Final Thoughts on the APSU 23 things

Finally done, my only complaint was amount of projects crammed into this last weekly session (and the only thing I would do different – 12 projects and 12 blog entries and an assignment on the NET-S Wiki plus the regular discussion board was a little too much).  A lot of these “things” went by so fast I hurried just to get them done.   I guess my lifelong learning goal is now that I’ve had a quick overview of some great technology helps, to go back over them one by one and really develop fluency with them all.  Now the thinking and reflecting is setting in.  Thinking back on the ones that really excite me, all revolve around the really practical classroom use I see for elementary students: (a) Wiki, (b) blogs, (c) podcasts and (d) Zoho writer (web application).  I am working on my reading specialist degree and so I see a lot of benefit for all of these in helping students to read, write, listen and speak better.  The Wiki is great for content area reading and writing as I see tremendous potential for science and social studies projects.  Podcast would be great for student reading books or sharing their favorite stories in a low stress, non-threatening way.  The blog and Zoho writer are very multifunctional, having uses in all the content areas as well as reading and writing.

And finally, where do I go from here?  The Google reader and RSS feeds are a great professional development tool because they will allow me to stay current on Web 2.0 and Learning 2.0, as I have feeds centering on using technology in the classroom.  I need to set aside some time each day (15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening) to go through and read and practice.  These will be great tools only if I am familiar enough to use them.  I will end with the same quote I used in Thing 5.  Good luck and Godspeed on your own personal quest moving forward from here.

“We can no longer ask our children to live in a world where they are immersed in technology in all parts of their lives except school.  We must rewire education or we risk losing this generation of media-immersed, tech-savvy students.”

“Welcome to the iGeneration!” by Larry Rosen (2010).

Thing 23: Creative Commons

 

 

The first time I really notice anything about copyright was on the Learning 2.0 – 23 Things for Teachers: Thing 13 on web based application.  At the bottom of the page was a photo source for the picture used at the top of the blog posting.  Modeling myself after that, I went back to some of my first blogs and edited them to include a photo source and hyperlink with the images (from Google Images).  It made me think about teaching the subject of copyright with students and the Creative Commons would be a great place to start.  I like uses a lot of images and video in my PowerPoint’s and have never included source information about where I retrieved my images or videos, a practice I am working on to change.  The most important thing I learned from watching “A Fair(y) Use Tale” is that it is okay to use short clips of video for educational purposes, just cite the source.

 I found a great example of the creative commons license in action.  All the way down at the bottom of Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachers,  a project I have been working on the last several weeks, it lists the credits this site used to create this project.  As you can see from my picture ("Credits") above it talks about the creative commons license.  The only thing missing, the cool little icon.

 

Thing 22: Podcasts

I liked the Podcastdirectory.com best because I liked the indexing by topics the site provided.  Once you selected a topic, Education, and went down to a subcategory like Education Technology, the subsequent page opened up into a nicely laid out index of all the podcasts for that subcategory.  Each site had an icon or picture and a brief description.  The Educational Podcast Directory was much harder to navigate but I did like the fact that it included podcast by students or from classrooms.  The Learn Out Loud directory was also good and gave me several podcasts focused more towards adults and high school or college students.  PodcastAlley.com was an okay site, nothing all that spectacular and not well organized, just very long lists of podcast titles listed under various subcategories.

Listening to an elementary grade podcast I found using the Educational Podcast Directory I listened to several students retell a story accompanied by pictures from the book.  Here is one of my favorites by a younger child (kindergarten or 1st grade) reading Caterpillar, Caterpillar.  Another great one was a younger child reading Hedgehog is Hungry.  It is very easy to see a classroom application just by listening to these two student podcasts.  In addition to using podcasts in reading it would be a great way to narrate a social studies story the student could create.  They could create a podcast describing the Civil War (as if they were reporting on a radio) or narrate the Lewis and Clark Expedition as either of these two men or as Sacajawea.  Student could outline the process of photosynthesis via podcast of pretend they are recording scientific observations during an exploration through the Amazon Rainforest (some great ideas from some podcast entitled Science from the Wild Side narrated by an adult but students could easily do something similar).

