Category Archives: Web 2.0

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.

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.

My Personal Reasons For Blogging

The internet reflects how fickle people are. I have been reading about blogging. Some say it’s the be all, end all. Some say that it’s already history and are already off to the next greatest new thing. There are opinions about what should be in a blog, how to drive traffic to your blog, how to make money on your blog. Some writers say you shouldn’t post personal articles on your professional blog. There are some blogs I read for pure enjoyment of the writing, some I read for information, and some to make me think.

A post by Doctor Bell made some of the thoughts I have had about all this bubble up to the surface. E-mail was discussed in another post and I have some thoughts about that as well.

I am easier to reach by e-mail than I am by phone. I use it constantly and have long passed from the stage where I forwarded every story that came down the electronic pike and rarely have time to read all the forwards that are sent to me. I try though and for a very personal reason. I recently had a relative in another state who had had a heart condition for years. She had stents, by-pass surgery, valve replacement, and through all that kept going as much as possible. She sent several email forwards a day and usually I just read them and deleted but tried to answer a few from time to time with a note. Last month one of her replies led me to realize that she was on hospice care. several weeks later we got news that she had passed. My inbox is emptier and the crazy thing is – I miss it.

That said, I want to list my reasons for blogging. I started out again, for personal reasons. My husband was very ill and we spent almost two months altogether in the hospital. I stayed with him and the hospital was nearly a hundred miles from my kids, my job, my church, and my friends. I felt completely overwhelmed during that time, and very much alone with my fear for my husband, my worries about my kids, bills, and the future. Writing and reading became my survival. I wrote about what was happening so I could look at it and say “okay – that’s that – now move on”

As Dale recovered, I was able to read and think about other things. It helped to think and write about a future I was starting to believe might exist. I was starting to hope again.

I know that there are probably only a handful of posts that have anything of any real value to people not actually related to me and even fewer that have any real original thinking in them, but I also see a growth process happening.

Blogging has become a habit I enjoy. The reasons are varied and in trying to break it down it comes out like this:

1. To crystalize my thoughts about something I am learning.

2. To share something I have learned with others. Even if I am reiterating information I think of it like rain on the pond. Each person posting on a topic is a drop and the ripples spread out from their little drop. Eventually the whole pond gets covered.

3. To pass on a memory, hopefully to my kids or to share with my brothers who live in other states and who I don’t see nearly enough.

4. To keep a record, maybe just for myself of what is going on in my life and around me.

5. To have conversations with people that can teach me, who I would never have the chance to get to know any other way.

6. To satisfy my addiction to note-taking (in a place where I can always find them LOL)

7. To make it pretty – it’s just fun for me to play with. I will occasionally change the theme and in the process of changing and adding things I learn more and more about the mechanics of the software.

WordPress and the Akismet feature do a great job keeping spam away. I will get the occasional spam comment entry but so far I have gotten an email telling me to moderate the entry every time.

My little corner of the blogosphere isn’t going to shake the world or make me rich. I will post occasionally about the personal daily muddling of my life. My grammar will NOT be perfect and I may even let a spelling error get through now and then. If you come here expecting some deep thought provoking conversation and find it, no one will be more surprised than me. It could happen – life is funny. I hope Ma Bell will keep blogging as well – her part of the pond needs it’s raindrops. If blogging is becoming old hat then so be it – I like old hats. They keep the rain off my head.

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?

A day With Debate Students and a Link

Imagine spending an entire Saturday with a group of teenagers all in business suits (including the ladies) going room to room with carts and dollies full of file boxes (their research and case cards) and hearing snippets of conversation involving politics, the latest unemployment figures, and vocabulary that includes hegemony, solvency and paradigms.

Sounds kind of surreal doesn’t it? That’s debate. A bunch of smart stress puppies putting in many hours (along with their exhausted coaches) and traveling many miles hoping to get just a few extra speaker points and maybe end up with a college scholarship.

In general I found a great bunch of kids, able to hold their own in a conversation better than many adults. They support each other, fight like cats and dogs, critique each other and whoa to anyone from the outside that treats one of them badly. Teams from different schools pass each other in the halls asking how they did in their last round and commiserate on the shortcomings of their last judge. I love their humor and drive.
I got to watch two rounds and as always was amazed at the speed and the level of intensity. I was tired and I didn’t have to do anything but listen!

One student shared a link with me that I want to pass on. The site is called Progressive U and their opening paragraph on their about page says the following:

Do you want to regenerate brain cells killed by countless hours on MySpace?*Do you need rehab to cure your Facebook addiction?

Are you exhausted from wading through piles of nonsense on Xanga and LiveJournal?

Stop banging your head against a wall of pictures, and put your brain to good use!

Progressive U is a blogging site for teens with a vision:

The mission of Progressive U is to provide young people with opportunities to discover, analyze, and discuss the values and democratic principles that promote a healthy, just society.

Youth can also earn scholarship money here. A $1000 and two $500 scholarships are available. The rules are available on the site.
This is a great use of blogging and as they say on their site ” Friends don’t let friends waste all their time on Myspace”

I’m off to bed now, watching debate wears me out and time springs forward tonight.

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.

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!

“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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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?

Dr. Mary Ann Bell at TCEA

If you have never met Dr. Bell you are missing a treat. Fiesty, fun, and way ahead of her time. She recently started her own blog and voiced concern about how schools are blocking many of the web 2.0 sites that she was planning to talk abou tin her TCEA presentation.

Dr. Bell’s presentation was called Fun, New and Free Ideas and Services Via the Internet. If you click on her name above it will take you to the portal to her site where you can access the links she shared as well as previous presentations.

She gives links to all kinds of useful sites as well as complete text professional online journals.

