Category Archives: technology

Reflecting on Web 2.0 and where We Are going

I read blogs. I read constantly. I read while I am watching TV at night and before I go to sleep. I read in the morning while I am drinking that first cup of coffee and getting ready to start the day. There is so much to read and every day it seems like I find a new resource on the internet. I search, I check out other blogger’s blogrolls, I create google alerts to help keep up.
It seems to me that while the points of view are varied, the themes are similar and so much work is being duplicated. It takes passion and reflection for the amount of writing that gets done and while I love blogging, I can’t help but wonder if this is just a step in a process that will at some point make all these little sparks of light come together in a more cohesive manner.

The majority of blogs that I read are written by educators but when I step back, the picture looks more like a great, spread out class of students, all trying to move ahead but because of the size and distance and time – the direction is unclear and the pieces are hard to put together.

It’s wonderful that we have so many choices for web 2.0 tools but paradoxically those same choices seem to slow the journey. As soon as I think I’m getting the feel for a new tool there is another one to learn. I’m grateful that there are voices out there willing to share what they are learning but I can’t help but think it is all part of a transition and that we aren’t quite “there” yet. I’m not even sure what “there” is.

The collaboration that goes into wikis is a step and the blogs that have guest bloggers or are written by several people is a step. The conversations that grow with the comments and links back to other posts on other blogs are a step. Online conferences are another piece. It just seems like we should be moving towards something that gathers these pieces into a less unwieldy unit.

RSS has taken us to a new level where we can pick and choose what information comes to us and because of it, the information gets there so much faster and easily than it used to. Tags are also a part of the process. I can’t help but think that at some point we will have a more efficient system of grouping the information as it comes to us in a way that allows us to see where work has already been done or is being done simultaneously so that we can quickly see what needs to be built on or tweaked to fit our particular school or situation.

How many of the new web 2.0 tools will be around in a year? Five years? Ten? Look back five years and try to remember where your school was on the technology adoption timeline. We’ve come a long way kids and we are moving forward faster all the time. How can we share more efficiently? If we are heading somewhere – where will that be? What will information literacy look like in the near future? What will happen to primary sources if the writing that takes place is mainly on the internet? Do you as a blogger keep hard copies of posts?

Help Site Done Right!

I spend a lot of time looking for answers to computer questions on the internet and I usually find what I’m looking for but help websites are not usually fun. Technology Ninja is a great resource with a definite coolness factor. It is only for Macs and I will be spending some time looking around there. I wish there were similar sites for Windows and Linux.

The site has a very dramatic color scheme and a very cute Ninja character that oversees the question and answer format. You can access the archives through the category list on the sidebar or use the searchbox to search by keyword.

It looks like students ask most of the questions and I can see how this would be valuable in a one-to-one computer situation.

The site is actually a blog so you can subscribe and read the latest questions and answers in your feed reader but it is worth it just to go look around on the website.

Google Does Some New and Not So New Tricks

I went to my personalized Google homepage this morning just like every morning. My “must-reads” are there as well as a quick peek at my Gmail inbox, and the day’s weather report. There was a new present from Google this morning! Themes for my page. I confess to liking pretty wallpaper, screensavers, and themes so this was a fun new toy. The themes seem to be customized for your zipcode – they get darker at night or with bad weather.

Google advanced search also does something that was new at least to me – you can specify usage rights! The choices are – not filtered by usage, free to use or share, free to use or share – even commercially, free to use – share – or modify, free to use – share – modify – even commercially. This is a great thing to share with your students, I would advise that they still check for license issues but it will certainly narrow down the possiblities of accidently violating copyright.

A lot of the options that are available from the main searchbox if you know the syntax are also available here. If you don’t know the syntax or don’t want to be bothered with looking it up you can still narrow down your search results by making use of the advanced search page and just selecting the options you want from the drop down and check boxes.

Another nice tool is available if you click More at the right side of the main searchbox and then click Still More you get a list of other Google places you can go to. Click on Alerts to create a search that sends you updates on the topic of your choice. This is a great research tool. You type in your search terms and then specify news, blogs, web, groups, or comprehensive. Then tell Google how often you want to be updated, enter your email address and you will get everything you always wanted to know about your topic right in your inbox, You can edit the alert if you find your results need a bit of tweaking, and you can even place a module on your Google homepage so you can see your information anytime.

