Well, my head is certainly still spinning from all this new information! I have learned so much throughout this course. At times, I wanted to quit because I was so overwhelmed, but it was worth hanging in there. Every time I finished a "thing" I felt such a great feeling of accomplishment.
I think the two most valuable things I will take away from this course are:
The ability to create and maintain a blog-I definitely want to have a classroom blog, now that I know how easy this can be. It may not be fancy, but I at least want to have something that parents and students can take part in.
The freedom from the fear of technology. Now, at least I know the value of getting out there and exploring. Some of this I won't use, but now I know how to go through and weed out the stuff I don't want and find some things I can use.
Even though I am officially finished with this course, there are many things that I want to go back to and explore in more detail, taking my time. There is just so much available that I think I need to wade back in and start investigating one thing at a time in more detail.
Joining classroom2.0 and keeping up with my rss reader will be two ways that I will try to keep current with new tools and using the tools I have already learned about through this course.
All in all, this has been a great experience for me. It has brought me into a brand new world that I hope can add some spice to my classroom this year and in the years to come. I am already telling family members and friends about some of the tools I have learned to use and I have found out that I wasn't the only one who didn't know about some of this stuff so I feel sort of empowered now. Hopefully, I can continue to learn more and use more every day.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Thing #23
Wow, I had no idea all these social networking sites were out there. There is just so much available that you hardly know where to start. I do like knowing that these sites that are geared more specifically towards educational professionals are there for us to explore. I think that will be much more valuable to me in my profession than facebook, though I like that one for my personal life. In browsing through all the various sites, it was interesting to me to see all the various educators reaching out to other educators to collaborate with them on various things. I noticed that most of the ones I saw seemed to be teachers of middle or high schoolers, but there were a couple of 5th/6th grade teachers, too. I am still having a hard time finding much for us who teach the lower grades k-4. Maybe because incorporating this type of online collaboration for younger students is more a strain on the teacher's time throughout the whole process, whereas teachers of older students can kind of get everything set up and then eventually just facilitate the students' use of the sites. For the youngest students, I think it is going to be more labor and time intensive on the teacher.Still, all the knowledge out there from other teachers around the world can be very helpful to me as I stumble through this world of technology and try to incorporate it little by little into my classroom.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Thing #22
Okay! Finally something that I already know about! I recently set up my facebook account and I absolutely LOVE it. It is so simple to use and lots of fun. It is a quick and easy way to keep up with people (both the ones that I see all the time and the ones that I never or rarely see). When I set up my account, immediately I started finding people through mutual friends. It works like a spider web. Everyone is connected through someone else! I like the fact that you have to confirm people as a "friend" before they are connected to you, though. This is a nice feature.
The little games and quizzes make for interesting conversations, too. It's really fun to see how people do and what you have in common. I love seeing pictures of people and their families.
For me, Facebook is just not nearly as difficult/intimidating as myspace. I just always kind of thought of myspace as a site for younger people so I never really got involved with it. Facebook, though is just fun and easy.
Check me out on facebook at http://facebook.com/km817
It is amazing to me how many famous people have facebook and myspace accounts. Obviously, they probably aren't reading and responding to all the "friends" that are on there, but it is interesting to see what they write. I've noticed that lots of radio talk shows and tv talk shows also now have facebook accounts along with twitter. There are just so many applications for this kind of connecting.
I never really thought about how I could use facebook in my teaching. I'm not sure that I would want to do that. I really like keeping it in my personal world. It is a good way, though to keep in contact with people who maybe you have taught with that move away or something like that.
I guess it wouldn't bother me if a parent wanted to connect with me on facebook. I just don't really see a need for it. For me, it serves as a personal tool.
The little games and quizzes make for interesting conversations, too. It's really fun to see how people do and what you have in common. I love seeing pictures of people and their families.
For me, Facebook is just not nearly as difficult/intimidating as myspace. I just always kind of thought of myspace as a site for younger people so I never really got involved with it. Facebook, though is just fun and easy.
Check me out on facebook at http://facebook.com/km817
It is amazing to me how many famous people have facebook and myspace accounts. Obviously, they probably aren't reading and responding to all the "friends" that are on there, but it is interesting to see what they write. I've noticed that lots of radio talk shows and tv talk shows also now have facebook accounts along with twitter. There are just so many applications for this kind of connecting.