Thing 21: Animoto (video clips)

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Jazzy Brown Squirrel

Well I obviously did not read the tips about uploading images before I selected my images.  I started working on this during the evening, went to bed to let the photos upload while I sleep, and still had photos trying to upload the next morning.  I tried to delete some photo but couldn’t get them off the uploading tray while they were “pending.”  Then I read the uploading tip that suggested I resize the images to speed uploading time.  I canceled my upload and resized my picture.  On a Mac you do this through the “Preview” application that is preloaded on a Mac.  First you click on the picture to open it, then go to the File/Save As and a dialogue box open up.  Down at the bottom there is a slide bar that lets you adjust the quality of the picture.  To resize the picture smaller just lower the quality, as you do it will tell you the file size right below the slide bar.  Once my pictures were resized I finished the project in another 15 minutes.  It was a fun little application, but I did not see much practical use for the classroom.  I guess for special events you could have pictures of the class (Christmas, end of school year), or maybe use this after a field trip or field day.  It would be fun to have on a class website, classroom blog, or other site parents had access to.

Thing 20: You, Too, Can YouTube

I love YouTube videos but have been frustrated that CMCSS blocks access to YouTube on the school server (I understand completely – there is a lot of YouTube stuff you do not want children viewing).  While student teaching I was looking of videos on rock climbing (turn the volume down or off BEFORE clicking the hyperlink if young children are present), to build background information on a novel I was doing for 5th grade Language Arts (On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer).  Back then I did not know how to download YouTube videos with a Firefox add-on, and so although I found several great videos, I had to go another direction because I couldn’t show the videos using the CMCSS server.  For this particular video, using with students, I would ensure the sound was off (and double check – although the bad word is at the very end and there is other talking to remind you to turn down the sound).  I picked this because it is a good example of finding a good video but having to use care with the audio (also a lot of the music used in the background of some YouTube videos might not be appropriate).

I also found this great video while reading Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling in a 4th grade classroom, but again, before I knew how to download a video and so back then it was unusable to me.  Some of the comments made after the video are inappropriate for children.

Thing 19: Beyond MySpace: Other Social Networks

I signed up for my first social networking site just for this class and had not been a member before, due to the reasons I have listed below on my blog for “Thing 18: Social Networking”.  Perhaps it has a lot to do with wanting to keep a smaller footprint out in cyberspace and not have too much information out about myself (maybe it is just being in the military too long and the training I’ve had to keep my personal information carefully guarded).  I have looked at “Ning” before and have joined “Edmodo”.  I clicked on “TeacherPop” but didn’t really see any great advantage over a blog (the one advantage being other people can add things almost like Wiki page, so I guess this is a merge between a Wiki page and a blog).  I joined Edmodo because I saw a little more classroom application in using this site.  This would be great to set up a site for your whole class to share a calendar, post assignments, and include links to websites.  Parents could get on the site and see assignments, the calendar, and post questions also (at least I think they can – I think you would just have to give them the code).  Assignments can be turned in via Edmodo, graded and returned back to the students with a grade.  Students that had questions about an assignment could post a question.  Resources for class project could be listed under the library.  You can send messages and assignment to individuals or groups (you could sent information just to the group working on a Civil War project).  The term of agreement require you to keep consent form signed by each parent on file (and provide them to the company upon request) and that teachers have the permission of the school or district before using the service.  I would recommend reading some of the testimonials (especially read the one by a 5th grade teacher, Robert Miller.  The special needs students and the one on small group collaboration were also good to spark the imagination).

Thing 18: Social networking

 