A Continuing Conversation about Student Blogging and Possibilities

The conversation that about students posting online has continued both at Assorted Stuff and at The Not So Distant Future . This is such a hot button issue for everyone involved and I hope we can continue to approach it from a positive perspective. Maybe the next discussion after asking questions about how students would feel if various people in their lives were to be the audience for their post, should be the why. We know that part of a student blog is going to be for the grade, but as well as an accidental audience there are also hidden surprises.

For me it is when someone else responds to a post or a comment I’ve written and the gains can be the connectedness, the respect of my peers, friendship that grows from the communication, a clarification of my own thoughts – those sort of things that you don’t think about going into it.  It can be the sense of community and the gratification that comes from finding that others are having the same thoughts, fears, ideas, and experiences that I am and the excitement that you get from sharing those things with others.  They are also not really things we can tell students about because the experience is going to be different for everyone. So how can we get them thinking about the possibilities?
1. Why are they writing?

2. What do they want to get out of it?

3. When they reread what they have written, how do they feel?

4. Would they take the time to read it if it was written by someone else?

5. Do they care about what they have written?

6. What are they passionate about?

7. What stories do they have to tell?

8.  What are they saying between the lines?

9. If their blog entry was a time capsule, what would they want to say to their future self?

10. How can reflection and commenting help them in their educational experience?

Any ideas for additions to this list?

Student Blogging With Positive Online Image

I’ve been doing some reading about student blogging and giving some thought on how to help students look at what they post to promote a positive image online. In particular this post on Assorted Stuff made me realize the need to be more intentional about communicating the things we should be thinking about. This is aside from abiding by a school’s Acceptable Use Policy and whatever a teacher decides to include in a rubric. This is more in the form of discussion with students about how and why they should filter what they post online.
Here are some ideas I’m thinking about:
As a student blogger, before you post, read what you have written with the following in mind:

  • What if a future or present employer read this?
  • What if a family member or friend read this?
  • What if this were printed in a local newspaper?
  • What if this were written by someone else – what opinions might you form about the writer?
  • What if a teacher or student at another school read this?
  • What if your future teenage child or grandchild was reading this?
  • What if this comment were on a screen in front of an educators conference?
  • What if you were trying to find the person who wrote this – are there any personal clues?
  • What if a family member read this?
  • What if your future spouse read this?

Even if commenting on a blog is restricted, you can be quoted and a discussion about your post or comment can find it’s way to another blog. Everything on the internet is searchable, clickable, and quotable so it is always a good idea to step back and look at what you have written with an objective eye.

Google some people to see how clickable they are. If you are a “blogging” teacher you could even Google yourself or someone else in the community that would be familiar to the students.

Any ideas to add to this? I would be glad to hear them.

Google Custom Search Engine

I played around with a tool that’s fairly new to me today. I now have a Google custom search box at the bottom of this page that will let you search this blog and my work blog. I wanted to see how easy it was to create a custom search engine using Google’s Co-op and found it completely painless. You follow the link and the click on the custom search engine link and then just follow the steps. They consist basically of giving your search engine a name, a brief description, keywords, and URLs you want it to search. Google creates the code and you paste it into your blog where you wish it to show up. The only thing I changed was adding tags to get it to display in the center of the footer.

I will make one that searches all my favorite blogs. I’m not sure if there is a limit to how many URLs you can add but I wouldn’t be surprised as there was a limit to the suggested keywords you could associate with your search engine (7). The search box is wider than I would like for my sidebar which is why it lives at the bottom of the page. You can even “brand” your searchbox with an image you have uploaded to the web if you like. You can open it up for people to collaborate – either publicly or just those you invite. There is also an option to have it added to your personalized Google homepage.

