What a ride this techno-journey has been. I am personally gratified by accomplishing the requirements of this course, as they were for me time-consuming and arduous, but in true keeping with my goal of being a lifelong learner. I can now use numerous tools professionally or for personal use or fun. Since I like to write I enjoyed blogging and became adept, I feel, at linking within blog posts.
An unexpected outcome was my changed view of social networking. My up close and personal contact with the various vehicles proved my negative preconceptions of them incorrect. They offer far more than time-consuming frivolity.
A bit more encouragement and acknowledgement along the way with the more difficult parts of the course would have been nice. But I knew there would be no help from the facilitators from the start. It forced me to go to a colleague, who had completed the course, for help with the glitches. Social networking of a different sort!
Giving myself the gift of 15 minutes time daily to not just read email (how Old-School Technology does that sound, now??!!) but checking my Google Reader articles and even seeking out new areas of interest, would keep me current. I may even check in with Classroom 2.0 periodically to see what the latest is there. I am seriously considering a Twitter account, too, now that I see, as expressed in "Thing 23," how valuable it can be in education. I may even take the plunge and add my blog URL to my e-mail signature line, for all interested parties to take a gander.
I am more convinced that I have been using a straw--no a coffee stirrer--to try to drink at the floodgate of ever-increasing volumes of technology being developed. As I noted many times along the way in this "23 Things" journey, the possibilities are endless but the prospects overwhelming when I think of my one little mind trying to wrap around it all. But I am grateful for the opportunity to take the trip. Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Misti. Thank you, MISD Staff Development. Thank you, understanding husband. Thank you, God.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Thing #23 Classroom 2.0 and Twitter
Classroom 2.0 is the brainchild of computer technology educator Steve Hargadon, who narrates the tour of his web tool via video of himself moving about the site and showing some of what it offers. He demonstrates how chat, audio, video, tags, topics and threaded dialogue can all be incorporated around discussions of a particular nature. Hargadon calls it a "social networking site for those interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies."
For teachers Classroom 2.0 is an extremely valuable and helpful way to find answers, to seek out and share information and experience, and to explore up-to-date applications of web tools regarding esoteric subjects related to educating students.
My response to all I took in on the tour is that it is a bit overwhelming to think of all the potential within. Even the home page and layout is so busy-looking and complex that it is a reminder of how much time it would take to participate in such a venture. On the other hand, like so much of technology today, it would also be very time saving, once getting into it, to contact and learn from others in one's own tagged interest area and get input from others who walk and talk education.
From a specific question like, "Do you know of a book appropriate for 6th graders set in South America?" to blogs about technology in the classroom, to calendars about (on- or off-line)events, tips, classes, webcasts, etc. coming up or announcements of a Global Education Conference, there is something for everyone in the field of education to reach out and enter into social networking thereby.
As for Twitter, my impression of it changed totally to great respect once I delved into it. Twitter—the oft-derided social networking platform on which participants share text dispatches of no more than 140 characters—to connect with colleagues from around the world and generate ideas for teaching and professional growth.
When I sampled our "23 Things" Fearless Leader's tweets I learned so much, and agreed with the previous article's assessment that Twitter is a source of collective intelligence, it's getting information quickly, though not taking the place of Professional Staff Development. Because of the Twitter constraints of 140 characters per tweet, it reminds me of the reading comprehension summarizing skill activity called "Get the Gist," where we teach students to pare down a piece into approximately 10 words. It forces one to express the main idea succinctly. Twitter does that by people getting right to the most meaningful, richest kernel of a topic.
The Thirty Interesting Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom were amazing eye-openers. If a classroom of students beheld such activities on a Promethean Board before their corporate eyes, what a powerful learning opportunity that would be!
Now, as is the nature of ever-burgeoning technology, with the new version of Twitter and all it offers there are even more possibilities to bring our students into modern, cutting edge technologies like Twitter.
For teachers Classroom 2.0 is an extremely valuable and helpful way to find answers, to seek out and share information and experience, and to explore up-to-date applications of web tools regarding esoteric subjects related to educating students.
My response to all I took in on the tour is that it is a bit overwhelming to think of all the potential within. Even the home page and layout is so busy-looking and complex that it is a reminder of how much time it would take to participate in such a venture. On the other hand, like so much of technology today, it would also be very time saving, once getting into it, to contact and learn from others in one's own tagged interest area and get input from others who walk and talk education.