I will admit that I enter into this topic with a lot of bias and little I found alleviate my concerns.  I am sure there are a lot of urban legends out there about Facebook and MySpace but I still vividly remember the girl who committed suicide when a fake online boyfriend on MySpace broke up with her.  The fake boyfriend turned out to be another child’s mother.  Just a couple of month ago at the beginning of this semester, there was a story of an educator losing her job when she complained about parents on Facebook.  When clicking the APSU 23 things link about creating a Myspace profile from about.com, I followed some of the other links.  One lead me to another site on about.com called common sense media, which offered a review on Myspace for parents.  It found the site not appropriated for those under 16 year olds and labeled the site “iffy” for 16-18 year olds (or for most of the school aged children through high school).  It labeled the site as having no educational value and it was not an educational medium.  I think the greatest importance for a teacher to learn about these sites is because students are using them.  With the recent attention placed upon cyber-bullying due to a suicide of a college student at Rutgers University (if college students aren’t strong enough to handle this kind of pressure, then why would we think younger children can?) teachers need to be aware and tuned in to how students are using (or abusing) both Facebook and Myspace (okay, so a weak connection between Facebook and Myspace, as in this case the spying was done using a webcam but my point I think is still valid, teachers do need to pay attention to cyber-bullying).  I opted to set up a Myspace account just because in my reading it appeared to be the most popular.  I signed up using an alias (Brown Squirrel) and using a fake birth date (both disappointingly too easy to do – if I can do it so can an online predator) and after following the other steps set up my account.  Upon setting up my account I attempted to unload some photos, which surprisingly took quite a while to do (they uploaded very slowly) and I could not select a batch of photos to upload (there is a way to do this, I just clicked on the tutorial on MySpace and still couldn’t figure out how to make it work).  After only getting one photo loaded I figured I had already spent too much time on this and decided to cut my losses and move on.  Still searching for a good educational use for social networking, perhaps my bias is just a little too big to overcome.

Thing 17: Del.icio.us social bookmarking

The two great advantages I see to a Del.icio.us social bookmarking is that you can access your bookmarks from any computer (I have encountered this problem trying to remember a bookmark I had stored on a different computer) and the fact that you can see other peoples bookmarks to help guide you to better information.  I will admit I sometimes get overwhelmed when I do a Google search and a million or so sites are reported as a result.  Going through site by site can be both frustrating and time consuming.  This is a great way of seeing what other people who are doing similar searches have found useful and is a great time saving measure to help you find significant pieces of information, not just information overload.  I really like the fact that when you tag a site to save as a bookmark there are suggested tags and popular tags to give you ideas quickly without having to think too hard about what would be a good tag.  For example when looking at the “apsu23things's Bookmarks” I found a great site, “Reading 2.0” that I had not encountered before.  It lead me to another site on “Interactive Book Sites” that will be helpful for another class I am taking and for tutoring a student in reading.  I think it could also have uses in the classroom for students.  Students are always coming up while I was student teaching saying they could not find anything while doing a research project.  A bookmark of this kind could allow students to see sites that other students in the class have found information.  It could also be helpful for parents that wanted to help their child do research as they could see the sites that I have visited and found useful.

Thing 16: Productivity and Organization

I chose the iGoogle start page just because I’m on Google a lot and through this course I have added to my Google presence with things like Google Reader.  I started out by choosing the theme “Rainbow Joy” because it reminded me of jazz music (my favorite type of music).  I’m not really much of a home page person but more utilitarian in my use of the web (I use the web to look for things and now with RSS news feeds coming to me I have less need of a homepage) so I probably won’t use it that much (for a simple Google search the page becomes too busy and distracting.)  The other reason I probably won’t use a homepage very much is I already use a program (Microsoft Entourage 2008 for Mac) that has a calendar, address book, a to do list, and a note taking function and I am reluctant to change (if it’s not broke don’t fix it).  The only advantage I can see to the Google calendar is the accessibility I would have when traveling (if I were to ever travel without my laptop, which so far has not happened.  I’ve taken a laptop to Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Afghanistan, and Australia) or if my laptop went down, or I was somewhere without my laptop (that had an Internet connection).  I went on to set up my homepage with some of the more utilitarian functions (linked in my Gmail account, Google Reader and Google Calendar) and went ahead and added a “to do list” (I already have one set up through Entourage that I use for school to keep track of assignment due dates, test dates, and school related events.  Maybe I’ll use this one for personal things like vacation planning).  I also found some educational related gadgets like one for the “National Geographic” and one called “Interesting Thing of the Day”.  I look at several fun fact and trivia gadgets but most had bad reviews so opt not to add any.  And last to keep my brain growing I added a “Spanish Word of the Day”.  A little too early to give any a recommendation but I’ve hyperlinked the ones I’ve added to my homepage.