Combining this custom search engine tool with Google Notebook, Google Calendar, GMail, Google Docs and Spreadsheets and tabs on your personalized homepage gives you a free and very practical research and productivity center.
It would be useful to add a custom search box to a classroom blog that limited your students research to sites you designate. This requires you being able to edit the theme of your blog. Some other ways to use this tool would be to create a search engine to browse items you are looking to buy and limit the search to places like ebay, amazon, and buy.com. A search engine that only returned results from designated newspapers would be useful for debate students.

I hope you found some useful information here and that you will give the Google customized search engine a test-drive. Search some blogs from my education category

Google Custom Search

Link, App, and Information Overload

The TechChickTips blog had a list of Links and one in particular caught my attention. It’s called Litesum and it was created by high school freshman Jake Jarvis. You type a topic in the searchbox and it brings up a summary of the corresponding wikipedia page. This led me to start searching for web apps or mashups that were created by students. While that search took my down several very interesting rabbit holes I didn’t have a lot of luck. I am still searching and if anyone out in the blogosphere knows of more I would be very interested in hearing about them.

One of the sites I found while I was searching for student created apps was called TerraClues. TerraClues is a game played using google maps. There are already some games created but you can create your own too. Using text, pictures, and maps you leave clues that send the player on a search of google maps to find whatever you want anywhere in the world. There is even a teacher area where you could use the game with your class. There is a tutorial game that you can run through without signing on for an account that gives you examples of the type of clues and how it works. Fun stuff!

Another great idea that I was led to was on the Tech Savvy Educator site (which will rapidly be on my blogroll – great stuff here). To recycle keyboards take the keys off and use them for scrabble! The board is created using excel and there is even a hint to tell you that the squares need to be 3/4 inch. I just happen to have a collection of dead keyboards and if anyone at school is interested in giving this a whirl I would be glad to supply them with a sack full of keys!

This site led me to a lesson plan and directions for students creating “MySpace Like” webpages on Medieval characters. The link to the directions is here and the link to the students’ completed pages is here.

This landed me finally at Think:Lab, a blog I plan to spend a lot more time! Lots of food for the brain there. I read a post there that taught me a new term – Participation Culture. You can click and go to an online presentation by Steve Borsch of Connecting the Dots. This term makes more sense to me that web 2.0.

Our students are completely at home with technology. They’ve never known a time without computers and the internet is a part of normal life for them. As they navigate through the information and often as in the case of Jake Jarvis, not only participate but create new ways to utilize it, I look ahead with anticipation to see just where technology will take us next. The interesting question is who will be driving the bus?

One Foot in the Future, One Class Stuck in the Past

I’m going to do a little complaining and the names have been omitted to protect whoever!

scenario 1: A class that entails completing paper lessons and recording audio on cassette recorders and sending them through the mail to be graded. The students must purchase said cassette recorders and blank tapes, record themselves, put the cassettes in envelopes and then postage has to be paid to send them to the appropriate person who must then put the tape in another cassette player and listen to grade the student. Several processes, several costs, and quite a bit of time is entailed here.
scenario 2: Student records audio on a Mac using GarageBand, sends it to iTunes, exports it as an mp3 file and I upload it to a webpage where the appropriate person needs to do nothing but click to listen. Or the student can record on a PC using Audacity and saves as an mp3. No extra cost, no extra procedure comments could be added immediately with each assignment.

The world may be flat but some colleges prefer scenario 1.

We are trying to bring our teachers and students into an age of literacy at the high school level but how frustrated will they be when they get to college and find out that those skills won’t be put to use? Probably as frustrated as I am right now.

Combining RSS Feeds and Organization

There are several tools out there for combining your RSS feeds and I just happened to try Feedblendr tonight. There was no registration necessary and you simply type in a title for your new feed and then enter URLs for the feeds you want to combine and presto – you have a new feed that you can enter into your reader and it will now display the headers for articles of all the feeds you combined. Tonight I created one called the Dynamic Trio – I entered the links for the blogs of Wes Fryer, David Warlick, and Miguel Guhlin and ended up with one feed that displayed all three of their headers. You also have the option to display it as a webpage and read it right then. It was fun to play with and hopefully will be another tool in my battle to tame the wild blog bloat. I want to read more than I have time for and I want to organize but at the same time I don’t want to miss anything. I’m planning to create a few more tonight and do a little consolidating.

