Well, let me tell you how much teacher tube has come in handy for me in the classroom within the past few weeks. I have shared the Did you know video with my 8th graders. I explained to them how the world is becoming flat, and we are having wonderful conversations!
I also showed some internet safety video's to my 6th and 7th graders and also used information I found on the TechWarrior's blog. I would not have discovered this blog without twitter!!
Our school blocks the use of YouTube. There is so much stuff out there on it, that is is difficult to allow the kids the freedom with it. I have to say I feel much better that it is blocked in some ways, so I do not have to keep telling them to get off of it when they are sneaking around on the internet behind my back! Our district is very strict with the use of the internet. I can understand why, but in other ways, it does hold us back.
I enjoy podcasts, vocal or with video. It is an amazing tool that allows anyone access to the most interesting information for FREE! I have found many meditations on iTunes podcasting as well as educational information.
The newest thing to come out of the podcasting world is the iTunes U. You can find it by opening up iTunes and then going to the music store. Once at the music store, you have to click on the iTunes U section. You will then find all different Universities with many interesting lectures and information. This is where I found the Thomas Friedman information. MIT has one.
Also on iTunes is the podcasting section. Once there, there are so many different genres of information for you to discover. The education podcast is great, and hopefully someday I can have some of my classes out there sharing away! My favorite school I have learned about is the Mabry school. Read and become inspired! I know I am.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Social Bookmarking
I have to say I have been using delicious
for a long time now. I have 753 sites saved to my account right now as I type this blog!!! Yikes.. I guess you can say I have a problem. I love to "web mine". I save everything. I have absolutely no method to my madness and my tags are all over the place. I tried one day for about 2 hours to organize all of my tags, but the process is long and tedious. Feel free to take a look around my delicious account. I would love to share and become part of your social bookmarking sites. I just found a great organizing blog piece when I looked over the delicious network page. I have Jeff and Royce Robertson listed in my network right now. It is a blog about not letting your PLN (Personal Learning Network) get the best of you on 2cents worth.
I use my delicious account a lot in the classroom. I can open it up on the LCD projector and find the site I was working on that night before, because I posted it to my delicious account.
I know another computer teacher I work with uses delicious with her students. She give s them her account and they are sent there to look up different websites. This helps to prevent web surfing in her classroom. It is almost like a web field trip!
I just signed up for diigo today, just to take a look. Not sure if I want to give up my delicious account, but I think the highlighting of the website is a cool idea. Yet something else to factor into my daily computer surfing rituals!
Which one is better?? Diigo or Delicious? Anyone else use something different?
The pros are that you are saving your bookmarks to a website program and they can be accessed from anywhere anytime.. I am not sure of any cons, unless their server ever goes down and I lose everything.. I shutter to think that will ever happen.. now I am going to find a way to export those babies!
I hope you all use one of these services. It is one of my favorite web 2.0 tools yet.
for a long time now. I have 753 sites saved to my account right now as I type this blog!!! Yikes.. I guess you can say I have a problem. I love to "web mine". I save everything. I have absolutely no method to my madness and my tags are all over the place. I tried one day for about 2 hours to organize all of my tags, but the process is long and tedious. Feel free to take a look around my delicious account. I would love to share and become part of your social bookmarking sites. I just found a great organizing blog piece when I looked over the delicious network page. I have Jeff and Royce Robertson listed in my network right now. It is a blog about not letting your PLN (Personal Learning Network) get the best of you on 2cents worth.
I use my delicious account a lot in the classroom. I can open it up on the LCD projector and find the site I was working on that night before, because I posted it to my delicious account.
I know another computer teacher I work with uses delicious with her students. She give s them her account and they are sent there to look up different websites. This helps to prevent web surfing in her classroom. It is almost like a web field trip!
I just signed up for diigo today, just to take a look. Not sure if I want to give up my delicious account, but I think the highlighting of the website is a cool idea. Yet something else to factor into my daily computer surfing rituals!
Which one is better?? Diigo or Delicious? Anyone else use something different?
The pros are that you are saving your bookmarks to a website program and they can be accessed from anywhere anytime.. I am not sure of any cons, unless their server ever goes down and I lose everything.. I shutter to think that will ever happen.. now I am going to find a way to export those babies!