One link Dr. Bell showed was Starfall, a site for elementary phonics and reading . She recommended some blogs to read and I will list them but let you check out the rest on the handout on her site.

alibraryisalibrary

blogwithoutalibrary

One of the library blogs led me to a great Geography resource – Library of Congress Portals to the World.

Dr. Bell also mentioned Bernie Poole‘s site where you can find tons of resources and if you click on the link on the left side title online books you can download entire books he has written including several wonderful tutorials on using Microsoft Office.

Nancy Pearl was with her as usual. Nancy Pearl is the fabulous “shushing” librarian figurine that travels everywhere with Dr. Bell and gets her picture taken in the most interesting places. You can find her photos on Flickr.

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Blogs and Wikis for a Collaborative Classroom at TCEA

Presenter Jamie Gustin Elementary Technology Coach at Magnolia ISD

Co-presenter Chris Turik employed by November Learning

Most of the November Learning employees use skype -rarely physically in an office -said this is growing as a busness model

Magnolia blogging district-wide, infused into the learning environment

Wiki-how – how to manuals anyone can write and edit good example of use of a wiki
URL http://magnoliaisdcommunities.org/communities/jgustin/

Their experience – teachers usually begin blog as upcoming events and homework, slowly evolve into two-way conversations with commenting

Started blogs in conjunction with teacher webpage, starts static phases in to collaborative (about 600 at Magnolia blogging)

Some teachers working on theme unit about mysteries

Mr. Gustin was going on a one day vacation with his family and using the blog students had to figure out where he was going. He started out with a clue and the students had to use the commenting section to ask questions that would “trick” him into giving more clues. He used his cell phone camera to leave photo clues on Flickr that would appear on the blog via rss feed

Use of cell phone one example of connectivity without a computer

two thirds of the comments were outside of school hours – one was at seven a.m. Stutdents were reading everyone elses comments trying to solve the mystery

He was able to moderate the comments quickly so if someone figured out the answer too quick the answer could remain hidden to give more time for others to solve

resources skype (one example of VOIP)

CILC distance learning message board – can post on looking for a class to collaborate with on a specific subject

ePals another collaborative resource

Fourth grade classes using a wiki to collaborate on a chapter book – one class writes a chapter – another class writes the next chapter and so on

Moodle

Classes set up a wiki on the solar system – using information on different planets students try to create life forms that would be able to survive in the environment (discovered only one student can have a wiki open at a time on moodle)

challenge – teachers has to think about all the processes the student will need to complete the tasks

storyboard helpful

be prepared to edit as they go along

a third grader spotted a factual mistake on a website (chance to talk about validating information)

teach “polite” editing

using the moodle wiki taught the students the mechanics of a wiki before they used wikipedia

community building, collaboration

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Beyond Four Walls

Notes on I.T.S. Beyond Four Walls

Presenter Ms. LaDonna Conner from Carrolton-Farmers Branch

I actually ended up in this session through a happy accident. The session I was planning to attend was full and this was in the room where the next on my schedule would be presented. I was so glad I got to hear this one.

They have given all of their teachers iPods and traing on how to use them. They purchased a podcast server and the teachers commit to producing 4 podcasts a year.

They invested a lot of hours in training and had everything broken down into steps.

They use podcasting for staff development, staff meetings, communicating with parents and the community, lessons that can be subscribed to, and interactivity for their school website.

http://www.cfbisd.edu/

They had a device called a Belkin Tune Talk that you plug your iPod into and it makes it a recording device. As a teacher you hit record, set it on your desk and continue your lecture and you end up with an audio file you can edit in Audacity and create a finished podcast!

Imagine having your lectures saved so when a student is absent and comes to you to find out what they missed, you point them to your podcast and they get to hear the entire lecture.

Imagine a student missed taking notes on part of your lecture and having the ability to replay it to fill in any gaps in their notes. I’m so glad I “accidently” got to learn about their program.

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Some Mid-TCEA Conference Reflections

I have been enjoying TCEA but some of it has just been a blur trying to rush from one presentation to the next. I’ve been to some that were specific tutorials for Flash, iMovie, iPhoto and tomorrow I’m looking forward to iDVD and GarageBand.

It has been wonderful to learn some new tricks and also to drool over the lab set up for the tutorials – 25 bright, shiny iMacs.

The highlights for me have been listening to the new vocabulary that permeates the discussions on technology integration and the changes that education is going to have to address if we are going to give our kids the skills they will need for tomorrow. I hear the terms web 2.0, read/write web, conversation versus static webpage, community building, collaborating, social networks, and mash-ups.

Over all it would seem that while we are working hard to integrate technology, students are already way ahead of us. Computers, cell phones, mp3 players are as much a part of their daily environment as the microwave, dishwasher, and tv remote have become part of ours. They already ARE integrated. We are the ones running along behind.

But educators are catching up. The debates are all over the web and while many districts still block blogs as a matter of course, others are doing the blogging themselves. More and more districts are moving into the 1:1 computing venue.

I went to hear Dr. Mary Ann Bell speak on Fun and Free Internet tools and the links that were shared were mostly Web 2.0. She also touched on the subject of how many of these sites may be blocked at the district level.

When I was in school I never really thought of teachers as rebels but these days it seems that more and more are trying to help bring about the changes that we all know will have to come eventually. I was encouraged to hear all who spoke of teaching “literacy” included ethics. So many adults are confused about what is permissible and valid on the web. It’s easier for us to blanket block things than it is to learn to utilize them properly but at what cost? Our kids are already collaborating on MySpace, communicating with Instant Messaging, playing games online connected to multiple players in different geographic locations, recording audio and pictures on their phones and accessing the internet to share those files from the same phones. They think we just don’t get it, and maybe we don’t – but we’re working on it.

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