Thing 15: Wiki

My Favorite things (from the APSU 23 things)

Out of all the 23 things, this is the one for me has the most classroom applications.  I like reading and the language arts and see a ton of potential using Wiki pages especially in getting student to write more.  In reading in a content area like science, each student could create a Wiki page on a student-selected Amphibian, adding images, videos and audio to their written research.  They could include links in their references to the resources they used in creating their site.  In a content area like social studies I could have students’ in small groups each take an assigned topic on the Civil War (5th grade social studies) like famous battles, famous people, or significant dates.  For a literature circle, groups could explore a book by developing a Wiki page on the book that would include information about the author, the time in history, the location, and important themes.

            I tried to edit using the class Wiki site, apsu23thingssandbox, but I was having problems with the site in large part to the fact the wiki page has grown so large.  I kept getting a message telling the page was too large and needed to be split.  Another time someone else was trying to edit at the same time, so I decided to try my own wiki page listing some of my favorite things out of the 23 things I tried so far.  Not the greatest site but I am still in love with the potential of what I think it can do in the classroom.

Thing 14: Flow charts and mindmaps

I like to do a lot of writing with elementary school children, especially with upper elementary (4th and 5th grades).  When writing I mainly use the "6+1 Writing Traits," and the first trait is ideas where we always do some sort of brainstorming.  I use to use graphic organizers I would create using PowerPoint but these sites are great, and free.

  MindMeister mindmap 

A little hard to navigate and figure out so I would use this for the upper elementary grades.  Lots of cool "bells and whistles," like a being able to add images and links to websites (I have a link with the

 light bulb / idea image).

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This mindmap is much easier to use but doesn't have as many cool things (like images and links).  Easy enough to use with some of the younger students (2nd-3rd-4th).

Bubbl.us

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A great fairly simple flow chart application.  This is an organizational chart for a Jigsaw (cooperative learning strategy).  This program also let you do floor plans, Venn diagrams, and other charts.

Gliffy Flow Charts

Thing 13: Web-based Applications (Zoho Writer)

Well, I've spent over 6 very frustrating hours, and still can't get my Zoho Writer document to post onto this blog (click on the image below to enlarge it).  When I go to "Share"/"Post to Blog" I keep getting an error message, "You need to login in https mode to use this feature."  I've tried a help search on the Zoho site and even a Google search to try and find out how to login in https mode (maybe it has something to do with the fact I'm using a Mac).  I exported and imported, saved as a html onto my desktop, and tried every button and tab.  Very frustrated and can't waste any more time, I've got to get going on some more of my 23 things.  I have posted a hyperlink that shows what I have done, it's just not in this blog entry like I want it to be (wish I could insert a unhappy face here).

My Zoho Writer document.

Follow the link for my review and thoughts about Zoho Writer (aside from not being able to place my document into this blog I really liked it).

Thing 12: Google is Not Just for Searching

The first Google tool I tried was the Google Alert and I signed up for alerts on the Tennessee Titans and brain based learning but was unable to find a way to make my alerts public (you would have to sign in to my Google account) but I added a picture (above).  I looked at the Picasa Web Albums but as I have just started with Flickr I did not see anything that Picasa Web offered compelling enough for me to switch or add this service.  I already have a calendar set up (Microsoft Entourage) and didn’t want to go though the hassle of moving all my calendar information over to a new calendar system when I am happy with what I already have (and this is one area where I think Microsoft has Google beat.  My initial impression based on a tour of Google Calendar was that Entourage is a more robust program offering more features).  Nothing I saw about iGoogle excited me to use it so I was left with Google Translate which of all the Google web tools was the only one I saw with any educational value (I guess I could set up a classroom calendar to share online with students and parents).  With the diversity in the classroom today I thought of several uses for the calendar in the classroom.  If I had a student that spoke a language other than English, I could learn to greet the student each day in their own language and learn phrases like “please” and thank-you” to help the student feel more at ease.  If a student was having trouble communicating I could have them type into the translator to help me understand what the student was trying to communicate.

