you are looking for in order to find music. If you look up music by artist, then you can look through a list of songs by that author, view playlists that other Grooveshark users have created that contain songs by that artist, and see what events that artist might have in the next few months.
I do wish that Grooveshark was a little easier to search. If you are looking for a song that also happens to be the name of a musical group and the name of an album, Grooveshark pulls up all songs connected to that information. An advanced search feature would make searching a lot easier.
I often think that people discount the power that music has in helping people learn. I'm an auditory learner, so I have always used music as a way to remember things. I can still sing most of the Schoolhouse Rock! songs that I learned in elementary school. Most of the Schoolhouse Rock! songs are actually on Grooveshark. In addition to listening to music for what you can learn, it can also be fun (a shock to everyone, I'm sure). I was reading a post about how teachers incorporated movement into their day, and one elementary teacher talked about how he uses music during his transitions. Between math and reading, for example, he would play music. While the music was on, students moved around the room putting books away and getting what they needed for the next lesson. I'm sure that there are plenty of great ideas for how to use music in class.
Here's the link for Grooveshark!
I cannot get work done when it is quiet. I have three younger brothers, so my house was always loud growing up. Quiet makes me nervous, because quiet means that someone is planning something nefarious.
When I use Grooveshark, I can create playlists like the ones used on iTunes without having to pay for the music (although if you want to make it portable you have to subscribe to Grooveshark Anywhere). Setting up a playlist is fairly easy. You can search for either the artist or the song that you are looking for in order to find music. If you look up music by artist, then you can look through a list of songs by that author, view playlists that other Grooveshark users have created that contain songs by that artist, and see what events that artist might have in the next few months.
I do wish that Grooveshark was a little easier to search. If you are looking for a song that also happens to be the name of a musical group and the name of an album, Grooveshark pulls up all songs connected to that information. An advanced search feature would make searching a lot easier.
I often think that people discount the power that music has in helping people learn. I'm an auditory learner, so I have always used music as a way to remember things. I can still sing most of the Schoolhouse Rock! songs that I learned in elementary school. Most of the Schoolhouse Rock! songs are actually on Grooveshark. In addition to listening to music for what you can learn, it can also be fun (a shock to everyone, I'm sure). I was reading a post about how teachers incorporated movement into their day, and one elementary teacher talked about how he uses music during his transitions. Between math and reading, for example, he would play music. While the music was on, students moved around the room putting books away and getting what they needed for the next lesson. I'm sure that there are plenty of great ideas for how to use music in class.
Here's the link for Grooveshark!
Thing 6: Exploring Photobucket
I'm not much of a photographer, but I decided that it might be fun to explore Photobucket. I have some experience manipulating photographs (I worked on my high school newspaper staff), but most of the software that I worked with was pretty pricey. I wanted to see how a free, online photo sharing and editing site compared.
Photobucket was really easy to use. Uploading photos was easy, you just clicked the big, green upload photos button and select what you wanted to upload. All the photos uploaded quickly, it only took a couple of minutes to upload over 150 images (I decided to upload an entire album from a family trip).
I played with several of the editing tools that Photobucket provides. I cropped several pictures and used some of the tinting and distortion features. After editing some individual photographs, I also made a slide show. It was very easy, all that you had to do is follow the directions on the page. I even put text on the pictures in the slide show.
I think that photographs are a great way for teachers to share activities in the classroom with the family's of their students. As wonderful as newsletters are, seeing a picture can often convey what is happening a little clearer. A slide show, complete with text, could be a great way for parents to see what happened on a field trip or an entire week.
Students could also use Photobucket to create photo slide shows. Young children (and not so young children) would probably enjoy playing with the different distortion tools and creating photo collages.
Here is one of the photos that I edited using Photobucket. I cropped the photo and used the greyscale tool to make it black and white.
The image is of my brothers. The rest of this post is just going to be me bragging about them. The one in the middle is Timothy. He is seventeen and about to graduate from high school. As you can see, he got all the height in the family (he is a full foot taller than I am). He is also incredibly smart; he got a 32 on his ACT, with perfect scores in both English and reading. His biggest interest is music, and he plays more instruments than I can keep track of. Right now he is the bassist for his school's rock and soul band and jazz band. The rock and soul band was named one of the top four high school bands in the Blues/Rock/Pop category last year (we are still waiting to hear about this year).
