Thing 23: Overall Reflection

Our last activity was to contribute our comments to a Voicethread that had several questions for us to answer. I want to include the questions and answers here.

Share your thoughts about Web 2.0 and 21st Century learners. Do you believe the world is changing for our students? Do teachers (and schools) need to consider and address these “shifts?” How can we teach students to be responsible, effective users of these tools?

I loved learning about all the tools through the past several weeks. Even though I didn’t have time to explore them as much as I would have liked, I plan to revisit all of them and flesh out my knowledge and reflections. The world has already changed for our students just while we were participating in this class. In one of our activities I saw the ticker tape of new information being added and it was steadily and quickly going upward. As more people connect and collaborate, more ideas will be produced and more things will be created. Teachers need to get onboard and commit to being lifelong learners or they are going to be left far behind. We need to model responsible use of web 2.0 tools to our students and give them opportunities to do the same.

While I know there have been challenges along the way, I hope there have also been discoveries made, and ideas sprouted for each of you. Please share the “top” one or two tools, concepts, ideas or resources from the course that you felt were most valuable for you in your classroom or professional role. What was valuable about them? Are there any tools, ideas or resources you have begun using, or plan to use in the future? What was the best discovery?

I got several good ideas about how to use pageflakes in educational ways to make things easier for my teachers. As I present new topics, my teachers get overwhelmed, even though I give them processing time in between and we continue to revisit them. I think pageflakes is something they could quickly get a handle on and see its value.

Google docs is another very useful discovery that can save my district money and really benefit the students. As they move into college they will be able to use all the 21^st century skills that they are learning through their use of google docs.

I plan to use many of these tools as we move forward into a new school year and start to plan the professional development for August and through the 2010-2011 year.

Thing 22: Social Networking in Education

This was a wonderful activity; even though I was familiar with nings and have joined a few here and there, I really had not ever fully utilized one. I watched the recorded session on the Classroom 2.0 site in which the developer explained all the features to an audience through the tool Ellumination. (I really liked the setup for this videoconference and I plan to do more research on this tool.)

I joined Classroom 2.0 and was anxious to add some of the groups that were listed, especially one with almost 500 members, all of whom provided technology professional development. I am really looking forward to interacting with them and contributing some of my ideas to them. One very interesting fact that I noticed was that when the creator did the introduction in April 2008, there were less than 5,000 members. Now there are over 42,ooo members. Wow! Lots of opportunities for collaboration.

I see my job as being the one who keeps my campuses up to date on the best practices in technology integration and 21st century skills. The more I can interact, collaborate and participate, the more ideas I will have to share with my community of learners for which I am responsible. I can also introduce them to Classroom 2.0 and set up a group for our district and possibly the smaller, semi-rural districts around us.

Thing 21 – Create a Custom Start Page Using Pageflakes

I had explored Pageflakes several years ago, but then I did not revisit it. I was really happy to be connected with it again and I can see all sorts of uses in the three very distinct areas of my life – teaching college students, teaching intermediate and junior high teachers, and working with 5th-8th grade students in all subject areas.

 Will Richardson makes some very interesting observations about educational uses of Pageflakes.  http://weblogg-ed.com/2006/using-pageflakes-as-student-portal/  He set up a pageflake for his class’ Darfur project. “What you get is a dynamic, constantly updated page of content about what’s happening in that part of the world and what’s happening in other parts of the world in response. From a teaching standpoint, pages of this type can be pretty effective for bringing in potential content and then making decisions about what to do with that content. Not everything that shows up here will necessarily be suitable for some ages.”

Pageflakes are created using RSS feeds so that the latest information appears on your page. Each RSS feed is in its own “container” and those can be moved around, editted and deleted. There are thousands of flakes to choose from and add to your page. Some examples of these were given in our lesson http://k12learning20.wikispaces.com/21-pageflakes:

• Share links on different topics
• Use the StickyNote flake to post class assignments, homework, notes to parents, etc.
• Custom research/reference portal (Google, Google News, Google Research, Wikipedia, Rollyo, Dictionary, Technorati)
• Class Calendar (Calendar, Google Calendar, 30boxes)
• Post Links to Class Documents (Box.net)
• Have a group discussion (Message Board)
• Post instructional videos (TeacherTube,YouTube, embed a specific video using the Anything Flake)
• Post class pictures or photo albums (Picasa, Flickr, embed a specific Bubbleshare or RockYou album using the Anything Flake)
• Post pictures from a specific topic or theme (Flickr)
• Post PowerPoint presentations (embed a specific SlideShare or Google Presentation using the Anything Flake)
• Share current events or topical items (add any RSS feed by clicking Add RSS feed and pasting the feed URL).
• Share podcasts (add the “Mother of all podcast Feeds” flake, then click edit to change the feed URL to ANY podcast you want)

Thing 20 – Using Google Docs

I love Google docs and have encouraged my college students to use them as they are preparing their collaborative group project. They can each open it at any time and add the information for their sections. They can also keep track of who did what and how much each person contributed. This helps keep them accountable and it helps me as I give them a grade for participation.

I like the fact that my documents are stored in a central location and I can access them from anywhere. I like the way they create a spreadsheet automatically when you send out a survey. As people answer your survey, Google docs records that information in a spreadsheet and automatically provides summary graphs for you. You don’t have to go in, total the columns, create the graph and then compile that information. All of that is done for you – very efficient and useful.