Thing 11: Good RSS Feeds

 
The search method of finding feeds that was the easiest for me to use was the Google Blog Search, which found me 4,325 blog sites and articles (I was able to differentiate between what was a blog site and what was an article unlike some of the other sites) on brain based learning alone.  To test the blog search engines I typed in the same two phrases on every search to see what would come up.  I search “brain based learning” and “technology in the classroom.”  On syndic8 I found no sites at all listed for brain based learning and only one site (a sort of ho hum site and one that I did not subscribe to).  With Topix.net I was directed to four additional articles (not blog sites just individual articles that had been posted on blog sites) on brain based learning and for technology in the classroom found 16,923.  With Technorati the search for brain based learning yielded no results and for technology in the classroom only three articles.  Nothing unusual and I only added one additional feed on brain-based learning.  I did just a regular Google search on the web by using my two search phrases and adding the word “blog” to find the initial feeds I set up (six of the seven I found with just a regular Google search).  I guess I’m just more familiar with Google so the search was easier for me to navigate and understand or Google is every bit as good as it seems.

Thing 10: RSS Reader

My five RSS feeds I selected turned out to be seven RSS feeds.

(1) News (recommended by Google) which actually gave me nine different new blogs.

(2) Free Technology for Teachers

(3) 2 cents Worth (by David Warlick (a leading classroom technology educator)

(4) Warlick's CoLearners / Redefining Literacy For The 21stCentury

(5) Sharp Brains (Brain Based Learning)

(6) Brain Based Learning - A Brain Based Teaching Approach By Eric Jensen

(7) Reading Today (International Reading Association or IRA)

I selected my feeds based on my desire to keep myself current in three main areas of interest in the education field: (1) Technology in education, (2) Brain-based learning, and (3) Reading instruction.  The Google Reader suggested subscribing to a news bundle, as I am a news junkie at heart I went ahead and subscribed, which added nine news sites (CNN, Christian Science Monitor, BBC News, NPR, New York Times, Market Watch, The Guardian, Google News, and Reuters).  Already I have 142 articles to read and worry about keeping up on my reading.  I like the RSS newsreader because I read a lot of online newspaper, sometime check them several times a day.  Now I will get automatic updates.  Now the news finds me.  I like using this technology because I think it is very important for an educator to stay current in the field of education and my hope is these blogs will help (my sister is a medical doctor who attends four to five conferences a year to stay current in her field).  I’m still thinking through the applications for students in the classroom and need to do more exploring.  Perhaps having upper elementary (I am elementary ed.) students set up a Google Reader account on topics of interest to them and give weekly updates on new information.  I will have to search and see if there are science or social studies blogs that students can subscribe to.  While in Afghanistan with the army I subscribed to several podcast to stay current on Afghanistan and this seems very similar.  Time will tell.

Thing 9: Online Image Generators

 Yogi Bear and Thing 9

The first online image generator I tried was the Comic Strip Generator.  What a great site, my favorite technology for the classroom so far.  I tried several cartoons, TV actors and historical figures.  Below are some of my favorite creations.  I thing this would be a great fun activity for the classroom.  Students could take a figure from history and make a cartoon from it after a Social Studies lesson, or summarize their learning (as a exit card) from a science lesson using a dolphin or panther.  I used a picture I took this last summer while in Hawaii (the Big Island) of a sea turtle swimming ashore on a black sand beach.  I used several step to get the picture down to size (the jpeg file was too large.  The max size for a .jpeg file to use this program is 975 KB and my file was 1,617 KB.  I took a screen capture and cropped out some unnecessarily scenery.  Then I saved new image but lower the quality of the image using the Preview program on my Mac).

Calvin and Hobbs and Thing 9

Charlie Brown and Thing 9

Abraham Lincoln and Thing 9

Clint Eastwood and Thing 9

George Bush and Thing 9

Dolphin and Thing 9

Panther and Thing 9

My Hawaiian Sea Turtle and Thing 9

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Next I tried the Sign Generator and again have listed some of my favorites below.  I was not as thrilled with this image generator.  I thought of signs I could make at the beginning of the school year and thought of making a couple of signs to insert into PowerPoint presentation.  Perhaps I could use this as a fun activity for students who finished working on a lesson or project ahead of the other students.