I never really thought about how I could use facebook in my teaching. I'm not sure that I would want to do that. I really like keeping it in my personal world. It is a good way, though to keep in contact with people who maybe you have taught with that move away or something like that.
I guess it wouldn't bother me if a parent wanted to connect with me on facebook. I just don't really see a need for it. For me, it serves as a personal tool.
Thing #7b
Well, I have to admit, I have not been good about checking my reader on a daily basis. I just don't seem to have the time to do it. But I have been checking it about once a week and a couple of things have come up of interest from time to time.
For this assignment, I had to look a little harder because I wanted to find something that could be useful in my classroom. I think I did that because I read an article about lots of new online tools that are available for teachers http://kpericles.edublogs.org/2009/06/29/edubloggercon-necc09/
One in particular looked very interesting. It can be found at http://issuu.com/ and what it does is take any document and turns it into an online book complete with turning pages. This could be used to take student work and turn it into an online book to be enjoyed by students, parents, and other classes.
So, checking my reader did pay off in giving me more tools and information that I can use. I just need to get into the habit of checking it more often.
For this assignment, I had to look a little harder because I wanted to find something that could be useful in my classroom. I think I did that because I read an article about lots of new online tools that are available for teachers http://kpericles.edublogs.org/2009/06/29/edubloggercon-necc09/
One in particular looked very interesting. It can be found at http://issuu.com/ and what it does is take any document and turns it into an online book complete with turning pages. This could be used to take student work and turn it into an online book to be enjoyed by students, parents, and other classes.
So, checking my reader did pay off in giving me more tools and information that I can use. I just need to get into the habit of checking it more often.
Thing #21
Google, google, google! Who knew that you could do so much through google? When I was growing up, I first heard the word "google" from my brother. He had learned it in math class and it meant "the largest number". He was always going around saying that he was going to be a "multi-google-aire" when he grew up. Well, that never happened, but the concept of google certainly did become a huge part of our everyday lives.
Some of these things, I had seen and even used before but never really considered that they were a part of google. Picasa Web albums, for example. I had heard of it but didn't know it was connected to google in any way. I think that Picasa and Flickr will be two of the applications that I will end up using the most from this experience.
Of course, I have used google maps before and my husband has loved google earth ever since it came out! He spent hours on it looking up all kinds of places. He was just fascinated with it.
Today, the ones that I chose to explore were the blog search (where you can type in a subject and find blogs relating to that topic), knol (basically blogs where you can write about subjects you know a lot about), google sketchup (where you can create and share 3-D models), and in the google labs I looked at City Tours and Similar Images. I was interested in google notebook, but it had been discontinued to new users. I also played around with the calendar and actually created a personal calendar for myself. That was very cool. I think that might be a good thing to share amonst a grade level where all the teachers of a grade level can add things onto the calendar. This would make it easier to remember upcoming events for newsletters, etc.
The knol and similar images were the most interesting to me. As I have gone through this course and we have had to find various blogs of interest, I have had a lot of trouble finding things that I relate to. I can see how this application would weed out the ones I am looking for so much easier. You just type in your subject and it pulls up all the blogs that relate to that subject. This would be so helpful in the classroom when trying to find information on a subject.
Similar images finds pictures that are similar to the ones you are looking at. It is very similar to just doing a search on flickr, but it would probably include more possibilities because it pulls up things that are similar in lots of ways.
I will be using lots of these google tools in my professional and personal life now that I know about them.
Some of these things, I had seen and even used before but never really considered that they were a part of google. Picasa Web albums, for example. I had heard of it but didn't know it was connected to google in any way. I think that Picasa and Flickr will be two of the applications that I will end up using the most from this experience.
Of course, I have used google maps before and my husband has loved google earth ever since it came out! He spent hours on it looking up all kinds of places. He was just fascinated with it.
Today, the ones that I chose to explore were the blog search (where you can type in a subject and find blogs relating to that topic), knol (basically blogs where you can write about subjects you know a lot about), google sketchup (where you can create and share 3-D models), and in the google labs I looked at City Tours and Similar Images. I was interested in google notebook, but it had been discontinued to new users. I also played around with the calendar and actually created a personal calendar for myself. That was very cool. I think that might be a good thing to share amonst a grade level where all the teachers of a grade level can add things onto the calendar. This would make it easier to remember upcoming events for newsletters, etc.