This is part of my resolution to pare down, down size, organize, and clean out. Maybe it’s spring, maybe it’s the growing pile of things I want to get to but can’t and they keep calling to me and distracting me. I recently started making notes on colored index cards. I bought myself an accordian file folder sized for the cards with tabbed dividers and a card file box. The folder is fairly flat and goes with me in my laptop case and as it gets full I transfer cards to the file box. I have a card in the front of the folder and one in the front of the box with the color coding legend and I am slowly trying to shrink the piles of printouts of articles I have saved because of some bit of information or ideas I knew I would want to refer back to by transferring the information to my cards and filing it. I keep a supply of blank cards in the front of the folder and extras to replenish my supply in the file box. The price is reasonable and for a terminal note taker like myself it gives me a place to keep and find all those bits and pieces of information. Now I have mentioned this system in my blog for the whole world to see, I’m hoping it will keep me motivated. Besides, if I get more organized I will have more time to read all those newly combined feeds!
Now if I could just come up with a better system for my closet…..

Random Weekend Tips

These are not my own ideas – they’re bits and pieces of things I read this week that I have found useful. I’m so thankful for folks who freely share their knowledge on their blogs. This post is more a reminder to myself about the things I have found and need to put to work.
Gmail – I love it and use it all the time. I read a post this weekend though that made me slap my forehead. I send email to myself On links that I want to check out later or if I’m on the PC and find something that pertains to the mac or linux, I email it to my Gmail account so I can refer to it when I’m on the machine it relates to. I often forget about the post or forget which post it is and I have used the search function in Gmail to find it later but semantic keywords or tags in my subject line to make the process easier and quicker. I will from now on! The article I was reading suggested using the Google toolbar for the Gmail it option. I have resisted this one little Google option thus far but I may have to give it another look.
FireFox – I have used FireFox for several years. The only time I use IE is when I need to check for updates on a PC. I constantly have multiple tags open and in the morning, after I have made my latte and I’m ready to spend a few moments reading and waking up before the rest of the family starts to appear, I open my usual morning reads. Gmail, my work email account, google homepage, and DIGG, and sometimes the local paper. I have a brand new folder on my bookmarks toolbar named MorningReads that contains the bookmarks to those items. When I click on the folder it lists them with one extra item on the bottom – Open All in Tabs. I can now click that one item and all my usual links open in tabs across my browser window. As I excitedly tell my kids about this little trick they roll their eyes and tell me I’m such a geek. They think that they are insulting me but I can’t help it if the idea of clicking once instead of four times makes me grin!

Google Notebook – I have been using it for several weeks and have fallen in love with it. You can install an extension so that you can right click on any webpage and a contextual menu item called Note-it is now a choice. “Noting it” saves it to your Google Notebook. It can be an entire webpage, a picture, a quote, a URL or anything else you can right click on. I have been saving items to one big notebook, knowing there had to be a better way to organize but not knowing quite how. This weekend I learned that you can drag-and-drop anything anywhere in the notebook. I spent the last hour creating new notebooks, adding section headers, and dragging things around to organize them. You also have the choice of keeping your notebook private or sharing it publicly. You can export items directly to Google docs and spreadsheets, you can print a notebook, and you can add a note and just type or paste a note directly into the application – great for research, organizing a project, or collaboration. If you have a Gmail account you automatically have access to this application and if you don’t have Gmail it’s worth it just to have access to all the Google apps. I still use a main notebook to capture and then open my notebook and move things around to make them easier to find. I also have the Google Notebook widget on my personalized Google homepage so everything is right there and visible which just seems to work best for me.  There is a great information and tutorial Powerpoint to download here. (warning clicking starts the download)
New Online Application – Mindomo. Online mindmapping. You have to sign up for an account but it’s free. I’d like to see Google add something like this to it’s suite of apps (along with a presentation piece which I’ve already mentioned on this blog). I made a little practice map and it was very straight-forward and simple to follow.