Danger Thing 9

Warning Thing 9

Thing 9 Crossing

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I also played around with the Happy Face Generator.  I made several and thought of making personalized smiley face notes to student (print off and attach to an assignment).  For students they could insert into a PowerPoint, but I think I would save this for students who finished an assignment early as a fun reward.

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And finally I tried the Image Chef which was my least favorite of the four I tried.  Again, for students, something fun for when work is done.

 Searchlight signal Thing 9

Wave Thing 9

 

Thing 8: Flickr Mashups

Created with Spell with Flick

I haven’t quite figured this out so I had to take a screen capture of what I created in “Spell with Flickr.”  This mashup is a cool artsy way to create word art using random picture selections from Flickr (side note - I still haven’t really figured word art in “Microsoft Word 2008 for Mac.”  I use to be able to make word art in rainbow colors and have the text box curve or bow.  I think I’ve found an adequate replacement for doing word art in MS Word, I’ll use this program and take a screen capture to insert whatever word art I’ve created into a document as a picture).  When you click on the “Created” hyperlink above, it won’t show you this same picture shown here, but will create “Thing 8” using a different selection of Flickr pictures each time.  This would be great in a classroom for students to use in a PowerPoint or in any classroom presentation (like a video movie).  Students could also use it illustrating writing projects (like if students were writing a book they could use this to create a title for their book).  A fun and somewhat addicting mashup.  

  I was interesting in the Mappr mashup but it appears to be discontinued through the website is till active.  A note at on the site reads “As of 2007, Mappr is no longer processing images from flickr.  Take a look at flickr to find images on maps.”  It appears that the Flickr site now does what the “Mappr” site was doing.  Clicking on the hyperlink like “route 66” just take you to a screen capture image and not any of the Flickr pictures on a map.

 

Another mashup I visited Clockr which advertises that it “uses random digital images from Flickr display the current time.”  At first I couldn’t get it to work even after clicking on each number of the clock several times and closing and restarting my Firefox browser several times.  Revisiting the site again several hour later I still was having the same problem but this time stayed on the site for about 15 minutes (checking my browser settings for pop-up blockers and such) and then it just started working.  Now I’m thinking the clock program just took a while to load because now it’s working every time I revisit the site.  An interesting site to visit once (just to say I’ve been there) but not one I could really think of any uses for in the classroom or for my personal use.

 

Last I looked at a Flickr app developed by rapi.castillo, created on September 16, 2010, called Flickr Lithe.  Not anything out of the ordinary but just search that arranges the pictures in a more user friendly way.  By moving the cursor over a picture an enlarged version of the picture appears with the title and photographer listed.  This is my search “Clarksville, Tennessee” and one I did for “Austin Peay State University”.  Note: double click on the image for an enlarged view of the screen capture.  Not something I found beneficial for my personal but perhaps a limited use in the classroom for visual learners who wanted a more exciting look to the regular Flickr search.

Thing 7: Photosharing with Flickr

Going to school at APSU

Click on the hyperlink "Going to school at APSU" to see my Flickr slideshow.
Make sure in the upper left corner under "options" you have the box checked for "Always show title."
Or here.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brown_squirrel/
and click on the "Going to School at APSU" set and the slideshow.

Today for thing #7 I opted for the "OPTION TWO (the more FUN option!)"