The knol and similar images were the most interesting to me. As I have gone through this course and we have had to find various blogs of interest, I have had a lot of trouble finding things that I relate to. I can see how this application would weed out the ones I am looking for so much easier. You just type in your subject and it pulls up all the blogs that relate to that subject. This would be so helpful in the classroom when trying to find information on a subject.
Similar images finds pictures that are similar to the ones you are looking at. It is very similar to just doing a search on flickr, but it would probably include more possibilities because it pulls up things that are similar in lots of ways.
I will be using lots of these google tools in my professional and personal life now that I know about them.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thing #20
Well, I was out of my comfort zone again with this task. I have just never been very good at using all the options available on these wordprocessing applications. I pretty much stick to the basics and haven't really spent very much time exploring the various capabilities even though I know they are very useful. For the assignment, I created an extremely simple form that I actually designed about 3 years ago that I use daily in my classroom to keep my guided reading groups organized. http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgnrmc7n_1dbww6wc4&hl=en#Rename I'm not really sure that I did this correctly. I was trying to make a form that could be filled in online by me and other teachers working with the groups. I may have used the wrong type of document for that, but that was my idea, anyway.
One year, I had two title one teachers helping me with my reading groups and we rotated groups. Having this form on googledocs would have allowed each of us to easily add our comments/notes onto the form as we each worked with the groups.
I could see especially older students (like my own children) using this application to work on papers both at school and at home without having to save them to disks or use a flashdrive.
This would also be an excellent way to work on a group project with other teachers and students allowing their input. While I am very rusty at Power Point, I could see working together to make presentations because there could be lots of input from others (pictures that I might not have that others do have, etc.).
Again, this is another application that could be used in collaborative story writing. It would just entail a lot of time on the part of the teacher to show students how to use it correctly. I don't think I am at that point yet, personally.
For teachers like me who teach the younger grades, most of the group type work would create lots of extra work for me, not the students. I might think about using something like this to enhance the experience for gifted students. Because this is so time-consuming for someone like me with limited knowledge, it is something that I might only experiment with once or twice during the school year, but I am glad to know about it. I think for me this will prove more valuable in my private life than in my teaching.
One year, I had two title one teachers helping me with my reading groups and we rotated groups. Having this form on googledocs would have allowed each of us to easily add our comments/notes onto the form as we each worked with the groups.
I could see especially older students (like my own children) using this application to work on papers both at school and at home without having to save them to disks or use a flashdrive.
This would also be an excellent way to work on a group project with other teachers and students allowing their input. While I am very rusty at Power Point, I could see working together to make presentations because there could be lots of input from others (pictures that I might not have that others do have, etc.).
Again, this is another application that could be used in collaborative story writing. It would just entail a lot of time on the part of the teacher to show students how to use it correctly. I don't think I am at that point yet, personally.
For teachers like me who teach the younger grades, most of the group type work would create lots of extra work for me, not the students. I might think about using something like this to enhance the experience for gifted students. Because this is so time-consuming for someone like me with limited knowledge, it is something that I might only experiment with once or twice during the school year, but I am glad to know about it. I think for me this will prove more valuable in my private life than in my teaching.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Thing #19
Well, if I am understanding this correctly, voicethread is kind of a combination of a slideshow and a podcast that you can interact with by posting audio or written comments. I loved looking through these. There was one where a child had drawn a picture of a "dragon man" and people left audio and written comments about the drawing. I can just imagine how cool that would be to a child to actually hear what people had to say about his drawing. That would be something neat to do on a classroom blog where parents and fellow students could go in and leave comments about student work. I think it would help make parents and other relatives feel very involved if they had this capability. I can envision a grandmother living in another state getting to go in and see her grandchild's work and then being able to leave an audio comment on it. What a very neat idea!
The one voicethread that I particularly enjoyed and could see myself using was the one about "measuring volume in weird amounts". http://voicethread.com/#q+science.b10243.i70631
(I am still trying to figure out how to get the actual video to show here. I'll come back to this post once I know how to do this.)
The one voicethread that I particularly enjoyed and could see myself using was the one about "measuring volume in weird amounts". http://voicethread.com/#q+science.b10243.i70631
(I am still trying to figure out how to get the actual video to show here. I'll come back to this post once I know how to do this.)
Thing #18
I love youtube! I have spent lots of time looking at various things on this site in the past, particularly finding average, everyday people playing music. I love to see all the undiscovered talent out there and what a way to show others what you can do!
I have seen the group that goes around staging the "freezes" in crowded places before on tv. They are truly amazing and that video is very entertaining to watch as you see the reactions of passersby.
