Thing #14

I could not wait to write a post about what I learned looking through these wikis! I have been hearing the word wiki for about a year now and no one ever explained to me what they were so I pretty much wrote the term off as just another computer thingy that I will probably never use. After reading about them and looking through some of the examples given to us, I am thrilled to learn about them. I can already imagine so many uses for wikis both for the students and for me as a teacher. First, I would love to organize a project where the whole grade level does an author study and each class could create projects for different books by that author to share on the wiki. Students could even collaborate amongst the grade level not being tied to only the other students in their own class. The wiki SaluteToSeuss - home is a perfect example of this use of a wiki. Also, I would think that teachers could collaborate/plan together with their own or other grade levels using a wiki. This would allow input among the various teachers. On my campus, the 2nd and 3rd grade teachers have been attempting to communicate with each other better in order for us to assist each other in helping students prepare to use skills taught more effectively.

I loved the ability to basically reach out to the entire world using a wiki. The following wiki is used by students to post questions that they formulate. Then, their goal is to receive 1000 responses- Monsonclassroom Wiki - home. This would open up a whole new world of possibilities for students to get different perspectives on a problem or question.

Another interesting and fun wiki was schoolsthen - home. This wiki allowed students to interview parents/grandparents and compare/contrast schools from their youth to current schools. What an update to the old-fashioned Venn diagram idea!

Students can really benefit from reading others' ideas about a difficult concept such as "What is a utopian society?" This wiki- The Discovery Utopias - home lets students work together to create a conceptual utopian society. Students can compare their idea of a perfect world to the ideas of others and get completely different perspectives on the same idea.

All in all, even if I had a hard time setting up a wiki of my own, there are so many great ones out there already that I'm sure I could find one for my students to participate in. The wiki Home - Primary Math looked easy to manipulate and might make for a perfect start for a beginner like me. I really want to play around with this tool more now that I am seeing all the possibilities.

Thing #13

While I get the gist of this capability of tagging, I am still a little confused about it. I went in and set up my delicious account and I had a little trouble at first. Finally, I did get it done and I played around with searching different tags. I found this capability very interesting. But, other than just placing these sites in a category instead of just having them bookmarked, I'm not sure what the difference is other than the sharing part. I also noticed that to keep something from being shared, you had to check "do not share." I thought that should default the opposite way. That way, I wouldn't accidentally put something out there that I didn't mean to. As I said, I admit that I am still confused about this tool so I feel as if this post may not make sense to some. But, I am doing this task the only way I know how and that is honestly and with my best effort.

My initial search was "2nd grade centers." This brought up all kinds of stuff and some very neat websites. I then changed my search to 2nd grade literacy centers. A couple of those, I tagged as literacy centers. Then, I looked up online educational games. This was where I found the two sites that I tagged misd23things. I figured that might be useful to some of us since we are trying to incorporate more technology into our classrooms. There were a lot of sites that I had never heard of but that seemed good.

It was pretty cool when I tagged the couple of sites as misd23things and it showed up immediately on the Wiki(?) page. It was neat to see what everyone else had shared. This particular "thing" just hasn't quite kicked in fully with me yet but I am going to play around with it some more and hopefully will get a better understanding of it as I do so.

Thing #12

I was amazed by all the tools that are apparently available to us. I realize that the list given to us to explore was just a tiny sampling of what's out there and that is just mind-boggling! Several of the tools were interesting to me and seemed relatively simple to use. First, I was immediately drawn to Mixbook http://www.mixbook.com . Using Mixbook, you can create your own interactive books using photos or artwork. I could just see endless possibilities for this both in the classroom and personally. I can see putting students' original stories/illustrations online for parents to see. The tool also allows the capability to create a printed version of the books. I can also imagine using mixbook to chronical the process when we do science projects or other types of ongoing projects throughout the year. This would be such a great addition to the whole process and something that students and parents would love!

Next, I looked at Quizlet http://quizlet.com/ This was a very neat tool where you can find pre-made online flashcards and games and you can create your own. I pulled up the game called "scatter" which was a multiplication facts game. On the screen were various equations and answers all mixed up. As you pulled the answers over to the correct equations, the equation and answer would disappear from the screen. This was a timed activity so students could basically compete against themselves to achieve automaticity in solving the equations. I thought this would be very useful to help kids prepare for quizzes but also just as a fun center activity or something they could even pull up at home if they had internet access.