Matthew (on the left) just turned thirteen. He is a great athlete. He plays baseball, soccer, and golf, swims on his school swim team, and is starting to get interested in triathlons. His fastest times for swimming are a 34 second 50 meter freestyle and a 33 second 50 meter backstroke. He was the third best golfer for his age group in the state of Tennessee two seasons ago, but has only been playing for his school team since. He also participates in forensics (competitive acting); he won first place in duo improv and third place in pantomime in his last two competitions. He also acts in school plays-- he played the herald in Cinderella and was just cast as Chin Ho in Thoroughly Modern Millie.
Andrew is the youngest at eleven. He is also a super athlete, but running is his favorite activity (he also plays soccer, baseball, and golf). He is the fastest eleven year old male distance runner in Shelby County, TN. His fastest 5k time is 21 minutes 20 seconds. He is also a budding musician (piano and trumpet) and getting involved in plays and musicals.
Oops! I almost forgot the link!
Photobucket was really easy to use. Uploading photos was easy, you just clicked the big, green upload photos button and select what you wanted to upload. All the photos uploaded quickly, it only took a couple of minutes to upload over 150 images (I decided to upload an entire album from a family trip).
I played with several of the editing tools that Photobucket provides. I cropped several pictures and used some of the tinting and distortion features. After editing some individual photographs, I also made a slide show. It was very easy, all that you had to do is follow the directions on the page. I even put text on the pictures in the slide show.
I think that photographs are a great way for teachers to share activities in the classroom with the family's of their students. As wonderful as newsletters are, seeing a picture can often convey what is happening a little clearer. A slide show, complete with text, could be a great way for parents to see what happened on a field trip or an entire week.
Students could also use Photobucket to create photo slide shows. Young children (and not so young children) would probably enjoy playing with the different distortion tools and creating photo collages.
Here is one of the photos that I edited using Photobucket. I cropped the photo and used the greyscale tool to make it black and white.
The image is of my brothers. The rest of this post is just going to be me bragging about them. The one in the middle is Timothy. He is seventeen and about to graduate from high school. As you can see, he got all the height in the family (he is a full foot taller than I am). He is also incredibly smart; he got a 32 on his ACT, with perfect scores in both English and reading. His biggest interest is music, and he plays more instruments than I can keep track of. Right now he is the bassist for his school's rock and soul band and jazz band. The rock and soul band was named one of the top four high school bands in the Blues/Rock/Pop category last year (we are still waiting to hear about this year).
Matthew (on the left) just turned thirteen. He is a great athlete. He plays baseball, soccer, and golf, swims on his school swim team, and is starting to get interested in triathlons. His fastest times for swimming are a 34 second 50 meter freestyle and a 33 second 50 meter backstroke. He was the third best golfer for his age group in the state of Tennessee two seasons ago, but has only been playing for his school team since. He also participates in forensics (competitive acting); he won first place in duo improv and third place in pantomime in his last two competitions. He also acts in school plays-- he played the herald in Cinderella and was just cast as Chin Ho in Thoroughly Modern Millie.
Andrew is the youngest at eleven. He is also a super athlete, but running is his favorite activity (he also plays soccer, baseball, and golf). He is the fastest eleven year old male distance runner in Shelby County, TN. His fastest 5k time is 21 minutes 20 seconds. He is also a budding musician (piano and trumpet) and getting involved in plays and musicals.
Oops! I almost forgot the link!
Thing 5: What is School 2.0?
Every teacher should be an advocate for School 2.0. School 2.0 is a new way of looking at education. People tend to think of education as something that happens in a classroom, but School 2.0 breaks learning out of the classroom and brings it into the world. Learning can take place anywhere, using a variety of different tools, including emerging technology.
The wonderful thing about School 2.0 and Web 2.0 is that resources are available to everyone. Like Richard MacManus said in his article "Web 2.0 if Not About Version Numbers or Betas," Web 2.0 allows even "non-technical people" to use technology to connect to others and enhance their learning. As a non-technical person, I am always amazed by how user-friendly technology has become.