I hope you all use one of these services. It is one of my favorite web 2.0 tools yet.
RSS Feeds
RSS Feeds seem like a novel idea, although I find it difficult right now to wade through the waters, so to speak. There are so many that I have subscribed to, that it seems impossible to scan them all through for new updates. I am enjoying keeping the sites in one place, and I am sure the updates are a great thing, but who has the time? I see how they can be useful for education if working on a project, and keeping track of updates. I also see how the updates of information would be useful for us to keep track of who has updated their blogs.
RSS is very cool, and Alan November spoke of these RSS feeds at last year's Christa McAuliffe(you can watch the 2007 presenters talks - Will Richardson was one speaker at the 2007 conference), as the information that comes to you and you do not have to do anything! I think that is AWESOME, and I do plan on figuring it out when I can sort through it all and make sense of it. I have starred some items, I am not sure what I am doing with them. I also tried to start organizing the RSS feeds into folders so there is some method to my madness! Not so sure about that!
I have a lot of them, I can tell you that right now.. thousands of updates and I am letting them grow by the minute, without doing anything!
Once I can get my head around them, I am sure they are going to be another part of my daily ritual. I can say Twitter is becoming more of a daily ritual too..
RSS is very cool, and Alan November spoke of these RSS feeds at last year's Christa McAuliffe(you can watch the 2007 presenters talks - Will Richardson was one speaker at the 2007 conference), as the information that comes to you and you do not have to do anything! I think that is AWESOME, and I do plan on figuring it out when I can sort through it all and make sense of it. I have starred some items, I am not sure what I am doing with them. I also tried to start organizing the RSS feeds into folders so there is some method to my madness! Not so sure about that!
I have a lot of them, I can tell you that right now.. thousands of updates and I am letting them grow by the minute, without doing anything!
Once I can get my head around them, I am sure they are going to be another part of my daily ritual. I can say Twitter is becoming more of a daily ritual too..
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Connectivism
When reading George Siemens' book on connectivism,
I found it very interesting and a concept I would not think about if I was not in this class. It seems to make a lot of sense to me, that we work in a fast paced society that rely on networks of individuals to complete knowledge. I wonder if it is true for all people in our society though. Would connectivism be applicable to those individuals who are not technologically savvy? Would those same people network? Would they utilize many people to accomplish a task or research information in a way other than using technology?
On page six of Siemens book, I found it interesting that Knowing Knowledge was broken out into two different audiences. One was the educators and the other was the business world. He continues to say, "A business executive needs to understand the characteristics of knowledge that impact creating effective teams to achieve corporate strategy. An educator needs to understand the new context of knowledge in order to prepare learners for a life of learning and working with knowledge. Simply put, life is learning. If we interact with people, ideas, or concepts, (in a classroom or corporate boardroom), knowing and learning are our constant companions."
I do agree we can't keep up with the amount of information we are bombarded with on a daily basis. The media is attacking us everywhere we look with information. Television, Computers, radio, text messages, etc. We receive messages over and over through the media. It is instant. There are video blogs, pictures sent over cell phones, and our world is becoming an instantaneous mecca of knowledge and information.
It is so true how our education systems are "stuck" in the old method of attaining knowledge. They want to fill the kids brains with information and then have them spit the knowledge back out on a "test". That is not what it is like with the new technology we offer the students of today. The kids can be responsible for their own learning if they were allowed to participate in web conferences with someone like a chemist or doctor and where they were allowed to prepare questions to ask over a Skype type line. They kids would learn more if they were constructing their own learning environment using a wiki or a blog. They would have "ownership".
Working together students and adults can accomplish more. There are a lot of people who know some things. When put together, and share all of the little bits of what they know, it turns into something bigger. Working together as a network, they will remember more of the information because they were part of creating it. I think this is where we want to be in our educational system, but we are stuck. It is scary to make changes. It is scary to allow the kids to have more control and let the "teacher" become the facilitator and not the end all be all in the classroom. If this was the case, what would we test? How would we test the knowledge gained?