I also looked at Blabberize http://blabberize.com and Letterpop http://letterpop.com/. Blabberize allows you to turn photos into talking cartoons. I could not get it to work on the sample page but it seemed like a fun tool to use. Letterpop interested me because it is used for creating newsletters, scrapbooks, and flyers. All of these things could be useful in the classroom and the scrapbook would also be fun to use personally to create a memory book from a vacation or just a family scrapbook that could be shared online with relatives.

I did wonder about the capability of using these tools in the classroom, though since you have to register for them with an e-mail account. I didn't know how many of them would actually be easily accessible given all the restrictions placed on our access by the school district. That would be my major concern.

Thing #11

Wow, this thing was very challenging but it was fun. I would love to use the mosaic with pictures of my students. I would be able to use this also when we study landmarks. We could put together pictures of various landmarks. The possibilities are just endless! I like the smiley face signs, also. That would be something that I could use to create simple directions and then print them out and post them at centers, etc. I had trouble putting the smiley face in my blog post because it saved it some way that was not allowing it to copy over. Again, I got help from my teen who used a little creativity to save it to a paint program and then copied it over. That is the kind of knowledge that I guess just comes with time and experience in using these different tools. When it didn't work for me I was ready to give up. I didn't even know what other options I could use. That is something that I am going to have to work on. http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php

Thing #7a

I am doing this "thing" out of order because I can do it with no help! :) As I was looking through my reader, I found two things of interest to me. One was a post about the importance of building relationships with students. PreK Secret to Success: Give me relationship The writer of this post has a very informal voice and really does a nice job of discussing how important these relationships are to students and teachers. I love getting to know my students and showing an interest in their lives. My favorite thing is when we can have humor in the classroom. Most years, I have been fortunate to have classes that, for the most part, the students could engage in appropriate humor with me. Since I teach younger children, it takes some doing to make sure they understand there are limits and a time to "get serious." But when they and I can all enjoy the humor in a situation, it really seems to bring out a whole new side to them. I think it allows them to see another side to me, too and maybe it can serve to motivate them to want to work harder for me when they have to.

Another post dealt with textbooks and basically asked the question, "Are textbooks obsolete?" Are Traditional Textbooks Dead? I, for one, certainly hope they are not. While I think that technology certainly complements the value of textbooks, it should not replace them. I hope there will always be a need and desire for real, physical books that we can touch and feel. I know that with new hand-held devices we can pretty much take virtual books anywhere we can take traditional books, but scrolling down a tiny screen is just not the same as turning the pages of a book. Browsing in a bookstore among aisles of books and other people just can't be replaced by surfing the internet alone.

A lot of the other items that were in my reader seemed to me to very intellectual in nature and a lot of it just doesn't seem relevant to me. I will need to spend more time looking around and finding items that I think can benefit me.

Thing #10

To create this slideshow, I used Rockyou. I have to admit, I needed a LOT of help on this "thing." Thank goodness my own kids know a lot more about this stuff than I do! Anyway, it was very fun to select and arrange the photos I wanted to use. I wish I felt more comfortable doing this on my own because I think it would be very useful in the classroom and would get students' attention. I guess I will keep working to get better at using this kind of thing.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/glow__nouf/3606355263/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/justabiggeek/2678946763/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mundilfari_gjk/2760703981/


Small Taste of Summer by pxlpusher
feel the summer by kalandrakas
day 141_summer sundays by anitacanita
Summer by adwriter
Summer is Waning by Storm Crypt

Thing #9

Ok...I really loved playing around in Flickr! First of all, I love photos and the fact that there is this huge collection out there that I can use is awesome! I especially liked being able to weed out the ones I could use through creative commons. The theme I chose is (surprise!) SUMMER! I just absolutely love the summer and there were some very creative photos linked to that tag. I am still having trouble getting the pictures in this post so I will come back and add to this post later. I can see how my students could use flickr when doing stories and research projects. Last year, I looked all over the internet for photos of various types of insects when we did our research/science projects. This would be a great thing to use for that.
As you can see, I have come back in and added the pictures. I had trouble getting them to go where I wanted them. I used layout, but I still didn't really understand how to get the pictures to go where you want them exactly. Oh, well, I guess I will just have to play around with this and practice some more to get the hang of it!

