Thing 13
I just played around with Quizlet, and enjoyed my experience. In fact, I signed up for an account and created an activity of my own. I love that this site allowed me to import a vocabulary list that I had already created and used my terms and definitions in new activities (Familiarize, Learn, Test, Play Scatter, Play Space Race). I can see my students especially liking to play the latter two activities.
I also noticed that there was a discussion box where you could add your comments and discuss the activity with other classmates. This feature is probably not necessary with just vocabulary terms and definitions, but it might be helpful with more difficult material.
Thing 12
I just viewed Drew Murphy’s presentation, Step by Step- Building a Web2.0 Classroom. This online conference would be very helpful for many teachers to view BEFORE taking the K12 Learning 2.0 class. Mr. Murphy does a beautiful job of demonstrating some basic skills needed to effectively implement web 2.0 techniques in the classroom. He breaks down his online conference into three sections: Explore and Participate, Deconstruct and Reconstruct, and Connect and Create. I suspect that many teachers know how to do most of the skills that Mr. Murphy demonstrates, but it never hurts to remind us of how to most effectively use these skills (I especially appreciated the tip on resizing photos to a proper file size before uploading to the web). Teachers who are not very experienced with using technology, but want to do so, would especially benefit from this online conference and have many of their web 2.0 fears alleviated. And EVERYONE could use a good chuckle after watching Vinnie Kebobolous’ guest appearances!
Thing 11: Slideshow
Please view my wiki page. You will find an embedded slide show at the bottom titled Over Sea, Under Stone Slide Show. Currently I am reading this novel with my 6th grade students, and I thought that I could better illustrate the setting of the story through actual pictures taken of various locales in Cornwall, England.
Thing 10: Fun with Flickr
My students are currently reading the novel by Susan Cooper, Over Sea, Under Stone which is set in a fictitious village in Cornwall, England. Because the setting is unfamiliar with many of my students, I have gathered several images from Flickr which I feel best portray the landmarks mentioned in the book. The image below (uploaded by scribex) is of a stone circle on Bodmin Moor and is much like the standing stones mentioned in our novel.
The next image posted by yibble shows a cave near the sea in Cornwall, much like the one where King Arthur’s grail is hidden in our story.
Thing 9: Creative Commons
I have not noticed the Creative Commons logo on websites in the past. But I will be sure to look for it now! It has been brought to my attention that I cannot legally share my classroom materials that feature cut and pasted pictures and maps from Google searches. The thought that I was doing something wrong never entered my mind…I really thought that I was doing the right thing by adding a citation below the image.
I’m really excited about the OER Commons site. I’ve already searched the site for some lessons plans…hopefully I will become ambitious enough to add some materials of my own. Before I started working on Thing 9, I had the crazy idea that some other teacher in this world might want to use some of the lesson plans and worksheets that I have created for some of my novel studies (not so much because I think so highly of my work, but because these are novels with very few available resources). It’s a good thing that I got this far in this course so I can post these materials appropriately!
Thing 7 (Reflections on Wikis)
After viewing several of the wiki spaces listed on our k12Learning page, I have come to the conclusion that I LOVE the idea of wikis! Apparently I have been living under a rock (perhaps in good company), but before this I never really even realized what a wiki was or how I could use it in my classroom. At first glance, here are several things that I noticed about these wiki spaces:
- most wikis are organized much more clearly than most of the blogs I have visited;
- they include more relevant information (or information that I would care to use);
- because most are edited by more than one student, they are less likely to contain grammatical and spelling errors.
I was thoroughly impressed by three wikis in particular. I enjoyed reading the class summaries on the Turn Homeward Hannalee wiki and was so proud to discover that such amazing work was being done with 5th graders on Patricia Beatty’s novel RIGHT IN MY OWN BACKYARD! The class newsletters and the book reviews on the Room 15 wiki were refreshing, and I was totally blown away by the work that Vicki Davis’ students did on their wiki pages, Westwood wikilinks . I’m not so sure that adults would have created such comprehensive study guides.
As for wikis in my future, I see that I can easily create that class newsletter that I have been putting off and post information about upcoming projects or events. Already another teacher and I are brainstorming ways to incorporate the class wiki into our summer reading projects.
Thing 6
I’ve been subscribing to several blogs for about a week now. The amount of information is actually not as enormous as I thought it would be, and I have found Google Reader to be a great screening tool (I can read what I want and then trash the rest). I have really enjoyed reading posts from The Cool Cat Teacher Blog. Ms. Davis has many informative posts, yet they are all readable, entertaining, and strangely relevant to my life at the present moment. Take for instance her post, Are Webkinz just Crummy or a Tool to Use?
I don’t know how often I will continue to check my Google Reader once I complete this course, but at least I now know how to use it.