I think with the 21st century technology that we are trying to add to our schools, this process is beginning, but it is a ways away. I think we are headed in a direction of working in this connectivism process, but it is difficult to convey this thinking process to some.
I liked the quote on page 32, "Know where" and "know who" are more important today than knowing what and how. An information rich world requires the ability to first determine what is important and then how to stay connected and information as information changes. What is so neat, is that the kids of today are doing this and they do not even realize it. They know to look things up on the computer, share the information they found with each other over a social networking site, and then accomplish their task of sharing music, homework, etc.
I agree that we can accomplish a lot more learning if we work together.
I found it very interesting and a concept I would not think about if I was not in this class. It seems to make a lot of sense to me, that we work in a fast paced society that rely on networks of individuals to complete knowledge. I wonder if it is true for all people in our society though. Would connectivism be applicable to those individuals who are not technologically savvy? Would those same people network? Would they utilize many people to accomplish a task or research information in a way other than using technology?
On page six of Siemens book, I found it interesting that Knowing Knowledge was broken out into two different audiences. One was the educators and the other was the business world. He continues to say, "A business executive needs to understand the characteristics of knowledge that impact creating effective teams to achieve corporate strategy. An educator needs to understand the new context of knowledge in order to prepare learners for a life of learning and working with knowledge. Simply put, life is learning. If we interact with people, ideas, or concepts, (in a classroom or corporate boardroom), knowing and learning are our constant companions."
I do agree we can't keep up with the amount of information we are bombarded with on a daily basis. The media is attacking us everywhere we look with information. Television, Computers, radio, text messages, etc. We receive messages over and over through the media. It is instant. There are video blogs, pictures sent over cell phones, and our world is becoming an instantaneous mecca of knowledge and information.
It is so true how our education systems are "stuck" in the old method of attaining knowledge. They want to fill the kids brains with information and then have them spit the knowledge back out on a "test". That is not what it is like with the new technology we offer the students of today. The kids can be responsible for their own learning if they were allowed to participate in web conferences with someone like a chemist or doctor and where they were allowed to prepare questions to ask over a Skype type line. They kids would learn more if they were constructing their own learning environment using a wiki or a blog. They would have "ownership".
Working together students and adults can accomplish more. There are a lot of people who know some things. When put together, and share all of the little bits of what they know, it turns into something bigger. Working together as a network, they will remember more of the information because they were part of creating it. I think this is where we want to be in our educational system, but we are stuck. It is scary to make changes. It is scary to allow the kids to have more control and let the "teacher" become the facilitator and not the end all be all in the classroom. If this was the case, what would we test? How would we test the knowledge gained?
I think with the 21st century technology that we are trying to add to our schools, this process is beginning, but it is a ways away. I think we are headed in a direction of working in this connectivism process, but it is difficult to convey this thinking process to some.
I liked the quote on page 32, "Know where" and "know who" are more important today than knowing what and how. An information rich world requires the ability to first determine what is important and then how to stay connected and information as information changes. What is so neat, is that the kids of today are doing this and they do not even realize it. They know to look things up on the computer, share the information they found with each other over a social networking site, and then accomplish their task of sharing music, homework, etc.
I agree that we can accomplish a lot more learning if we work together.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Blogging.. What??
What do I think of blogging? What is it? Well, I am not exactly sure what blogging is completely, but I do know it is a conversation starter. It is a spark. I enjoy reading people's blogs because it motivates me to think about things that I may not have thought about before in a new and exciting way. Or, it may even educate me on things I have never thought about before. It is a tool that can be used by anyone with a computer and a few moments to set one up. A blog is great for educators, because it can share ideas and thoughts.
As a blogger, I can communicate feelings, frustrations, happy times, confusion, plain old crazy thoughts on something, and there just might be someone out there in "cyber-world" that might relate to what I was saying or feeling. It can be used in schools for students to communicate thoughts and encourage literacy. Some studies have shown that literacy in schools has improved through blogging. Here is another blog that was interesting about using them in the school setting.
I guess I think of a blog as a huge white board that is a place to communicate with others for support. I would like to think that people care out there in never never land. (g2g.. be right back! son has baseball batting cages!) I am back!