Photo credits: Small Taste of Summer by pxlpusher , feel the summer by kalandrakas , day 141_summer sundays by anitacanita ,Summer by adwriter, Summer is Waning by Storm Crypt

Thing #8

This creative commons interested me very much because I spent last summer reading several books about inventions and patents and turning an idea into a business. All of the books I read dealt with average everyday moms who came up with some idea and then they ended up having their own business. While the stories of these ladies were intriguing and I loved the books, I got very frustrated whenever I would get to the parts that detailed the patent/copyright process. It was SO confusing. There were all of these legalities and some of them seemed to contradict others. Creative commons sounds wonderful and it seems to open all kinds of doors to educators but I am still unclear as to what it allows us to do. If the Creative Commons symbol is there, can we pretty much do whatever we want with the material (short of reselling it) in the classroom? And what about outside the classroom in our personal lives. I'm still a little unclear as to what all it allows. I get that it is pretty much saying that the material CAN be used but I still don't know where the boundaries end.

I am interested to see if I can find some sites with creative commons as I have never noticed this before. I'm sure that this could open up lots of possibilities for use of material in the classroom, particularly for research projects being done by students.

Thing #7

When I read Coolcat's post about commenting, I got a whole new perspective on the role of commenting. Before, I just viewed commenting as a way to voice my opinion on the topic. Coolcat explained how commenting can benefit both the writer of the original article and the commenters. I was surprised to find out the Coolcat regularly looks at the blogs of readers who leave comments and then sometimes subscribes to their blogs in return.

The other thing that interested me was the "co-comment" capability where you can set it up so that you will automatically be notified if someone responds to your comment. I have made comments before on various sites regarding current events/news stories, etc. and then checked back periodically to see if there were any responses to my comments. This would be a much easier way to keep informed. It pretty much reminds me of the way that the reader/feeder works. It just keeps you updated without having to spend a lot of time online.

I love commenting and now I see it in a whole new light.

Thing #6

Well, I am certainly starting to feel overwhelmed by all of the information out there. As I started searching for blogs to add to my reader, I have to admit I started to feel very lost. I was heading down all these different trails and couldn't always find my way back. Some of these blogs look more like magazines with articles. Others are very informal. My biggest problem seems to be in including the links to these articles/entries.

While I can definitely see the benefit of this reader, I am coming back to my original weakness of not really understanding the technicalities of everything. So, while I have added several blogs to my reader and I am able to look at them, if I want to share something I've read with someone else, I am still struggling to know how to share it. We are supposed to include a link to an entry of interest to us in this post. Here is where I am confused and I am sure that knowing how to do this task is considered very basic to most of the other people in this class.

I read a very interesting article by a man who is an independent speaker/consultant http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/. He was discussing how 40% of the American workforce is projected to be in an independent contractor role in the workplace in the near future and how the schools should be preparing students with the skills that this will require (such as time management, being a self-starter, etc.) I loved this article because I believe it is very relevant to us as teachers. We are preparing students for an entirely different workforce than the one for which we were prepared. This is the kind of practical information I feel is most useful in the classroom today.

Thing 5

The entry that I read interested me because it highlighted one of my own problems with technology...the fact that it is man-made and can be faulty. The author writes about relying too much on technology and the pitfalls that can happen whenever it fails. The entry at http://www.techlearning.com/blogs/21300 further proves my point that sometimes technology can actually cost us MORE time instead of saving time.

Thing #4

After reading some of the blog entries, I notice that they range in the formality of language used. Some of them could be newspaper articles and others look like diary entries. They really seem to depend upon the writer's purpose as to how they look and sound. They range from very simple to very complex. Most of them have a somewhat conversational quality to them, though.

I don't know that I would differentiate blog reading and writing from other types of reading and writing. It seems so diverse that I don't know that it fits into one particular genre of its own. I think it all lies in the intent of the blog author.

The comments contribute immensely to the blogs. Writers can get instant feedback on their ideas. While this can be accomplished with other types of writing (such as newspaper articles) through email responses, that does not allow other readers to see and comment on other readers' comments. Blogging and comments create a "conversation" between the writer and ALL the readers of the blog.

These are the five blog entries that I read:
5th Grade http://itc.blogs.com/patrick/2005

Teaching Brevity
http://students2oh.org/2007

Why I Don't Assign Homework
http://blog.mrmeyer.com

Questions For One of Our Favorite Authors
http://blog.woodward.edu

Spies Like Us
http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com

There were 3 blog entries in particular that stood out to me as being useful in facilitating learning. 5th Grade and Teaching Brevity were both written by students. In both of these posts, the students were reflecting on their own learning. 5th grader, Patrick, wrote about his desire to do well in school and he gave some very personal insight as to his own fears and concerns about why he was having problems and what he wanted to do about it. The comments that people wrote back to Patrick were so supportive and served to let him know that he was not alone in his feelings and that he could succeed. This was so much more motivation than just his teacher or parents could give him.