I can only imagine how School 2.0 will change education in the future. It will open up a whole new world for students everywhere. Any classroom with an internet connection can contact other classrooms from around the world, access the most current resources and learn from experts that are thousands of miles away. And as technology becomes more accessible and learning becomes more efficient, teachers will be able to give each student that help, attention and challenge that they need.
The wonderful thing about School 2.0 and Web 2.0 is that resources are available to everyone. Like Richard MacManus said in his article "Web 2.0 if Not About Version Numbers or Betas," Web 2.0 allows even "non-technical people" to use technology to connect to others and enhance their learning. As a non-technical person, I am always amazed by how user-friendly technology has become.
I can only imagine how School 2.0 will change education in the future. It will open up a whole new world for students everywhere. Any classroom with an internet connection can contact other classrooms from around the world, access the most current resources and learn from experts that are thousands of miles away. And as technology becomes more accessible and learning becomes more efficient, teachers will be able to give each student that help, attention and challenge that they need.
Thing 4: Becoming a Good Commenter
Being a good follower is hard. It requires commenting, something I have never quite gotten the hang of.
I am most definitely a lurker. I love to read blogs, but I rarely comment. Commenting requires me to be willing to engage in a conversation (this point is stressed in almost every post you read about the subject). It may seem odd that a person who enjoys blogging would be shy about commenting, but it is something that I have found to be rather common across the blogosphere.
For me, a blog is really just a place to record my thoughts. The idea that other people might be looking makes me think things through before I post them, to refine my thoughts until I decide that they are presentable. But all the thoughts are still mine. I know exactly what I am thinking when I post them. When I comment on someone else's blog, I have to not only know what I am talking about, but what someone else is talking about.
Figuring out what someone means when they are writing is difficult for me. The way I read a post is colored by my own experiences. I might think of a certain phrase with a different inflection than they intended, or the choice of words might be more or less charged from their point of view. Determining another person's emotions is sometimes difficult for me in a face-to-face conversation, even though I can read body language and facial expressions and listen for voice pitch and inflection in order to figure out what someone means. Take that away, and I am little more than clueless.
I don't want to be a Darth Commenter (I find this name for rude, angry commenters rather cute), but the only time I ever really want to comment is when I disagree with the blogger, usually quite strongly. On the discussion board for one of my classes this week, there were a lot of people who were commenting on a very controversial topic. Emotions tend to run high, and a few of the posts that were written left me wondering why people couldn't just agree to disagree. I was torn between a desire to join the "discussion" and the knowledge that posting a rant wasn't really going to help the situation.
Deciding which blogs to follow is usually rather difficult for me. I am incredibly finicky reader, blogs have to have the right mash of information and personality for me to be interested in reading them; blogs with no substance are pointless to read and blog with too much information tend to block out the personality of the person writing the post. Finding goods blogs written by my classmates, however, was easy. I decided to follow all the ones that I thought were interesting, instead of just stopping at five (and I will keep adding more as I go, but I haven't had a chance to,look at everyone's blog).
Here the list of EDUC 3040 blogs I decided to follow:
*Korina Biemesderfer's 23 Things*23 Things by LBarth*apsu23Stritzel*Armistead's Small Blog About 23 Big Things*Future History Teacher by JBrewer*Han Solo and CdeBaca*Jessica Daigle's 23 Things*M,Mitchell*School Blogs by bwood6*Shay's Stuff*
Finding outside blogs was a little more difficult. It seems that everytime I find a blog that I think is really interesting, it is too old or the posts are to infrequent. Here are the outside blogs that I decided to follow:
*SpeEd Change*Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs*
I do not comment much, because I feel like comments need to contain important information. Sometimes I don't have anything to add to the conversation. When I do comment, it is typically for two reasons: I have something to add or I feel like the blogger needs some form of encouragement. As the class progresses, I hope that I get more comfortable with commenting so that I can bring meaningful thoughts to further the online conversation.
I am most definitely a lurker. I love to read blogs, but I rarely comment. Commenting requires me to be willing to engage in a conversation (this point is stressed in almost every post you read about the subject). It may seem odd that a person who enjoys blogging would be shy about commenting, but it is something that I have found to be rather common across the blogosphere.