Support Net Neutrality

The very fact that I can publish on this blog makes me a supporter of Net Neutrality. I am going to make an intentional effort to learn more and be more vocal about this issue because to me the internet is the last place people have where freedom of speech truly exists. We read newspapers, listen to radio stations, and watch news shows on TV stations that are all controlled for the most part, by large media companies and so we see, hear, and read, what they want to put out there.

While there are issues in education dealing with kids safety online, validation and quality of information, copyright issues and more, I would rather we work to teach our students how to deal with those issues than open up my browser and find nothing but what my provider decides is appropriate or newsworthy.

I want to be able to choose for myself, and even if no one ever reads what I write, I want to be able to publish it. I want those same things for my kids. If you are interested in learning more about Net Neutrality there is a video you can watch that will give you some food for thought. It’s a little long so get a cup of coffee and have a notepad handy in case you want to jot something down.


Save the Internet | Rock the Vote

Second Life

I ventured into Second Life for the first time tonight. It was interesting to find out how inept I am – they may ban me from driving altogether there, I was that bad. I spent about two hours and still haven’t managed to get past the part where you are learning and must perform several tasks to get your passport to the main world.

My observations so far:

  • There seem to be way more men than women in Second Life
  • Men hit on you as though you really are the character (trust me – I DON”T look my character LOL)
  • People seem just as confused and socially inept in a virtual world as they are in the real world
  • Playing on a MacBook without the mouse attached may be a little different – control-click never seemed to produce a right-click result (Command Click works!)
  • F1 does not seem to summon help in a Mac
  • At this point I can’t imagine why anyone would actually spend money here

It’s pretty and I will give it some more time. My daughter also created a character and I am hoping to meet up with her there. I think that would be kind of interesting. I have heard of conference-like events being held there and would be interested in participating if I can ever get past the beginning. If anyone has any helpful hints I’m all ears!

Added March 03, 2007

Since I posted this Vickie Davis has written a post that contains a lot of great information on Second Life and how it is being used in education as well as reasons why it may not be ready for education.  There are links to blogs of folks who are using it and videos, and other resources.  The post is not only about Second Life but about  Virtual Worlds and the future of the web with 3D. Mrs. Davis even mentions something I have been concerned about – the actual real world money that is spent in Second Life and what happens to it.  There are ways that you can be banned from Second Life but like the real world there are definite places that I would avoid because of the “adult” content.

Before jumping off the fence on Second Life I would spend a little time researching and  Vickie’s article is a great place to start.  Another resource mentioned in this same article is a blogging college English teacher who also has a great videocast on primary and secondary research ethics and a blog dedicated to Second life.

Update and My Recent SBC Problems Solved

SBC sent me an email customer satisfaction survey and I filled it out a couple of nights ago. I was obviously not satisfied and let them know. I still had not been able to get my PC to connect. They must have gotten my survey because a very nice gentleman called and walked me through some procedures. The upshot was that it was either my network card or the modem. The laptops at my house connect but I told him that the speed, while much faster than dial-up was not what I was promised by the original person who explained the service to me. He checked my line and said that it did seem a little slow but not to far from average for my area so I guess the maximum speed they quote is dependent on your area. I took my PC in to work and tried to connect on the network and no luck so I made a little trip to Office Max and twenty dollars later I have internet. It was no big deal to put the new card in though the old one didn’t seem to want to leave it’s home – it took a bit of tugging.

After I installed the new card, I hooked everything back up, turned it on and followed the instructions to update the driver from their cd. I clicked on FireFox and did the happy dance. My daughter is now happily surfing MySpace and chatting on MSN messenger. Hmmm, maybe I should have left out the new card.

I will be calling SBC back and thanking them for their help. I really am not angry that I had problems. It wasn’t even their fault. What I am angry about is that they were going to charge me $100 to help me until I filled out my little survey. How many people would have bit the bullet and paid the fee? I remember when you could get service by being polite and nice and it seems that more often than I like, you now have to be mean and aggressive.

I don’t know if it is because we have become so accustomed to rudeness that we are immune to anything else or if we are just so caught up in our own routine that it takes rudeness to get our attention. My mama always said “you catch more flies with honey”. It seems to me that nowadays you do better if you sting like a bee. I hate getting angry and I always try to be polite. It makes me tired to do otherwise.