The entry entitled Teaching Brevity was very interesting to me because it was written by a 14 year old student. He really grasped the concept of writing with quality and not just quantity. Sometimes, especially with pre-teens, these ideas may not be easily expressed through conversation or even when writing a traditional paper. But, when a student knows that his thoughts are "out there for everyone to see" perhaps it pushes him/her to a higher level. Then, when their ideas are commented on by others, they receive immediate feedback and this fosters even more ideas.

The article/blog entry Questions For One of Our Favorite Authors was a very cool idea. I do author studies with my students every year. In particular, we study Patricia Polacco. We read many of her books and we watch a video of her talking to us, telling us and showing us how she gets ideas and how she writes/draws her books. She talks about her life and family. Every year my students get so excited about her because they start to feel as if they know her. This teacher takes it a step further. The students are formulating questions that they can ask this author and they get answers quickly. It becomes a conversation between the students and the author.

Thing #2 Continued

After posting my original reflection, I realized I didn't answer the specific questions asked so this post will serve that purpose:

Initial thoughts about Web 2.0 and its role in the 21st century teaching and learning:
I think that the possibilities created by this technology are fascinating and pretty much endless. I know that today's kids are certainly engaged in learning when using technology because they use it so effortlessly and it is fun for them. The challenges really belong to me as the teacher who is coming into this later in life.

Ways Web 2.0 tools might change or have changed my professional practice:
Well, my natural teaching style just doesn't include very much technology because it is so intimidating to me. It's not that I don't want to use it, but I just feel I waste more time trying to get it to work than I would spend teaching it the "old fashioned" way. If I could become more savvy at using these tools, then I know it would enhance what I do and my students would benefit.

How might I be able to use these new tools to engage today's digital learners? Why would I want to? How could I use it to support my own learning?
I feel confident enough now that I think I could create a class blog that my students could contribute to and that might encourage their parents to be engaged in their child's learning. That might make the kids take more ownership of their own learning.
I would want to do this so that it would help the parents feel like they are a part of their child's education. I know as a parent, I would have loved having access to something like this with my own kids' teachers.
I can use some of these tools to support my own learning by getting out there in the cyber-world even more. That is one thing that I already do with the limited knowledge that I have. Learning about more tools that I may not know about now will give me an even broader range of information to use in my teaching and in my own life.

Thing #2

First of all, I had a lot of trouble getting to the article I was supposed to read about 2.0. I apparently didn't have the right "stuff" on my computer to open it up so I tried downloading what I thought I needed and it still didn't work. So...I "viewed the problem as a challenge." I went to google and looked up the article elsewhere online. As I read the article, I had several thought that came to mind:

1. I felt that parts of the article were well over the head of someone like me who is technologically challenged. Terms were used without definition (such as Wiki). If you don't even know what a wiki is, then it is kind of hard to appreciate what they're talking about. I couldn't really tell if it was like a podcast or blog or what. And, if it was similar...what was the difference?

2. I am very confused about the legalities involved in filming and recording students in the classroom for these podcasts, etc. I would think there could be problems especially if this technology were used in lower grades with very young children.

3. One part of the article described a student texting information. I think this would be very difficult to oversee and abuses of this privilege seem inevitable.

4. I could definitely see how the instant access of new information from all over the world could be beneficial to teachers in planning their lessons. I wouldn't think I would ever be able to do this on a daily basis, though. All of the blogging, podcasting, problems with equipment, etc. seem as if they could be extremely time consuming. I did think the principal being able to access the teacher/classroom blogs was useful, but I didn't think it would be realistic timewise on a weekly basis as in the example.

5. The less economically advantaged students' families really wouldn't get anything out of this because they most likely wouldn't have the technology in their households that would be necessary to see the podcasts, blogs, etc.

Overall, I think that these options are great and very useful. However, I can't really see myself implementing them at the level used in the article.

Thing #1

Since I have remained relatively uneducated in the world of technology, I believe that the most challenging habit for me to employ will be to have confidence in myself as a competent learner. While I normally feel competent in my learning, technology is a real weak area for me and I am highly intimidated by it. I hope to be able to overcome this fear. Just the fact that I have created this blog is a step in the right direction, though!

The habits that will be the easiest for me during this course are definitely to begin with the end in mind and to view problems as challenges. I am a very natural goal setter and I don't give up easily.

I believe the habit that will be the most important to me as I work through this course is to use technology to my advantage. I have been afraid of technology for so long that it is a brand new mindset for me to view it as something that can work FOR me instead of something to be avoided.