From a specific question like, "Do you know of a book appropriate for 6th graders set in South America?" to blogs about technology in the classroom, to calendars about (on- or off-line)events, tips, classes, webcasts, etc. coming up or announcements of a Global Education Conference, there is something for everyone in the field of education to reach out and enter into social networking thereby.
As for Twitter, my impression of it changed totally to great respect once I delved into it. Twitter—the oft-derided social networking platform on which participants share text dispatches of no more than 140 characters—to connect with colleagues from around the world and generate ideas for teaching and professional growth.
When I sampled our "23 Things" Fearless Leader's tweets I learned so much, and agreed with the previous article's assessment that Twitter is a source of collective intelligence, it's getting information quickly, though not taking the place of Professional Staff Development. Because of the Twitter constraints of 140 characters per tweet, it reminds me of the reading comprehension summarizing skill activity called "Get the Gist," where we teach students to pare down a piece into approximately 10 words. It forces one to express the main idea succinctly. Twitter does that by people getting right to the most meaningful, richest kernel of a topic.
The Thirty Interesting Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom were amazing eye-openers. If a classroom of students beheld such activities on a Promethean Board before their corporate eyes, what a powerful learning opportunity that would be!
Now, as is the nature of ever-burgeoning technology, with the new version of Twitter and all it offers there are even more possibilities to bring our students into modern, cutting edge technologies like Twitter.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Thing # 22 Social Networking
It was helpful to view the Melissa Shank videos about Facebook. Facebook's goal is "Helping you connect and share with the people you care about." I signed up for it using totally fabricated information on my profile. I watched the video of Mark Zuckerberg and learned much from him, with great respect for this young cyber-genius. I did not know Facebook was a collection of sites organized around various interests, topics, etc. I had the concept that it was a huge investment of of time I really don't feel like I have to spend chatting and gossiping, but, admittedly, it has been tempting to use it to reconnect with past and current friends.
The News Feed section shows how many friends are commenting on a certain piece of content, who posted the content, and what type of content it is. The Entertainment section could provide means of sharing opinions about movies, concerts, Dancing With the Stars results, etc. for leisure time. While I do agree with the question, If we don't model productive, responsible uses of social networking tools for our students, how will they learn to be productive, responsible users of these tools?" I still am resistant to get into the social networking arena, and I view all of the sections with the somewhat jaded opinion that there are better ways to spend my time. I am sure it is here to stay and huge numbers of people are enjoying social networking but I am too leary of having photos and information out there forever for techy people to misuse.
Even though I feel that I write more effectively than I speak, and thus can benefit from connecting socially through writing, I feel that face to face social interaction is far superior. Electronic communication is certainly the next best thing when physical or geographical limitations are present.
While I am glad to have a working knowledge of social networking, and see the attraction it has for our students, I also see how it can lead to people being more isolated from others physically with their computer or phone at hand, spending hours alone but not feeling they are alone. It seems oxymoronic. I am also glad our district prohibits having our students as our Facebook Friends, as I see huge potential for dangerous ground there.
Society in general seems so driven to "reach out and touch someone," as the old telephone commmercial goes, or be touched by someone. We are social beings and learning does take place by social interaction in social settings, so educators need to recognize and value that.
It's interesting that, having talked with high-schoolers, Facebook's founder, Zuckerberg, learned that young people, (in their ever present zest for instant gratification--my words, not his), felt that email was "too slow." Now he has introduced another social networking phenomena that some say threatens to make emailing in the usual sense obsolete. Ah, Web 2.0, will your wonders never cease?
The News Feed section shows how many friends are commenting on a certain piece of content, who posted the content, and what type of content it is. The Entertainment section could provide means of sharing opinions about movies, concerts, Dancing With the Stars results, etc. for leisure time. While I do agree with the question, If we don't model productive, responsible uses of social networking tools for our students, how will they learn to be productive, responsible users of these tools?" I still am resistant to get into the social networking arena, and I view all of the sections with the somewhat jaded opinion that there are better ways to spend my time. I am sure it is here to stay and huge numbers of people are enjoying social networking but I am too leary of having photos and information out there forever for techy people to misuse.
Even though I feel that I write more effectively than I speak, and thus can benefit from connecting socially through writing, I feel that face to face social interaction is far superior. Electronic communication is certainly the next best thing when physical or geographical limitations are present.
While I am glad to have a working knowledge of social networking, and see the attraction it has for our students, I also see how it can lead to people being more isolated from others physically with their computer or phone at hand, spending hours alone but not feeling they are alone. It seems oxymoronic. I am also glad our district prohibits having our students as our Facebook Friends, as I see huge potential for dangerous ground there.