Another thing I like about the Google surveys is that you can embed them in a blog or a wiki. Since the students at my junior high do not have email accounts, this is a great way for them to access and participate in the survey.

As I plan for professional development activities for my teachers this summer, I will definitely use the Google tools – iGoogle, maps, calendars, websites – as well as Google Docs. There is just so much to cover and it will be my job, as the semi-expert, to present all that information in such a way that it is scaffolded for the novice user.

Thing 19 – Sharing Videos

As I was watching the instructions for embedding a video in a blog or a wiki, I saw the Beckoning of Lovely and I wanted to share it here. It is the video that is fun and interesting.

The next thing I did was search for a video that showed me how to make something. I watched one that showed me how to make a paper gun, but it was not something I could use. So I searched for how to make a foldable book. I have made a handout that is very similar to this video, but my handout is much more complete.

As I was looking at related videos to foldables, I ran across lapbooks. I had never heard of those and I really liked learning about them. They will be something to share with the teachers I teach, but I can also share them with my new granddaughter, Reese, whose expected arrival is July 5th.

Here is my other video on lapbooking. This video gave me many more ideas about instructional uses, as well as the planning and design of lapbooks. I know the instructional coaches in my district will be very interested in learning about these.

Thing 18 – My Podcast: Song of the Lizard Lover

Here is what I shared on Podbean: As a special education teacher I used to use many of Jack Prelutsky’s poems with my students. They were great for introducing and reinforcing sounds, blends, compound words, adjectives and all sorts of things. My students especially loved the gross, yucky poems and they would have loved this poem. We would have each chosen something different that we could have eaten, and we would have created a poem about it.

Thing 17: Explore Podcasting

When I attended the pre-conference session at the Texas Computer Education Association conference, our breakfast speaker was an educational consultant from Apple Computers. Her topic was Podcast Smackdown: Ten Different Ways to Make a Podcast in Less Than 30 Minutes. Many of the applications to which she referred came with Mac computers. She told us that our server determines what formats can be included – they are knit together by an RSS feed.

1. Keynote (in iWork suite) – Record a slideshow; click on Share>Send to> iTunes.
2. Pitch your podcast – What is the content? Have you planned more than one episode? Anything in a Mac that can be printed can be turned into a PDF. Anything that is a PDF can be podcast automatically. Here is a blog post that describes it and the usefulness: http://designedtoinspire.com/drupal/node/300
3. Quicktime Screen Recording (10.6 and up) – Records screen and sound. Share>Send to>iTunes>choose format (consider size of user’s display)
4. iPhoto – go to folder with photos (could use a book, save as pdf). Create Slideshow – keep it simple, everytime a pixel changes, it adds to the file size. Watch out what music you put in the background – MUST have the rights to it. File>Export>choose format>Export (check automatically send Slideshow to iTunes)
5. iChat – video chat – can chat with up to 3 other people. Video>record Chat. When you close video chat, it automatically dumps it into iTunes. Could bring in a third frame with sign language.
6. iMovie – Title section>drag and drop ticker in the work area for closed caption.
7. iPod – record as you talk
8. GarageBand – use podcast studio.
9. PhotoBooth – record a movie; no editing. Can greenscreen yourself.
10. System Preferences – set it to read selected text with a few keystrokes. Highlight text>right-click>send to iTunes as a spoken track. (Applications Menu>Services Preferences)

Thing 16: LibraryThing – Where Books Meet Web 2.0

I like it as a learner as I begin to see things come together, make sense and repeat certain useful concepts. Tagging is one of those concepts that I have seen throughout many of our assignments. I can finally wrap my mind around what it is, how to use it and how it can effectively organize the vast amount of information on the web.

For my exploration, I searched for something that my friend said she searched for at the public library – Christian suspense. She expressed to me how disappointed she was in her findings. My search was much more fruitful and even included reviews by readers and provided links to similar books that those readers liked. It is like a book club on steroids. Several of the authors I found had written series of books. I love reading series. That would be a tag I could add to future searches.

Here are the authors that will be on my summer reading list: Hannah Alexander, Rene Gutteridge, Amy Wallace, Mel Odom, Kristin Heitzmann, Susan May Warren, Patricia Rushford, Catherine Palmer, William Cutrer, Jefferson Scott, Jeanette Windle, and Margaret Daley.

Thing 15: Social Bookmarking with Delicious

I have always wanted to take the time to start using delicious and diigo, but I would start and then get distracted and then lose my login and/or username, so I am glad that this was one of the 23 things. My job is to do professional development for teachers and I can see how teaching social bookmarking can be used as an activity to introduce and scaffold 21st century skills such as tagging, sharing and networking.

My bookmarks can be found at http://delicious.com/sfjhwren and I have networked to my 23Things teacher and Vickie Davis, the Cool Cat Teacher. I will continue to use this resource and build up my base of resources as I continue to share best practices with my teachers and students.

Thing 7b continued

Another one of the blogs I subscribe to is called Instructify and it always has lots of good ideas. Here is a link to an activity that students would love to do instead of traditional paper writing.

http://blogs.learnnc.org/instructify/2010/04/27/google-search-story-storytelling/