On my way to school today I stopped along the way to take pictures.  What I thought would take a couple of hours I ended up playing around with most of the day.  This Flickr thing gets kind of addicting and I quickly lost track of time.  I had added a slideshow gadget on my blog and wanted to show my new slideshow for Flickr at the side of my blog page using my gadget but spent all afternoon and into the evening trying to figure out how to do this.  I found a site that showed me how, got my slideshow to show up at the side of my blog page but have been unable to find the website I was on to hyperlink it into this blog (even with Firefox "Show All History").
I use a lot of photos in the classroom with PowerPoint and also use images to teach vocabulary.  Here is a slideshare of a vocabulary lesson I did while reading a story entitled "At the Beach" where I taught vocabulary by viewing images I found on "Google Images" (which I still prefer for it ease of search and quantity of images).   I love slide #4, can you see the airplane in the middle left picture?  Flickr gives me another image resource.  Another use for images is for writing prompts.  I've found images of children during slavery and had students write about their feelings after viewing the pictures.  Also in student research I normally have students include at least one image they have found to illustrate their topic.  With all of these Flickr could be a great resource.  As I was compiling my own Flickr project I thought this would be an engaging way to have students summarize a project by taking photos and creating a Flickr set.  Student would capture their project during different stages with digital photographs and then write titles and descriptions to describe their project and create a Flickr set.  Then a website could be created like I did at the top of this blog (the website under the words "Or Here.") to share with parents.  As with anything the teacher would have to screen the Flickr project before the webpage went public for appropriateness, but it would be a great way to share with parents.  I like the Flickr site, and see value in it for the classroom, but for me personally, I don't Twitter, or have a Facebook account.  I just prefer to email pictures or send a CD with photos to family and keep my photos and images off the World Wide Web.

Thing 6: Discovering Web 2.0 Tools

NVT-Office Great For MultiMedia images are available FREE for MS OfficeUsers to download

In selecting a webware site from the 2009 Web 2.0 Awards to explore and review I was most interested in looking at a web app that would be most useful to me as a teacher.  Money and music apps are great but not very practical in the classroom.  Search engines and web browsers I felt I knew enough about to use somewhat effectively.  I’ve already explored Google apps, wasn’t that interested in social networking and didn’t see anything about creating a podcast, wiki page, or an eBook.  My number 1 choice of the top 100 is …

. . .YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/

My biggest problem with YouTube for education is that some school systems block access to the site.  I understand there is some content on YouTube that is not appropriate for viewing by a child and had resigned myself to not ever being able to use any of the videos that I had screened and selected in the classroom.  Then I found an add-on for the Firefox browser that allows me to copy a YouTube video to my desktop.  The add-on I am currently playing with is Flash Video Downloader (Youtube Downloader) but there are plenty of others to chose from.  This opened up a whole new world for me.  It has a great search feature and I’ve found several great videos in the past just using the search (as you are typing your search, the search offers up potential video categories just like a Google search because it is owned by Google).  I was trying to build background knowledge for a story I was doing in 5th grade language arts that had rock climbing (about 5,450 videos), whirlpools (about 1,040 videos), and Starved Rock State Park (about 202 videos).  For each video I was given the title of the video, how many minutes each video clip ran, how many times the video clip had been viewed (I normally looked at the most popular first), and how long ago the video had been place on YouTube (1 year ago, 3 years ago, etc.).  A similar search on TeacherTube gave me 14 rock climbing videos, 49 whirlpool videos (unrelated to my needs as they were on the Whirlpool Galaxy), and 0 Starved Rock State Park videos and did not give as much information on the index page, such as how long the video clip lasted, so to find out more information on the video I had to clip on each individual title (which was a lot of time wasted).  I’ve read complaints about some inappropriate advertising and inappropriate videos on the homepage (again, this is why a lot of school systems block access to the site) but as I am previewing the videos and selecting only those I deem appropriate, and with the add-on that downloads the video to my desktop I never worry about the homepage or advertising videos accidentally showing up on my computer (although teachers beware of other things you have on your personal computer or on a portable flash drive.  This an extreme example, and not something a teacher had done but rather something an outside community presenter had brought in for a school wide assembly.)  The major drawback of YouTube is that the site is not appropriate for student use and not something that would be allowed in a school library, but for me as the teacher it’s a great tool.

Thing 5: Web 2.0/School 2.0

 “We can no longer ask our children to live in a world where they are immersed in technology in all parts of their lives except school.  We must rewire education or we risk losing this generation of media-immersed, tech-savvy students.”

“Welcome to the iGeneration!” by Larry Rosen (2010).