Society in general seems so driven to "reach out and touch someone," as the old telephone commmercial goes, or be touched by someone. We are social beings and learning does take place by social interaction in social settings, so educators need to recognize and value that.
It's interesting that, having talked with high-schoolers, Facebook's founder, Zuckerberg, learned that young people, (in their ever present zest for instant gratification--my words, not his), felt that email was "too slow." Now he has introduced another social networking phenomena that some say threatens to make emailing in the usual sense obsolete. Ah, Web 2.0, will your wonders never cease?
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Thing # 7b Google Reader
A favorite I follow is "Elementary Writing, The official blog of Make Literature Online project." Yesterday I found an article called "Twitter Poetry - New Genre?" Although the article is dated April 8, 2009, it is timely for me for two reasons.
At a family reunion this past weekend, one of our elders, who is an almost-80-year-old docent at the Crow Museum of Asian Art in downtown Dallas, gave a fascinating presentation on Japanese Haiku. Right away I noticed the Google Reader article's discussion of "tiwHaiku," a way of publishing one's "poetry to large number of people, to the audience that cares." TwiHaiku's official web site offers the opportunity for people to subscribe and follow the best collection of free short verse poetry online.
The Reader article goes on to describe, praise, quantify, and give examples of twiHaiku as well as taut the TwiHaiku phenomena as "Social media marriage made in electronic heaven," "TwiHaiku – Twitter hijacked all for poetry!," and as a "New poetry form for the 21th century."
The second reason the article is especially timely for me is that I will be looking into Twitter and other social networking avenues in this "23 Things" course. Twitter is further described in the Google Reader article as having"become one of the, if not the single most important Web 2.0 medium in the world. More people are joining this micro-blogging service everyday, discovering twitter poetry, and many different forms it is taking on." The article persuades readers how easy it is to contribute one's own effort at this simple literary art form.
Further, the article delves into other poetry forms, acrostics and limericks, which I also enjoy and find worthwhile in teaching elementary students. The lengthy article branches off into other matters of less interest to me, but the main emphases, the mix of Twitter and Haiku, were of an extremely timely interest to me.
At a family reunion this past weekend, one of our elders, who is an almost-80-year-old docent at the Crow Museum of Asian Art in downtown Dallas, gave a fascinating presentation on Japanese Haiku. Right away I noticed the Google Reader article's discussion of "tiwHaiku," a way of publishing one's "poetry to large number of people, to the audience that cares." TwiHaiku's official web site offers the opportunity for people to subscribe and follow the best collection of free short verse poetry online.
The Reader article goes on to describe, praise, quantify, and give examples of twiHaiku as well as taut the TwiHaiku phenomena as "Social media marriage made in electronic heaven," "TwiHaiku – Twitter hijacked all for poetry!," and as a "New poetry form for the 21th century."
The second reason the article is especially timely for me is that I will be looking into Twitter and other social networking avenues in this "23 Things" course. Twitter is further described in the Google Reader article as having"become one of the, if not the single most important Web 2.0 medium in the world. More people are joining this micro-blogging service everyday, discovering twitter poetry, and many different forms it is taking on." The article persuades readers how easy it is to contribute one's own effort at this simple literary art form.
Further, the article delves into other poetry forms, acrostics and limericks, which I also enjoy and find worthwhile in teaching elementary students. The lengthy article branches off into other matters of less interest to me, but the main emphases, the mix of Twitter and Haiku, were of an extremely timely interest to me.
Thing # 21 Google Tools
In exploring the options with Google Tools, I choose to make my own iGoogle home page. Notice the Japanese Tea House, in keeping with Thing # 21's Japanese Haiku theme? I like the soft but luminous lights sprinkled throughout the picture and the little cartoon fox on the dock. I added a couple of gadgets, the Quotes of the Day and the pair of roaming turtles--so cute!
I also fiddled around with my own Google Calendar, charting my hours of crunch time work on this online "23 Things" course. It shows in graphic terms my efforts each evening to catch up and finish.
I must admit after reading some of the comments others left on the iGoogle site I was skeptical about adding gadgets. Maybe it's my suspicious nature, but I got the feeling Google was planting ways to track me and my movements in cyberspace or get information to base the sending of salacious emails to my account. Google is a mighty force in our world and seems to be very powerful. Just look at all the creative, useful and captivating ways it has to cast its spell over people. Larry Page for President!!! :o)
I also fiddled around with my own Google Calendar, charting my hours of crunch time work on this online "23 Things" course. It shows in graphic terms my efforts each evening to catch up and finish.