I think blogging would be a lot of fun in the classroom with my students. I do use it now through Moodle and it is called a Forum. I give the kids a topic like .. should cell phones be allowed in school? And they must write complete sentences explaining their position. Then they are required to go back and comment on three other people's posts. It is fun, although teaching proper blogging etiquette is difficult. They want to talk about what is for lunch that day or who likes who! I am having difficulty finding much on line by the way of blogging etiquette that I can share with the kids and that is trustworthy.. any ideas?
I guess the other thought I have is that it is difficult to keep up with all of the blogs out there and keep up with my own blog. I think it is something you have to train yourself to do, but it can be really rewarding. It is like a personal journal that can be looked at later on and can be reflected upon. It shows growth and experience.
I do think a blog has to have a purpose. I think if it was all over the place in thought, people may not read it.. They may become irritated and not want to communicate with the blogger. Just my thoughts.. who knows!
My favorite blogs I have encountered so far while using the google RSS are:
http://nlcommunities.com/communities/alannovember/default.aspx
http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/
http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/
http://www.techlearning.com/blog/
http://www.utechtips.com/
http://weblogg-ed.com/
http://successfulteaching.blogspot.com/
http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/blogger.html
http://www.halcyon.com/arborhts/mahlness/2008/03/tomorrow-tomorrow.html
As a blogger, I can communicate feelings, frustrations, happy times, confusion, plain old crazy thoughts on something, and there just might be someone out there in "cyber-world" that might relate to what I was saying or feeling. It can be used in schools for students to communicate thoughts and encourage literacy. Some studies have shown that literacy in schools has improved through blogging. Here is another blog that was interesting about using them in the school setting.
I guess I think of a blog as a huge white board that is a place to communicate with others for support. I would like to think that people care out there in never never land. (g2g.. be right back! son has baseball batting cages!) I am back!
I think blogging would be a lot of fun in the classroom with my students. I do use it now through Moodle and it is called a Forum. I give the kids a topic like .. should cell phones be allowed in school? And they must write complete sentences explaining their position. Then they are required to go back and comment on three other people's posts. It is fun, although teaching proper blogging etiquette is difficult. They want to talk about what is for lunch that day or who likes who! I am having difficulty finding much on line by the way of blogging etiquette that I can share with the kids and that is trustworthy.. any ideas?
I guess the other thought I have is that it is difficult to keep up with all of the blogs out there and keep up with my own blog. I think it is something you have to train yourself to do, but it can be really rewarding. It is like a personal journal that can be looked at later on and can be reflected upon. It shows growth and experience.
I do think a blog has to have a purpose. I think if it was all over the place in thought, people may not read it.. They may become irritated and not want to communicate with the blogger. Just my thoughts.. who knows!
My favorite blogs I have encountered so far while using the google RSS are:
http://nlcommunities.com/communities/alannovember/default.aspx
http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/
http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/
http://www.techlearning.com/blog/
http://www.utechtips.com/
http://weblogg-ed.com/
http://successfulteaching.blogspot.com/
http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/blogger.html
http://www.halcyon.com/arborhts/mahlness/2008/03/tomorrow-tomorrow.html
Monday, March 10, 2008
First Thoughts (post 2)
Where do I begin. I have to say I am a little overwhelmed with all of this new information! I am not sure how to schedule the time to read the blogs, and participate in other blogs as well as keep my own blog. I am not sure about this Twitter.. but I will figure it out! I am really excited to read the books and learn more about how to bring in the wiki's and other web 2.0 items into my school. The issue I see is how to get things published to the "world" so to speak! In the preface of the Blog, Wiki book, it mentions how it is somewhat of a challenge to convince people to allow the kids to put their work out for everyone to see! I am going to keep working on it and hopefully things might change.
I feel like I am spinning around like a top.. excited.. but not knowing what to focus on first! This technology world we live in is changing so quickly and I am a technology teacher. I do not know nearly enough about all of the technology available to me! I did read a good thing on one of the educational blogs.. and it was to slow down and try to learn just one new thing a week!