For the past year or so I’ve heard the term Web 2.0 tossed around and always thought it meant a faster WWW or maybe an improved WWW.  I am always being encouraged to buy new software or upgrade my existing software to the “new and improve 2.0 version” (3.0, 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, etc.).  A recent tutorial video from Atomic Learning, entitled “What is Web 2.0?” helped clear up some of my misconceptions about the term.  Web 1.0 refers to the “Read Only Web” where the web was used primarily to store information and consumers used the web to find information on just about anything.   Basically the web of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s.  Web 2.0 refers to the web as a “Read/Write” tool, where you are still able to find information on the web (read) but now literally anyone can put something on the web (write) for the whole world to see, view, listen to or watch.  Now we have blogs, podcasts, Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc where anyone, anywhere, and any age can post something to the web.

School 2.0 refers to using this new, more social technology, of Web 2.0 in school.  I found a great quote in an article entitled “Web 2.0: A Guide for Educators” by Susan McLester (2007) “for education not to step up and maximize these resources for teaching, learning, and driving innovation is to risk becoming marginalized as a viable influence in helping to shape the 21st century” (para. 5).  Schools need to teach the skills that the job market of tomorrow requires.  I grew up believing that the purpose of education was to equip our students with the necessary skills and knowledge to become productive members of society.  If this is the case, it is imperative upon us the teachers to use Web 2.0 in the classroom.  In a book I read this summer entitled Redefining Literacy 2.0 by David Warlick, he quotes a researcher that states that something like 90% of the jobs that the children entering 1st grade today will have upon graduation, haven’t even been created yet (jobs in internet security and such).  We increasing need to use the tools of technology that our students will be increasingly using in the job market of tomorrow, and in many cases are already using outside the classroom today.  O'Brien and Scharber (2010) have an interesting perspective that the greatest challenge to introducing technology into the classroom is with teacher, in an article they wrote “Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks: The Luxury of Digital Abundance.”

“In the 21st century, literacy involves not just reading and comprehending the text in front of you.  It now includes a range of skills to find, navigate, access, decode, evaluate, and organize the information from a globally networked landscape.  Almost all of the information that our students use in their future will be viewed with some type of information device (a computer), and it will come from a global electronic library that will be vast, largely unorganized and unmanaged, and produced from a bewildering variety of perspectives.  If all our children learn to do is read, they will not be literate.” (p 18-19)

RedefiningLiteracy 2.0. by David Warlick (2010).

Thing 4: Commenting is Important

Commenting on a blog helps create a sense of community and interaction because blogging can connect you to people and topics that are important to you.  In the World Wide Web universe there is a lot of information out there, an unfathomable amount, but that information is often full of the cold hard facts, devoid of feeling and emotion.  Blogging allows you to make an emotional connection with people.   You connect with people that are passionate (passionate enough to express their thoughts and feelings) about the same things you are.  Vicki A. Davis on her “Cool Cat Teacher” blog makes a similar comment when she notes, “you become a part of the life of the blogger you read.”

Several bloggers talk about the positive feeling they receive from blogging.  Vicki A. Davis on her “Cool Cat Teacher” comments that “encourage her,” and quotes a third grader that wrote “and when somebody sends me a comment I just get happy and send a comment back to him or her.”   Doug Johnson at the ‘Blue Skunk Blog” writes that every blogger likes to know that they are being read otherwise “they'd be writing in a spiral notebook.”  To write something and then have someone take the time to read and make a positive comment makes you want to write more.  What a great way to motivate children to write (positive feedback) and engage them in reading (by reading others blogs).

Blogging is a great interactive tool that promotes higher order thinking.  We talk all the time about in education about open-ended questioning (asking questions without clear cut right and wrong answers).  Darren Rowse at ProBlogger talks about being opened ended when blogging as a way to get people to respond, the same thing we as teachers do to promote higher order thinking.

Blogs I have selected to follow all have something to do with areas of educational interest I have in reading, brain based learning and in technology in the classroom.

(1) Free Technology for Teachers

(2) 2 cents Worth (by David Warlick (a leading classroom technology educator)

(3) Warlick's CoLearners / Redefining Literacy For The 21stCentury

(4) Sharp Brains (Brain Based Learning)

(5) Brain Based Learning - A Brain Based Teaching Approach By Eric Jensen

(6) Reading Today (International Reading Association or IRA)

Some blogs by fellow classmates in ED 5611 that I have found insightful, interesting, helpful, and thought provoking are by  Carla Sensing, Sara Denson, and by Dean Hook.