Thing 5
Wow. I was completely overwhelmed with the amount of information that I received after subscribing to only five feeds. Having Google Reader manage all this info helps, but I just don’t know if I will have the time to even skim over all these blogs, podcasts, etc. with any kind of regularity. I suppose that managing the sheer amount of information gets easier with some practice and that over time I will have a better idea of what I am looking for.
However, I did find a couple blogs that interested me on TechLearning Blog. One dealt with internet safety and the other with digital citizenship. In I Can’t Wait Until Thursday to Join Fifth Graders for Lunch! Cheryl Oakes talks about the Internet Safety Project that is being implemented in her school district. She shares some wonderful reasons for having the project and calls for parent support to reinforce the principles taught in school. Ms. Oakes also shares some suggestions for introducing the topic to students (links to some videos) and a link to a comic generator where students can create their own comic strips on internet safety.
In the article, What is Digital Citizenship? Wesley Fryer argues that while internet safety is receiving a fair amount of attention, digital citizenship is not. Fryer defines digital citizenship as the “rights and responsibilities which accompany technology use”. Through the ProTechT 2008 Project, he and eight other teachers are coming up with ways to help students be more ethically responsible for what they say and do through digital technology. I thought that the brainstorming activity that he initially did with the students generated a huge amount of interest on this topic (see the 27 questions). And as he points out, we as educators are not really prepared to answer all of these questions. that our students have. Fryer urges us to build upon the ProTechT project in our own schools and communicate openly with our local communities and school boards about the importance of digital citizenship.
Thing 4: How Blogs Are Used in Education
After reading five or six of the suggested educational blogs, I noticed a few things that most of the blogs had in common. First of all, reading these blogs was similar to reading an article in a magazine or an editorial in the newspaper. I guess the biggest difference would be that they have not been edited or screened by anyone so one has to be a careful when using information from blogs (and to take them with the proverbial grain of salt).
Secondly, I saw that there is no formal code or format stating how blogs should be written. Any opinion can be expressed; however, the most enjoyable blogs for me to read were those whose authors backed up what they wrote. I especially appreciated the links that were included within each blog. It gave the writers’ opinions or viewpoints more validity. Most of the blogs that I saw were free of horrific spelling and grammatical errors (at least most of the ones written by adults). I think that this a different experience from what others have had after reading over some the blogs of other participants in this course.
Thirdly, it is now more apparent to me how blogs can facilitate learning. I thought that Anne Davis did a beautiful job of explaining our role as educators in A Rationale for Educational Blogging: “Teachers need to address writing for a public audience, how to cite and link and why, how to use the comment tool in pedagogical ways, how to read web materials more efficiently as well as explore other ways to consider pedagogical uses of blogs.” I think that the most important point that we need to impress upon our students is that they need to carefully proofread their work before posting it for the world to see. Duck with a Blog shows the blog in action with young students, and it is delightful to read the interactions that the second graders have with each other.
Thing 2: Thoughts about Web 2.0
I have never “blogged” before this course. I never really understood the point of blogging and never really gave much thought to the importance of it. Shortly after I signed up for this course, I received the March 2008 issue of Real Simple which featured an article on the best blogs. Their description of blogs in general is priceless and pretty much sums up my previous feelings about them: “To be sure, a lot of them – maybe most – are of interest to two people: the blogger and the blogger’s mother.”
As I work on completing Thing 3 I’m starting to come around to the idea of blogs, though.
After viewing Michael Wesch’s A Vision of Students Today, it is apparent that today’s students are changing, and we as educators will have to adapt our methods of teaching in order to reach our youth. David Warlick paints quite a picture in his article, A Day in the Life of Web 2.0, and using daily blogs, subscribing to and creating podcasts, and editing wikis even sounds exciting!
I certainly see the worth of subscribing to blogs where I can share strategies and materials with fellow teachers and share information with my administrators. I’m particularly interested in creating a class blog where my students can discuss a novel that we are reading and interact with each other on-line (instead of answering the traditional x number of study guide questions for each chapter). I think that this is a far better way of engaging my students, especially pre-teens whose interest tends to wane.
I know that the idea of podcasting is not new but I have never thought about using them to view class discussions, performances, and PTO meetings. This is a great resources for parents, teachers, and students.
The only problem with web 2.0 that I see (beyond my own limitations) is sorting out what is truly relevant and what is not. There is a massive amount of information on the web about any given topic, and I think that you have to be very selective about what you use. This screening process is a quite daunting, and if I have trouble deciding what is worthy of using in the classroom, I’m sure that my students might have this problem as well. However, I’m sure that my great network of K12 Learning Web 2.0 friends will point me in the right direction.
Oh, and if you want to find out what blogs Real Simple thinks are worth a second glance, go to:
