Wordle

Thing 23

The additional tools all seem like wonderful assets to add to your “tool box”. I have experience with Google Doc and highly enjoy it. I use it as a way for me to share documents with myself when I will be working on multiple computers. Last year I was planning my wedding with my husband and my parents. It was a great way to share documents like our guest list. At our school our e-mail is on a gmail server so I have also been able to share documents with other teachers.

I have always wanted to use Skype and never took the time to explore it. In college I used something similar to talk with friends in California. I am glad that I have now opened up my world to Skype. I enjoyed playing with it with a friend of mine, although we live close it was a fun way to talk. I look forward to connecting with some of my friends in Israel who have been skyping for a while! It may be a way to have my students talk with other students or people somewhere else. We have a teacher who is now teaching in China and one teacher had her class Skype with her.

I am interested to look into Library Thing. Right now I am not doing as much leisure reading as I would like, but I am curious to look around and see if it could be a way to also post books I used in the classroom. I have some friends who have used this to share books they read and really enjoy it.

Video Sharing

I really enjoyed searching videos on TeacherTube and YouTube. It amazes me some of the videos that people post on YouTube. I appreciate the “How To” and informational videos where we can learn new things. I have used videos in grad school presentations. Once I was able to find an interview with an author I was speaking about and it really added another component to the presentation. In class there are times I would like to share short videos with the students. If we are learning about a topic it can be something that can really come to life for them. In the class it is a bit hard since I only have a computer screen, and it is hard to have 15 students crowd around it. When we go to computers I will sometimes share something with them there.

I found that on YouTube there are more videos, but if you are looking for something educational you are more likely to find something more developmentally appropriate for first graders. I find it best to search both of them and to see what better fits your needs.

On a personal level, it gives me a way to stay in touch with what everyone is talking about. Recently in the news there is a lot of talk about viral videos and if you look at how many people view each video it can be jaw dropping. While doing this task I looked up something that I really likes. One of the fads recently is to do a special dance at your wedding. There was a couple who copied the Dirty Dancing dance. They made an appearance on Oprah about it and they showed everyone the dance. You have to watch the video to see what happens while they are dancing! I loved it! I hope you enjoy it too.

My Podcasts

I like many do not like hearing my voice, but I enjoyed finding a topic to create my first podcast on. I enjoy the analogy between shoes and books and hope that others do as well.

I am very excited about podcasts. I have friends who listen to them. I never bothered to look into them or subscribe to any. Although most people wouldn’t know it, my favorite radio show is Car Talk on NPR. My brother listens to it all the time and I knew it had a podcast but never listened. I am so excited that I now have it on my reader and I can listen to it whenever I want and not just find excuses to be in the car while it is on. Yes, you would think I can turn the radio on in my apartment- but I never bothered to do that.

I also like being able to learn new things through them. Having the podcasts in the reader will be such an easy way to keep track of what I have listened too.  I have seen websites before for education that have podcasts that I have not listened to. I look forward to finding them and listening to them.  Also, in my first grade class I work on a research project about insects. I can now show them another way to gather information.

Flickr and Photos

I am really enjoying exploring Flickr. I have heard about it before but never took the chance to search through it.  I did enjoy it better when I was doing an entire search rather than making sure the photos were Creative Commons. That is just because the photos were then a bit limited.  It was such a good idea for them to create something like Creative Commons. As a teacher I am always looking for photos to use in the class and to include in my weekly newsletter. I have now started to use Flickr and I am finding some great images.  I also want to thank the other people that then created tools of ways we can use these pictures in other ways with the slide show and using them in different photos.

At our school the 5th, 4th, and 3rd, grade classrooms have smartboards. In first grade we do not have a smart board or an easy way to show a picture from the computer projected for the students. These tools are giving me more reasons to ask for a Smart board.  The students benefit from visuals and I would enjoy incorporating these types of photos or slideshows into a lesson.

Besides a classroom teacher I am also a student myself in a graduate program. I look forward to using some of these tools in future presentations.  I can see myself spending a little bit too much time playing with different photos!

I look forward to playing with more of the photo generator tools.

K12 Online Conference Session

Wow! So, I was just having a conversation with several people about possiblities for students under the age of 13  and what they can do on the internet.  I went to the K12 conferences and found the session “Little Kids, Big Possiblities” by Kelly Hines. She went through several different website that do not need students to have an e-mail and also let teachers monitor what the students contribute.

The first website is Wallwisher. As Kelly says this site is  “easy, effective, and intuitive.”  You do not need to log in and a user can do more than just write, they can also include multimedia.  This can be used to share, have a back channel discussion, and sort ideas. One tool is different users can create sticky notes. These notes can be sorted into different catagories.  The discussion with the class can then go further by discussion how the notes can be grouped and are there other options.  The teacher can sign up and on one dashboard have multiple walls to use at the same time for different activities.  The information can be monitored before it is posted.

The next site, Wordle creates really cool word clouds. This could be used for such things as looking at the main idea, general info, inference, and guessing historical events.  Once the word cloud is created it can be inserted into such things as Wikis.  To create a Wordle all you have to do is enter text or an Rss feed, or copy text from somewhere. The program will then generate a the most common word from a text by putting them in different colors, sizes and fonts and in different directions.  After the word cloud is auto generated you can change settings to make it look different. Students could then for example try to find what historical event the words are talking about.

Another idea she discussed is comic creators. One website Kelly mentioned is Comics.com.  This can be used to summarize, design, study story element, tell a story, and review terms.  The student can work from an existing comic and change the words. They can also create their own.  As Hines mentioned many students are making their own comics in their notebooks, so what a great way to use what they like to do and put it into a lesson.

The last website she discussed is one I am looking forward to exploring.  It is a Edmodo a type of social place for teachers and students.  The nice thing about this site is that you do not need an e-mail as the student. The teacher can create a group and then give that ID number to the students and that is what they sign up by.  Through this they can take and give polls, answer questions, share files and turn in assignments.  Depending on what you want to use this for the items the students share can be sent just to you or can be shared with other students.

I could see even using this in first grade as a way to have the students take a poll.  I am always looking for new options for first graders to do activities on the computer where they use the keyboard and not just the mouse. Also, in older elementary grades the students work frequently on laptops and this could be a nice way to share what they are working on with their teacher.

I really enjoyed watching this presentation. It was clear and it gave you enough information that you can go further into the sites that interest you. Kelly also was helpful by giving a group ID for Edmodo so that you can work with the site before using it in the classroom.  I could see a video tutorial useful for the students if they were learning how to do something.

Classroom 2.0

In today’s world there are many social networks.  I personally pretty early on joined AIM, Friendster, and then MySpace (before it changed), and Facebook.  I enjoy being connected to my friends. I am primarily on Facebook now.  Although, I like using it and feel as though I use it appropriately, it can very easily be used in a wrong way. Some of the positives are that it is a nice way to ask for help or to network an event. The obvious reason is that it is a great way to connect to friends.  My last high school reunion was run primarily through Facebook.  As a professional I am very careful about what I post and what I share. I do not post message about my daily life on there. I also hide my profile so that people that are not my ‘friend’ cannot find me.

Since this is where the future is headed it can be something that is used in the classroom. We are seeing through this course of the benefits of social networks, especially when they are targeted towards certain topics such as education.  There are ways that teachers can use it to enhance classroom lessons. One of the new roles (well not new, but changing) we have is to educate the students about the Internet and proper ways to use it.   I have done a project where students (6^th and 7^th graders) make a Facebook page for an influential person.  This was a successful way for them to share important information with the class but in a different form than a paper.  Although teachers probably want to enforce classic grammar students can still learn that there is a difference for other things.  For the students to be able to participate in social networks, or other web forums it is important they learn about internet safety and the tools needed for the technology they will be using.

Thing 13–K12 Online Conference Keynote

Kim Cofino’s presentation was eye opening.  I connected with the comparisons of everyday life in Asia to education.  It is very interesting to hear how we change so many different parts of our lives but education we want it to be like it was like for us.  I am interested in how this change would take place. I hope that some of the changes such as parts of education being more flexible are possible.   Many schools implement small change here and there, but it seems that school may really need a bigger change.

One of the biggest things that all schools can do is to learn to be adaptable and flexible like the Third Culture Kid (TCK).  This is very important for the classroom and will help the learner.

Currently in my first grade class we are not very global.  We do community service and discuss how others feel. This helps to show them the outside world and also how people can be different. We have a teacher who used to work with us and is now teaching oversees. Sometimes their current teacher will set up a time to Skype with her.  This is a great way for them to connect and to be globally connected.  I would like to incorporate this into my class.  As well I hope to find other resources for what first graders are doing around the world and connect with my class how there are many people doing the same thing as them.

Our school is going through some changes and is working on our curriculum.   Hopefully we can incorporate some of the latest things.  Also, I really want to share this with my principal and a professor or mine who would enjoy it and be interested in what Kim has to say.

Thing 11-Wikis in Education

I liked the idea of the title for the Kindergarten Counting Book.  Although, on the page it looks like they counted to 100, but it does not give you much other info. It would be interesting to find out how they went about doing this with the students.  Also, when I was on the page I did not think the ad at the top was appropriate for young students.

The other wiki that interested me was the Kidpedia.  This sounds like such an interesting way to have 5^th graders research.  From this wiki it is obvious that they students learned about Internet safety as well as what sources are credible.  I do not teach fifth grade, but if I did I would want to try something similar.

I teach first grade general studies.  The first graders work on researching skills through learning about insects. It would be interesting to have them create a Wiki. At the end once they are “experts” we present the data to the rest of first grade and it would be added if we could share the projects through a Wiki and maybe the next year first graders could use the wiki as well to research insects.  I would like to incorporate the Internet into researching but most of the sites are above their reading level. This could be a way to work with that.  I am not sure if I would have the time with the students to work on it.

Thing 9–Feeds in My Reader

I mentioned before I have not been very into “blogging” . I am finding some interesting things that I want to learn more about in blogs, but with not enough time to read them.  There are some blog posts that I have really enjoyed.

I have a friend who has a blog to teach other people how to make quilts and to update others on what she is doing.  Although I am not a quilter I am enjoying keeping up with her new adventures.  Julie is really creating some amazing projects and I am excited to see what she will do next.

She has also introduced me to Bakerella’s Blog. I wish that I had the time to try to bake and decorate some of the things on her blog. Recently she has even used her blog to help a guy propose with wedding cake pops!

These blogs are making me try to find time in my schedule to work on some of my hobbies.

I hope to find time to read more blogs. I prefer to learn how to do new things rather than just reading about what someone is doing with their life.  Maybe over Winter break I will find time to catch up on reading.