For me, a blog is really just a place to record my thoughts. The idea that other people might be looking makes me think things through before I post them, to refine my thoughts until I decide that they are presentable. But all the thoughts are still mine. I know exactly what I am thinking when I post them. When I comment on someone else's blog, I have to not only know what I am talking about, but what someone else is talking about.
Figuring out what someone means when they are writing is difficult for me. The way I read a post is colored by my own experiences. I might think of a certain phrase with a different inflection than they intended, or the choice of words might be more or less charged from their point of view. Determining another person's emotions is sometimes difficult for me in a face-to-face conversation, even though I can read body language and facial expressions and listen for voice pitch and inflection in order to figure out what someone means. Take that away, and I am little more than clueless.
I don't want to be a Darth Commenter (I find this name for rude, angry commenters rather cute), but the only time I ever really want to comment is when I disagree with the blogger, usually quite strongly. On the discussion board for one of my classes this week, there were a lot of people who were commenting on a very controversial topic. Emotions tend to run high, and a few of the posts that were written left me wondering why people couldn't just agree to disagree. I was torn between a desire to join the "discussion" and the knowledge that posting a rant wasn't really going to help the situation.
Deciding which blogs to follow is usually rather difficult for me. I am incredibly finicky reader, blogs have to have the right mash of information and personality for me to be interested in reading them; blogs with no substance are pointless to read and blog with too much information tend to block out the personality of the person writing the post. Finding goods blogs written by my classmates, however, was easy. I decided to follow all the ones that I thought were interesting, instead of just stopping at five (and I will keep adding more as I go, but I haven't had a chance to,look at everyone's blog).
Here the list of EDUC 3040 blogs I decided to follow:
*Korina Biemesderfer's 23 Things*23 Things by LBarth*apsu23Stritzel*Armistead's Small Blog About 23 Big Things*Future History Teacher by JBrewer*Han Solo and CdeBaca*Jessica Daigle's 23 Things*M,Mitchell*School Blogs by bwood6*Shay's Stuff*
Finding outside blogs was a little more difficult. It seems that everytime I find a blog that I think is really interesting, it is too old or the posts are to infrequent. Here are the outside blogs that I decided to follow:
*SpeEd Change*Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs*
I do not comment much, because I feel like comments need to contain important information. Sometimes I don't have anything to add to the conversation. When I do comment, it is typically for two reasons: I have something to add or I feel like the blogger needs some form of encouragement. As the class progresses, I hope that I get more comfortable with commenting so that I can bring meaningful thoughts to further the online conversation.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Thing 8: Using Flickr to Create Educational Tools
My creation
Originally uploaded by mbarczak
Originally uploaded by mbarczak
I find creating things with Flickr to be pretty easy. And there are a lot of ways I can imagine using these tools in the classroom. There is a reason that every preschool class I have ever been in has puzzles. Puzzles are great for building problem solving skills and teaching students to manipulate objects to get a desired outcome.
One of the tools that I think would be incredibly useful is Mappr. Imagine using it in a history classroom. You could use the map to give students a better idea of where events took place. I think this would be a wonderful tool to help students understand the importance of historical events by making them appear closer to them. Or you could use it in math class to show real world applications for the problems that you are working on.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Thing 3: User Ideas for a Blog
Now that I have had some time to look at other people's blogs and been able to see some different things that you can do with them, I've started to think of some ways that I could use my blog in the future.
First of all, a blog is a really simple way to communicate. I know people who blog to keep up with their families. In some ways, a blog is easier to navigate than a facebook page, so people can share photos, videos and notes with less tech-savvy family members.
Teachers can use blogs in the same way that my family does. Parents can't always be in the classroom, but they might have ten minutes at night to check a blog. Teachers could put pictures of class activities and little notes about what went on in class in a blog for parents to see.
In addition to communicating daily activities with parents, teachers can use a blog to post information about homework assignments for their students. Although we might wish it weren't so, students do not always listen to teachers. I can remember forgetting to write down homework assignments in elementary school, and I wish that technology would have been advanced enough for my teachers to have a blog. Teachers can post more than homework assignments for their students as well. Links to websites, videos and articles that students could use for research would be easy to share over a blog. And it would probably interest the students more if their teacher used the same technology that they do.