The teachertube site is something that a teacher friend told me about this past school year and I have been there to look at things before. I had trouble this time trying to get it to work, but I guess it could have been a busy time of day so I will try again later. I am already familiar with this site and it is very good.
I could really see how (particulary) the higher grades (middle and high school) could use this. I know my own teenagers love youtube and are always looking stuff up on there. There was a video about Ben Franklin that would be interesting to all students ( I think this one was on teachertube). The main thing about youtube, as was already explained, is to make sure the comments don't get viewed by the students. Even the most tame videos included profanity in the comments, unfortunately.
Here is a link to my all-time favorite youtube video. You will especially enjoy this if you have raised sons (I have 3) or if you had brothers (I had 3 of those, too!):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhcA4Ry65FU
I have seen the group that goes around staging the "freezes" in crowded places before on tv. They are truly amazing and that video is very entertaining to watch as you see the reactions of passersby.
The teachertube site is something that a teacher friend told me about this past school year and I have been there to look at things before. I had trouble this time trying to get it to work, but I guess it could have been a busy time of day so I will try again later. I am already familiar with this site and it is very good.
I could really see how (particulary) the higher grades (middle and high school) could use this. I know my own teenagers love youtube and are always looking stuff up on there. There was a video about Ben Franklin that would be interesting to all students ( I think this one was on teachertube). The main thing about youtube, as was already explained, is to make sure the comments don't get viewed by the students. Even the most tame videos included profanity in the comments, unfortunately.
Here is a link to my all-time favorite youtube video. You will especially enjoy this if you have raised sons (I have 3) or if you had brothers (I had 3 of those, too!):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhcA4Ry65FU
Thing 17
There was so much to take in on this podcasting assignment, I am going to have to spend more time exploring all the different ones available. I ended up subscribing to http://www.justonemorebook.com/ . I thought this one could prove to be useful in a 2nd grade classroom. I know there are others like this out there because a colleague of mine has used podcasts of authors reading and discussing their books in conjunction with her promethean board to introduce various works to her 2nd grade students. I had already decided that this is something I definitely wanted to incorporate into my classroom this year. Now, I am a little more familiar with navigating around to try and find different podcasts to use.
I previewed several of the suggested podcasts: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/. I particularly liked the podcast on this site called money girl. I also looked at the Jamestown podcast project- http://www.apsva.us/155420829102140303/site/default.asp?. I thought this one was very interesting the way they included even the lower grades in creating podcasts. There was one where each student had written a book about a famous American. The students' books were read aloud by the students as the pages were shown on the podcast. I did wonder how much time it would take to create something like this with anywhere from 20-23 students, but it was a very cool project that I think kids would love.
I looked at the teachers teaching teachers podcasts http://teachersteachingteachers.org/. These seemed to be way over my head and not really something that I think I could benefit from right now. Additionally, it looked like most of the subjects involved high school level teachers so most of this would not really apply to me.
The Bob and Rob Show http://www.thebobandrobshow.com/website/index.php was really cute and I think kids would like it. Again, much of it seemed to be aimed at older kids and adults, but the idea of these two guys teaching English in a humorous way was good.
I have had limited exposure to podcasts before through watching things with my own kids, though not educational type podcasts. This was an eye-opening experience that there are actually podcasts out there that could be helpful to me in the classroom. As I said, I can see myself exploring some of the ones that involve children's literature to peak the students' interest in reading. I would like to spend more time looking into this.
I previewed several of the suggested podcasts: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/. I particularly liked the podcast on this site called money girl. I also looked at the Jamestown podcast project- http://www.apsva.us/155420829102140303/site/default.asp?. I thought this one was very interesting the way they included even the lower grades in creating podcasts. There was one where each student had written a book about a famous American. The students' books were read aloud by the students as the pages were shown on the podcast. I did wonder how much time it would take to create something like this with anywhere from 20-23 students, but it was a very cool project that I think kids would love.
I looked at the teachers teaching teachers podcasts http://teachersteachingteachers.org/. These seemed to be way over my head and not really something that I think I could benefit from right now. Additionally, it looked like most of the subjects involved high school level teachers so most of this would not really apply to me.
The Bob and Rob Show http://www.thebobandrobshow.com/website/index.php was really cute and I think kids would like it. Again, much of it seemed to be aimed at older kids and adults, but the idea of these two guys teaching English in a humorous way was good.