I would recommend SBC now but I would add a few disclaimers and I would ask some questions about the computer they would be using. I would also warn people about the possible extra fees.

Dale has a cold and had some minor surgery in Dallas this week so we are not running full blast right now. A cold for him is a bigger deal that it is for most people. Dialysis patients immune systems are not very strong and they don’t have a lot of reserves for fighting off even minor illness so he feels terrible and we feel bad right along with him. The DSL problems took a back seat for awhile but at least that was something I could fix.

I’ll take a win even if it’s a little one.

Reading Blogs

Scott Mcleod of the Dangerously Irrelevant blog has been responding to a challenge by Miguel Guhlin to find “new voices” and has been showcasing educator bloggers for the last week. I have been reading and growing my feed list with each addition. Tonight I read the blogs of Dave Sherman and Pete Reilly. Mr. Sherman talks about “developing self directed learners” and ties it together with the kind of “what if?” questions that kids ask.

Mr. Reilly challenges each of us with this premise:

What would happen to our schools and our world if every teacher, administrator, and staff member lived and acted from his purpose each day? A purpose rooted in the deepest parts of his mind, body, and soul.

He also spoke of his own learning experience as he reacted to a post of Mr. Guhlin’s and in another post he listed the items he would include in the technology plan if he were leading a district. He also has a wiki for technology planning.

There are so many voices to listen to, to reflect on, react to, and include in our “circle of wisdom” The amazing thing is how many of these voices resonate with the same truths. These bloggers are not necessarily on the “A” list of bloggers. We are all so busy and tend to read the blogs that are easy to find or are written by faces we recognize, who have presented to large groups of educators and maybe have published books but as I try to achieve some kind of balance with the amount of reading I do I will definitely be including some of these writers. They challenge me, humble me, and make me thankful for a technology that allows me to hear their thoughts and learn from them. Thanks to Scott Mcleod for sharing.

One way we can find these voices is through the use of wikis. David Warlick uses a wiki page to embed blog posts from people who attend his presentations. Using the read/write tools that are available we can model the collaboration skills we need to be teaching our students be collaborating in becoming life-long learners ourselves and discover the bloggers and educators in each individual’s way is trying to find the best ways to prepare their students for the future.
Another wiki I visited this week is The Thousand and One Flat World Tales project. The premise is that an alien race has come to earth and angry that they are not finding humans doing any of the things they expect they send a message over the internet for countries to send their best storytellers and they then hold them hostage on their ship while they tell their stories and if the aliens find them interesting they will not destroy the human race. Different grades and schools from anywhere can participate and build this wiki by adding the stories of their own cultures.
I also learned of a new online tool. It converts videos like the ones you find on YouTube to AVI, MOV, Mp4 and several other formats that you can then save to your computer. It can be found at Vixy.net – this will be a useful site!

Technology – Who and What Do We Use It For?

I just watched the most amazing video. It’s called Raising Small Souls. How I found the video is an example of the ties we create with our conversations online. Another blogger left a comment thanking me for me TCEA notes and that led me to their blog. There I found a link to a video that expresses the “why” we need to make changes in education better than all the talk of a flat world. Yes, we need to prepare our kids for future learning opportunities but we can’t get so caught up in the future that we ignore the very present people that they are now.

We look ahead to the future hoping that we can give them the tools they will need to live up to their definition of successful but we can’t do that if we discount who they are, their unique gifts and talents, likes and dislikes. Each of us has to find our own place in life and everyone has a story to tell. If technology is the vehicle that lets a child tell their story then wonderful. If playing a guitar or painting with oils does the job for them then that’s wonderful too.