Teachers can also have students start their own blogs. They could be used as an online portfolio or a way to communicate for group projects. It would also be another great way to have parents see what their students are doing. Since blogs tend to be less formal than typical classwork (essays, reports, projects), students might feel more open about sharing what they really think.
Teachers can use blogs to communicate with one another as well. I'm not sure that I truly understood what an amazing resource for teaching the Internet was until I started this class (Education 3040, Instructional Technology). By searching through blogs, I can find posts on topics from classroom management to 4th grade reading lessons to strategies for working with difficult parents. And I can post advice of my own as well. I don't always have time to evaluate every new piece of technology, research article, or teaching method that comes my way; however, I do have time to sort through some reviews and figure out what is worth trying out on my own. I am excited to see what else I could learn from reading blogs and using them with my students.
First of all, a blog is a really simple way to communicate. I know people who blog to keep up with their families. In some ways, a blog is easier to navigate than a facebook page, so people can share photos, videos and notes with less tech-savvy family members.
Teachers can use blogs in the same way that my family does. Parents can't always be in the classroom, but they might have ten minutes at night to check a blog. Teachers could put pictures of class activities and little notes about what went on in class in a blog for parents to see.
In addition to communicating daily activities with parents, teachers can use a blog to post information about homework assignments for their students. Although we might wish it weren't so, students do not always listen to teachers. I can remember forgetting to write down homework assignments in elementary school, and I wish that technology would have been advanced enough for my teachers to have a blog. Teachers can post more than homework assignments for their students as well. Links to websites, videos and articles that students could use for research would be easy to share over a blog. And it would probably interest the students more if their teacher used the same technology that they do.
Teachers can also have students start their own blogs. They could be used as an online portfolio or a way to communicate for group projects. It would also be another great way to have parents see what their students are doing. Since blogs tend to be less formal than typical classwork (essays, reports, projects), students might feel more open about sharing what they really think.
Teachers can use blogs to communicate with one another as well. I'm not sure that I truly understood what an amazing resource for teaching the Internet was until I started this class (Education 3040, Instructional Technology). By searching through blogs, I can find posts on topics from classroom management to 4th grade reading lessons to strategies for working with difficult parents. And I can post advice of my own as well. I don't always have time to evaluate every new piece of technology, research article, or teaching method that comes my way; however, I do have time to sort through some reviews and figure out what is worth trying out on my own. I am excited to see what else I could learn from reading blogs and using them with my students.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Thing 2: A Blog of My Own
After telling myself repeatedly that I would never have my own blog, I finally have a reason to start one. I love blogs; I actually keep up with quite a few on my own, and consider some of the people that I have met while reading and posting comments to be friends. There is something wonderful about knowing that there are people in the world with whom I have things in common. But I was always a little too scared to start my own blog. I didn't really want to blog about my life. First, I am not sure that I do enough things to make any blog I would write about myself interesting. Second, I value a certain amount of privacy and anonymity in my life, and having a blog felt a little too much like letting strangers into my house. But now the internal debate I have been having about starting a blog is over. I am killing two birds with one stone, completing a class assignment and getting used to a new form of media.
Creating a blog is a lot easier than I thought it would be. When I first saw the page that pops up when you want to create a blog, I was a little intimidated. New technology and I don't always get along. There is very little commitment involved with reading another person's blog, but writing a blog felt like another thing entirely. I feel like I have a responsibility to post something of quality, something other people will feel is worth reading.
But the steps to create a blog were pretty easy. I decided to stick with simplicity. I'll have more time to develop something creative after I get used to the basics. At least that made the name of my blog easy to decide on; it is just my name, followed by what the blog is about-- the 23 Things. My posting name is my own name. I just wanted to keep it simple, and easy to remember.
The best part of creating the blog so far has been creating my avatar. After playing around with her a lot, I finally decided that it would be better to leave her looking like me. I am pretty happy with who I am (most days), and dressing my avatar up as something or someone else just seemed a little silly. I might change her outfit every once in a while, or give her a new background, but the general look will stay the same. I have never been good at pretending to be someone I am not, and that part of my personality apparently extends to creating a realistic avatar.