I have had limited exposure to podcasts before through watching things with my own kids, though not educational type podcasts. This was an eye-opening experience that there are actually podcasts out there that could be helpful to me in the classroom. As I said, I can see myself exploring some of the ones that involve children's literature to peak the students' interest in reading. I would like to spend more time looking into this.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Thing #16
Librarything reminded me very much of doing a search in Amazon.com except that it wasn't actually selling books here. I did a search of an author and non-fiction books that I have read and enjoyed. I found the site to be very informative. There have been times when I thought about getting a book that I may have heard about somewhere and this would allow me to preview the book before buying. I also thought the capability to sometimes get free books in order to review them was a neat idea.
I tried the suggester and the unsuggester. While I know that nothing is foolproof, I really thought the unsuggester was way off. While a couple of the books made sense to "unsuggest". Some really had no noticeable connection at all to the original book. Therefore, I didn't really see how they could use the book I was interested in to decide I wouldn't like this other particular book. For example, I looked up a Christian perspective personal finance book that I have read and enjoyed. While the unsuggester did include one book called Shopaholic that was obviously the opposite to my original book, it also unsuggested several Christian books and a book totally unrelated, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I can see how this option would be useful, but it had a lot of quirks to it.
I also noticed that the site included some book-selling and book swap sites. One of them is one that I use all the time, alibris.com. The ability to form groups and have book discussions through this site could be very useful. I have been in several book clubs and this would allow home-bound people to take part in those if they had internet access.
I tried the suggester and the unsuggester. While I know that nothing is foolproof, I really thought the unsuggester was way off. While a couple of the books made sense to "unsuggest". Some really had no noticeable connection at all to the original book. Therefore, I didn't really see how they could use the book I was interested in to decide I wouldn't like this other particular book. For example, I looked up a Christian perspective personal finance book that I have read and enjoyed. While the unsuggester did include one book called Shopaholic that was obviously the opposite to my original book, it also unsuggested several Christian books and a book totally unrelated, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I can see how this option would be useful, but it had a lot of quirks to it.
I also noticed that the site included some book-selling and book swap sites. One of them is one that I use all the time, alibris.com. The ability to form groups and have book discussions through this site could be very useful. I have been in several book clubs and this would allow home-bound people to take part in those if they had internet access.
Thing #15
Well, this was, without a doubt, the hardest thing I have done so far. I played around with this WIKI on and off for about 3 days and hit one brick wall after another. I had lots of trouble with the very first step (the table of contents) and I finally figured out that there were two different symbols on my keyboard for the brackets and I was using the wrong one. When I finally used the correct one, it worked, but by that time I was so frustrated that I really didn't enjoy this project that much. I would probably only use this tool if it was extremely simplified like some of the ones we saw on the last thing.
I also had trouble putting my slideshow into the wiki. Apparently, since I didn't give my e-mail account on the Rockyou site, my slideshow was not saved anywhere and so I had to go in and create a whole new one. Then, I couldn't figure out how to get the slideshow to just come up on the wiki page so I finally just put the link and it did work when I clicked on it so I hope that will be good enough to get credit.
I had trouble figuring out how to get back and forth to different things I was trying to use to complete the page and I kept getting lost.
All in all, this was just an extremely frustrating experience for me as a newbie and I don't really think that I would be able to use something so time-consuming in the classroom. As I said, I could still see using some of the simpler ones that used like a template. I probably won't completely give up on wikis, but I will need to start with baby steps. I know this one probably seemed like baby steps to more proficient people, but it was very difficult for me.
Here is my page in all its glory! :) Summerlearning
I also had trouble putting my slideshow into the wiki. Apparently, since I didn't give my e-mail account on the Rockyou site, my slideshow was not saved anywhere and so I had to go in and create a whole new one. Then, I couldn't figure out how to get the slideshow to just come up on the wiki page so I finally just put the link and it did work when I clicked on it so I hope that will be good enough to get credit.
I had trouble figuring out how to get back and forth to different things I was trying to use to complete the page and I kept getting lost.
All in all, this was just an extremely frustrating experience for me as a newbie and I don't really think that I would be able to use something so time-consuming in the classroom. As I said, I could still see using some of the simpler ones that used like a template. I probably won't completely give up on wikis, but I will need to start with baby steps. I know this one probably seemed like baby steps to more proficient people, but it was very difficult for me.
Here is my page in all its glory! :) Summerlearning
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