August 30, 2010
Thing 23
Well. Where do I start. This has been a very interesting and at times frustrating experience. There were several times I felt like just giving up because it seemed to take too long for me to understand how to do something. Thankfully each time I felt like that I kept going and during the process discovered some incredible things that until I took this course were unknown to me completely. I never know Flckr existed or how to use Google Reader. I just learned I can make a phone call from Google reader. There are 8 other Science teachers at my school and I know a few of them would use the tools that I discovered during this course. I plan to encourage them to take this course during that next time it is offered. The only thing I did not realize is how much I would really have to work to get some good out of it. (Nothing worthwhile is easy as they say) My favorite activity was creating the Wiki and I now understand why our librarian loves them so much. In the Wiki creating the slide show was the best thing. Rock You and PhotoPeach were very easy to use. I plan to create one for our Science projects this year at least once. If I can get the approval I will have my students create one for a science activity to. I had never heard of Delicious and after learning how to use it I won’t have to bookmark every computer I use to get to the web pages that I like . I like Edublogs even with the ads but I know it is much better with out them. I can not forget Google docs because I have enrolled in a class the will require me to edit documents from people that don’t live in the same town that I do and that tool can save us a lot of e-mails and time. I hope the pages stay up and open all year because I will need to review how to use things through out the year. I enjoyed the opportunity to learn during the WEB 2.0 class and I am glad it exists for people like me who really did not know much about the technology that is out there for free for educators to use and share with others.
August 6, 2010
Thing 22
Discovered Social Networking was a lot more than Face-book or Twitter. I explored and thought about joining the beginner WEB 2.0 site and probably will because I don’t think I can remember all of the stuff for wikis and so on. There was a good site just for Middle School Science teachers in the Groups section. It has links to discussions forums and some blogs for integrating WEB.2.0 and a other technology into Science and Math lessons. This is going to be useful since my classroom is across from a very tech savvy Math teacher. I found a picture of a lab we do every year at AJH f or 8th grade Science. That has given me some ideas to get students motivated to do better work during a lab. The promise of being on the Web might work to motivate some of the reluctant learners. The Events page is informative and useful. The wiki is cool and maybe I will join that too. There is so much good stuff here I found a conference for learning about teaching and working with children with some levels of Autism and other special need including vision impairment that I am sure that will help other teachers and specialist in those areaa that work in our school district. On the Ning page under list of networks I found a link to the iTeach mobile page with forums about using cellphones, iPods, iPhones Nintendo DS and other gaming devises in education might work at some point for me since I have an iPhone and almost all students have at least one of these devices. There is a link to the new site for iTeach and it is very high tech to me the material form the old page is there and it is easy to join so I did but you have to go to forums to find the carry over from Ning. I could have stayed much longer here and I plan to return often.
July 28, 2010
Thing 7c
I found a neat tool on Free Technology for Teachers that has videos to show teachers how to use a lot of tools on the web tools. The site is Learn It In5 . There are videos on how to use Skype, Diigo, Voicethread, Wikis, Podcasts, Google Reader and much more. the videos step you through each thing and the goal is to give a teacher a lesson in 5 minutes or less that they can follow . I found a set of iPhone apps for kids on HowStuffWorks it is called 10 Cool iPhone Apps for Kids.
When the students get to landslides The How Landslides Work a useful tool from HowStuffWorks website.
Thing 20
This was not a bad experience since sharing documents is something I have avoided but after the lesson and the Things to do I was mistaken in what I thought about it. I see how It can help with group presentations that we do at work each year for our campus book studies. I always have to ask teachers about student grades a that I do not teach because I am a Special Education teacher and I have to keep tabs on a large number of students. I can create a spreadsheet with my students listed and keep up with any missed assignments, grades, discipline issues quickly and faster than the way I do it now. This would help our department to share data based information without having to sit in a meeting to view it or having to send multiple e-mails. Students could work together using Google docs and I could view and critique their work on line instead of waiting for the papers to come in. It is a tool to communicate with parents and other teachers also.
July 26, 2010
Thing 19
TeacherTube is great and unfortunately YouTube is blocked at my school most of the time. I have used teacher tube YouTube for a presentation on a book study that was done at my school last year and would use it again. YouTube has much more information but I will take what I can from Teacher tube about moon phases for 8th grade science and the changing surface of the earth with examples of volcanoes, mountain and island forming from a site with that info about plate tectonics.
Thing 18
Well got the Podcast done. Things did not go very easily. I had to upload it to iTunes then convert the file to MP3 and save it to my desktop to get it to load into the podcast website 4 times before I got it right. But I know how to do it now that way. I think i will load vocabulary words in a pod cast for science.
Thing 17
Pod casting for the classroom is a tool that I would use after reviewing the pod casts available for my students . I found several Science pod casts that had inappropriate language and or content for Jr. High students. The Science content was valid but there was no review and one came with a disclaimer about the content . Our school librarian uses Podcast to introduce new books that come to the Library. I can see using a Podcast to tell students some Science Facts or as a short review list for a chapter or lesson. Podcasts can also be used to communicate with parents about how projects are graded in addition to any other information they might have. It could be a daily vocabulary word and definition source. I know the ideas that I have written about are merely the beginning of the ways Pod casting can be used in class. I will keep it in mind for future use.
I have downloaded Podcasts without iTunes and played them with no trouble with my generic mp3 player so using iTunes is not the only way to do it but it is somewhat more user friendly.
July 22, 2010
Thing 16
Library Thing is a good way to find more books you might like but have not already read. I plan to show it to the school librarian. We have a book club for students and they will probably enjoy using it to communicate with each other and to find other avid readers. We have a teacher book club at school and I will share it with them. I can’ see anything specific to 8th grade Science except maybe some Science Fiction reading for students that have that interest. I could use it as a source of books for extended learning for students needing targeted reading on specific subjects.
Thing 15
Delicious was interesting. At first I thought it was too hard to understand until I found out I could use my Yahoo ID to get on. That made me feel a lot less intimidated. I moved around in the page then finally got the hang of tagging then going back to the original delicious page. There are a few sites that would be useful to share with other teachers and perhaps some students if our school district is agreeable to that. This is the link to my account. The site is not as user friendly as I would like but I got the hang of it after a few tries. There are many more things to look up. The idea that I won’t have to bookmark everything on each computer I use is great. That has been a pain in the past plus no more e-mailing web sites to myself. I think it is something that teachers or anyone else would like once they get the hang of it and use it a few times.
7b
I read how the Amazon Kindle works last night. Its is wireless, can be bookmarked, can be highlighted, allows note taking and it’s light in weight. What a revolution using it for classroom books would be. I am wondering how it compares to the iPad. I’m plan to look up the apps for the iPad and the iPod touch to see if they have one with a similar function. They might be easier to introduce to the class since many students have iPhones or an iPod touch .
I found another article about electronic st icky notes that look like regular sticky notes except they get stuck on a special electronic pad that is saved electronically forever. The notes sorted in a logical order and grouped together to reflect similar topics like an electronic to-do list that cant get lost