Creating a blog is a lot easier than I thought it would be. When I first saw the page that pops up when you want to create a blog, I was a little intimidated. New technology and I don't always get along. There is very little commitment involved with reading another person's blog, but writing a blog felt like another thing entirely. I feel like I have a responsibility to post something of quality, something other people will feel is worth reading.
But the steps to create a blog were pretty easy. I decided to stick with simplicity. I'll have more time to develop something creative after I get used to the basics. At least that made the name of my blog easy to decide on; it is just my name, followed by what the blog is about-- the 23 Things. My posting name is my own name. I just wanted to keep it simple, and easy to remember.
The best part of creating the blog so far has been creating my avatar. After playing around with her a lot, I finally decided that it would be better to leave her looking like me. I am pretty happy with who I am (most days), and dressing my avatar up as something or someone else just seemed a little silly. I might change her outfit every once in a while, or give her a new background, but the general look will stay the same. I have never been good at pretending to be someone I am not, and that part of my personality apparently extends to creating a realistic avatar.
Thing 1: Beginning a Journey to Conquer My Inabilities with Technology
Well, that wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be! I never thought I would have my own blog, but here it is. Maybe this class will go by smoothly. I have already heard that it is fun, and that you learn A LOT. I am excited about being able to play with my blog, and finally having topics that are worth posting about.
I usually have a little bit of trouble (a gross under exaggeration) with technology when I first start using it, so it often takes me a lot longer to adjust to using different types of programs or gadgets than my friends. Hopefully, this class will help me get over my reticence to use different technology. This is my next goal for continuing the process of lifelong learning.
I always love to learn new things, but usually I bite off a little more than I can chew and plunge right in without making any type of plan for how I am going to learn or how much I want to learn. My biggest problem with lifelong learning is Habit 1- Learning with the End in Mind. I'll use one of my past learning "failures" (it is hard to call it a failure- I did learn something). At the time I was volunteering with an applied behavior analysis (ABA) group for autistic children ages 3-8. Most of the children I was working with were nonverbal and used American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate. Naturally, I felt that it would help my relationship with "my kids" if I knew ASL. I made this decision during a point in my life when I had a lot of down time. It was between semesters in high school and the only thing that I had to do was show up to ABA twice a week. I NEEDED something to do. So I just jumped right into the work. I didn't set up a schedule, and I gave little thought to what would happen after my winter break was over. The result was that I finished one or two lessons of a free ASL program developed by a professor at CSU Sacramento before I got caught up with school, and family, and volunteering, and the millions of other little things that we all have to do. I still want to complete the program, but every time I start, the result is the same-- I let LIFE get in the way. I can't commit to following through.
Another part of lifelong learning that I have trouble with is being able to find the right tools. Most specifically, finding someone who can help me learn what I want to learn. I am the type of person who learns best by being taught. It makes me more comfortable to be with an expert who can guide me toward whatever goal I have. Finding an expert is easy if there is already a framework set up for me to learn something, like when I have a class at school. Usually a teacher is chosen by the time I begin a class, so I know who to go to if I have a problem. When I have to find my own expert it is another story entirely. Who am I, a young, inexperienced, naive girl of twenty to ask an expert for their help? Why would anyone have time for me? And even if they do, how do I even ask for help? Admit it, experts can be intimidating!
The funny thing is, the easiest habit of lifelong learning for me to follow is teaching an mentoring others. I don't like to ask for help, but I sure don't mind giving it. When I finally made the decision to study education in college, I was the only person I know who was surprised. The most common phrase I heard when I told people that I was going into special education was "I knew you would end up a teacher!" This exclamation was typically followed by a chuckle that I found incredibly infuriating at the time.
The funny thing is, I have always been a teacher. My favorite extracurricular activities when I was in grade school were running a Daisy Girl Scout troop, teaching Sunday school, tutoring English and working at an ABA therapy group. I may have seemed like a fairly boring adolescent, but I was happy teaching other people.