Even “back in the day” when I was in school, the classes I remember were taught by teachers who no matter how we were arranged as far as seating, or how irrelevant we now think the curriculum might be, touched something in me that lit a spark and caught my imagination, or gave me an “aha” moment. I treasure those moments even now. It was almost always the force of the teacher’s personality, their love for their subject and for teaching it that made me turn and go down a path I would not have taken otherwise. Often my learning leap was a response to that teacher making me feel as though I had something worthwhile to say on their subject.
Technology can’t replace good teaching – it can only enhance it. It also can’t cure bad teaching. Reading a badly written book online would not make the book any better, but a good teacher can make a book come alive for a student. A good teacher could also help a student use technology to express their thoughts about that book through a video or multimedia presentation.

I love technology – I want to see it used to support good teaching. I also love good books – technology can never take the place of curling up at night with a few cookies and a good novel. If technology can help an author to concentrate more on the story and less on the nuts and bolts of getting it down on paper then it is enhancing the reading experience for all of us.

Concentrating on the story, that’s the real answer. Technology is just a vehicle for telling it. For the audio learner we can provide podcasts, for the visual, videos. We have so many wonderful tools to reach students wherever they are but the tools need good teachers. There is a quote and I can’t find the author so if you read this and know the answer please contact me and I will give credit “The same hammer that can break a window can build a cathedral” We can’t build a cathedral just because we have a big pile of hammers but if we keep the goal in sight we have a better chance.

“Presently” – New Google App?

Internet rumors say Google is working on a new application – “Presently” their presentation component. I will be excited to see it in action. I use Google Docs (Writely) occasionally and I love Gmail and Google Notebook. I’m fairly new to Google Notebook and am in the process of learning more about it. I saw several presenters at TCEA who used it for their presentation pieces and I have seen some examples of public google notebooks. I watched as Wes Fryer reorganized prior to his session. I see it as a very useful tool that I have not paid enough attention to.

I also use my personalized google page for the blogs I read most often. My bloglines account suffers from serious bloat and I seem to do better with the visual approach of having the blogs I read most often laid out on the page showing the most recent posts. I tend to move the feeds around so the ones I find myself returning to most often end up at the top of the page. I also have them arranged with tagged pages with a page devoted to local friends, one for education, and so on. My home page has my email, calendar, local weather and TV guide – things of that sort. It also contains a widget for Google Notebook so I have a constant reminder of what I’m working on right now.

Google has an extension for Firefox which allows you to select something on a webpage, right-click and get an option to “note-it” which puts the clip or page directly on your Notebook. As you research on the internet you can save pictures and snips of information along with the url for citing your sources.
I hope there will be compatibility between Notebook and Presently – what a powerful tool that will be! A cross-browser, cross-operating system presentation tool that would allow you to pull images and text from your notebook to give you the pieces you need anytime as long as you have an internet connection.

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Print, Cut, Fold Make and Take at TCEA

I attended a presentation by the Arlington School District that was geared more for elementary classes but it intrigued me and even high school students like to do “make it” projects now and then. They shared a ton of ideas and gave us the url to the files for templates including a pdf file with lesson ideas and instructions for using the templates.

The Link is http://aisd.net/itd/dir_list_sort.aspx

If you follow this link you can also download their Geocaching Documents zip file.

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History and Present Day Connectivity

I’m sitting here watching “Flags of Our Fathers” . The movie is based on a true story about the famous photograph of the flag being raised on Iwo Jima and the stories about the men involved.

“Flags of Our Fathers follows James Bradley’s book, telling the story of what happened to the three men who were used – and it would be fair to say abused – in a publicity campaign in which all those intimately involved understood to be based on a misleading photograph. The film also shows how the men were treated like movie stars only to be discarded and ignored after they’d served their purpose.”

I am wondering if the way that history is recorded will be forever changed by the capability we now have to transmit information as it happens. All the secrets surrounding John Kennedy ‘s assassination for example, email and blog posts and pictures taken with camera phones would have been flying over the internet faster than you can spell cover-up.  Instead of the media controlling information, people everywhere have become the media.  History will always be skewed by the viewpoint of the teller but I find it somewhat comforting to know that in many situations there will be more than one “teller” and that gives us more of a chance of piecing together an accurate sense of events.

Unfortunately the same connectivity makes it possible that if the American flag were being raised on Iwo Jima today, there would be pieces of it for sale on Ebay tomorrow.  If information is so freely and easily accessible does it retain it’s value?