I look forward to this class and working together with other people. I love to share!!! As long as everyone is a good "sharer" !! :) Enthusiasm is contagious!
If someone could share their organizational secrets with me, that would help me a lot! I want to learn a lot.. but right now! Who wants to be patient?
I feel like I am spinning around like a top.. excited.. but not knowing what to focus on first! This technology world we live in is changing so quickly and I am a technology teacher. I do not know nearly enough about all of the technology available to me! I did read a good thing on one of the educational blogs.. and it was to slow down and try to learn just one new thing a week!
I look forward to this class and working together with other people. I love to share!!! As long as everyone is a good "sharer" !! :) Enthusiasm is contagious!
If someone could share their organizational secrets with me, that would help me a lot! I want to learn a lot.. but right now! Who wants to be patient?
Sunday, March 9, 2008
School 2.0 thoughts (post 1)
Well, After reading over the web 2.0 for supporting schools, I think of the class I took with Royce, LET - Leadership, Education and Technology. The thought process is a lot of the same ideas I worked with in that class. It is a constant circle that revolves around the 360 degree methodology. It takes all three things to make technology in a school district work. It takes the leadership (superintendent, principals, school board) to interact with the Educational piece (Teachers) and the Technology (systems, networks, computers, etc...) in order to make it all work out in the best possible way for the kids. Kids first! It really does take an entire community to buy into the ideas that technology is an important educational experience for our young students of today. After watching the video "Did you know", it really makes you open your eyes and hopefully helps to open other people's eyes, just how rapidly our world is changing today. It is because of the internet and the immense connectivity world wide, where we can work in the comfort of our own homes. Using web 2.0 tools in our schools only makes sense. It makes sense monetarily because most of everything we want to use is FREE! There are no more contracts with Apple for support. We can download free open ware and not be too concerned with reliability. So far so good with all kinds of free software! I LOVE it! How can it be looked at as anything but the right thing to do in our schools? Collaborating with other children around the world would be something our students would remember for the rest of their lives. Also, using these tools only can improve the kids skills technologically as well as academically. Blogging and using wiki's are a great way to engage kids in the classroom. I use Moodle now, and the kids enjoy the forum feature (blogging) and it is a lot of fun. The only issue I have is teaching some "blogging etiquette"!! I hope to use a lot more of the web 2.0's in the future! So many things to learn and I am sure more and more are coming out each day.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Web 2.0 Very Cool!
I used SKYPE for the very first time last night and I can't believe how COOL it is! I love it! I am so excited for the class I am taking.. I am learning so much and reading so much.. my head is spinning! I can't believe I was talking to Jeff in China for Free!!! How exciting. I can't wait to try and use some of this technology in my class next trimester. I hope to collaborate with some of the students from Jeff's school. I think the kids would love it .. I know they love to blog on Moodle.. so I know this would be a really great way to show the kids what the web 2.0 world is really like! So fun! I am excited to continue in my class and read some of the books I just ordered on line. Today the kids in class were working on their PSA for either anti-violence or anti-smoking with the Media Smarts program. Some of them are bored by this project. They do not like to do the research. I think it would be a lot more interesting to them if we could talk to someone about this on SKYPE in the classroom. That might peak their interest! I will keep plugging on and hopefully little changes can happen.. slowly but hopefully something can change.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Today - March 2nd
Well, today was a busy day in the life of one hockey mom! Both kids were in the NH State tournament this weekend.. One in North Conway and one in Dover. I went with my daughter to the North Conway tournament while my husband stayed with my son and went to the Dover tournament. He is an assistant coach for my son's team. Emma's team lost the first game and tied the second game, so they did not advance to the semi's.... So, I drove from North Conway this morning at 7:30 am to make it to the Dover Arena for Matthew's 8:45 am game. Needless to say, Matthew lost his game 2-1 and it was very disappointing for everyone. I am home now.. working on my new class that started this weekend.. while I just finished a 20 page paper for the last class that just ended Friday.. Arggg.. I wonder why I have a headache! Oh by the way.. my oldest daughter was in Worcester, MA for a dance competition with a friend.. Couldn't be in three places at once.. Oh my.. three kids.. two parents.. never works out the way you think it might!
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