This ties into habit 7 1/2, play. I always learn better when I am having fun. Thankfully, I finally realized that the only way I would learn anything would be to love what I was learning. When I love what I am learning, then learning isn't work. It is an adventure.
I am sure that this class is definitely going to be an adventure. My goal is to be comfortable using new technology by the end of the semester. I may not be successful with every project that we do, although I certainly hope that is the case, but I don't want to be afraid of trying something with technology just because of a fear that something will go wrong. I hope that by taking a class on technology, I can build up the confidence to tackle any new technology that can help me continue to be a lifelong learner.
P.S.If anyone wants to learn ASL, and has a little (or a lot) more drive than I do, I highly recommend the program; the first twenty lessons are free and you learn vocabulary by most common usage. Just send me a comment if you want the link.
I usually have a little bit of trouble (a gross under exaggeration) with technology when I first start using it, so it often takes me a lot longer to adjust to using different types of programs or gadgets than my friends. Hopefully, this class will help me get over my reticence to use different technology. This is my next goal for continuing the process of lifelong learning.
I always love to learn new things, but usually I bite off a little more than I can chew and plunge right in without making any type of plan for how I am going to learn or how much I want to learn. My biggest problem with lifelong learning is Habit 1- Learning with the End in Mind. I'll use one of my past learning "failures" (it is hard to call it a failure- I did learn something). At the time I was volunteering with an applied behavior analysis (ABA) group for autistic children ages 3-8. Most of the children I was working with were nonverbal and used American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate. Naturally, I felt that it would help my relationship with "my kids" if I knew ASL. I made this decision during a point in my life when I had a lot of down time. It was between semesters in high school and the only thing that I had to do was show up to ABA twice a week. I NEEDED something to do. So I just jumped right into the work. I didn't set up a schedule, and I gave little thought to what would happen after my winter break was over. The result was that I finished one or two lessons of a free ASL program developed by a professor at CSU Sacramento before I got caught up with school, and family, and volunteering, and the millions of other little things that we all have to do. I still want to complete the program, but every time I start, the result is the same-- I let LIFE get in the way. I can't commit to following through.
Another part of lifelong learning that I have trouble with is being able to find the right tools. Most specifically, finding someone who can help me learn what I want to learn. I am the type of person who learns best by being taught. It makes me more comfortable to be with an expert who can guide me toward whatever goal I have. Finding an expert is easy if there is already a framework set up for me to learn something, like when I have a class at school. Usually a teacher is chosen by the time I begin a class, so I know who to go to if I have a problem. When I have to find my own expert it is another story entirely. Who am I, a young, inexperienced, naive girl of twenty to ask an expert for their help? Why would anyone have time for me? And even if they do, how do I even ask for help? Admit it, experts can be intimidating!
The funny thing is, the easiest habit of lifelong learning for me to follow is teaching an mentoring others. I don't like to ask for help, but I sure don't mind giving it. When I finally made the decision to study education in college, I was the only person I know who was surprised. The most common phrase I heard when I told people that I was going into special education was "I knew you would end up a teacher!" This exclamation was typically followed by a chuckle that I found incredibly infuriating at the time.
The funny thing is, I have always been a teacher. My favorite extracurricular activities when I was in grade school were running a Daisy Girl Scout troop, teaching Sunday school, tutoring English and working at an ABA therapy group. I may have seemed like a fairly boring adolescent, but I was happy teaching other people.
This ties into habit 7 1/2, play. I always learn better when I am having fun. Thankfully, I finally realized that the only way I would learn anything would be to love what I was learning. When I love what I am learning, then learning isn't work. It is an adventure.
I am sure that this class is definitely going to be an adventure. My goal is to be comfortable using new technology by the end of the semester. I may not be successful with every project that we do, although I certainly hope that is the case, but I don't want to be afraid of trying something with technology just because of a fear that something will go wrong. I hope that by taking a class on technology, I can build up the confidence to tackle any new technology that can help me continue to be a lifelong learner.
P.S.If anyone wants to learn ASL, and has a little (or a lot) more drive than I do, I highly recommend the program; the first twenty lessons are free and you learn vocabulary by most common usage. Just send me a comment if you want the link.
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