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.)
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