I must admit after reading some of the comments others left on the iGoogle site I was skeptical about adding gadgets. Maybe it's my suspicious nature, but I got the feeling Google was planting ways to track me and my movements in cyberspace or get information to base the sending of salacious emails to my account. Google is a mighty force in our world and seems to be very powerful. Just look at all the creative, useful and captivating ways it has to cast its spell over people. Larry Page for President!!! :o)
Thing # 20 Exploring Google Docs
Right away, upon initial use of Google Docs, I noticed how easy it is to find one's way around and separate those items shared with others and those just for my use. The vast array of templates available make it so easy to jump right into categories of either public or self-created documents---everything from budgets and schedules to albums, drawings, letters, resumes and statistics. The preview feature of each template gives clear viewing of the layout and shows how user-friendly each one is.
The Monthly Calendar Portrait could be used for year-at-a-glance activity recording. My counterparts in Title I could create a document about the upcoming Math Carnival we are responsible for. We could use this tool to write all steps in planning, organizing and carrying out the endeavor.
The spreadsheet feature could contain grade levels and which games or activities each was doing at the carnival. Another page could show which staff members were on Set Up and which are on Clean Up. The Team Contact List Template could be used for all the parent volunteers lined up to assist.
Another assignment my fellow Title I teachers and I have, along with our Counselor, is to present training we attended to the staff on Response To Intervention, or RTI. We could collaboratively create the outlines and content for our presentation. Instead of meeting physically to work on this, each one could, at their individual free moments, contribute their ideas or parts to the documents, and include whatever pertinent photos, spreadsheets, tables, links, etc. in the work. The Blank Survey Template could be used to evaluate our presentation at the end.
As with so many features of Web 2.0, Google Docs has limitless possibilities for practical use in education or personal life. And it's free!
The Monthly Calendar Portrait could be used for year-at-a-glance activity recording. My counterparts in Title I could create a document about the upcoming Math Carnival we are responsible for. We could use this tool to write all steps in planning, organizing and carrying out the endeavor.
The spreadsheet feature could contain grade levels and which games or activities each was doing at the carnival. Another page could show which staff members were on Set Up and which are on Clean Up. The Team Contact List Template could be used for all the parent volunteers lined up to assist.
Another assignment my fellow Title I teachers and I have, along with our Counselor, is to present training we attended to the staff on Response To Intervention, or RTI. We could collaboratively create the outlines and content for our presentation. Instead of meeting physically to work on this, each one could, at their individual free moments, contribute their ideas or parts to the documents, and include whatever pertinent photos, spreadsheets, tables, links, etc. in the work. The Blank Survey Template could be used to evaluate our presentation at the end.
As with so many features of Web 2.0, Google Docs has limitless possibilities for practical use in education or personal life. And it's free!
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Thing # 19 Voicethread
Another fascinating tool to use technology in personal or professional life is Voicethread. This tool gives people a way to converse in a variety of ways about photos, images, documents, videos, or any combination thereof. The respondents can choose to do so by audio comments with or without a photo of themselves, by typed text or by drawing, underlining, making arrows, circle, etc. to point out specifics. They can use microphone voice, telephone, webcam or upload to post their comments around the item being discussed.The ability to enlarge the photo or subject makes specific responses even more exact.
Having just returned from a family reunion, I can envision the planning of such an event made much easier by using voicethread. A photo of the possible venues, with different cabins and meeting areas, could be viewed, commented on, selected, discussed. An agenda and menus could be displayed and interacted upon by various family members. Sites and activities in the area for extended stays could be shown, with others sharing their experiences of those. This might encourage more to take part and give valuable input.
In education, it's hard to expand upon the 100 ideas for use already out there, but I can see progressive meetings or ones in stages taking place around, say a book or piece of literature. Page by page elementary grade level team members could contribute their comments on the important aspects: main idea, important verses interesting, literary conventions, character development, details, setting, etc.
Students could even work in groups in this way, assuring each one of their choice of response while using technology to help express themselves clearly. Group projects at any grade level--even higher education--could be effected without the sometimes difficult task of all assembling together physically in one spot. Virtual meetings, even of faculty or staff development could employ Voicethread to everyone's advantage.
Having just returned from a family reunion, I can envision the planning of such an event made much easier by using voicethread. A photo of the possible venues, with different cabins and meeting areas, could be viewed, commented on, selected, discussed. An agenda and menus could be displayed and interacted upon by various family members. Sites and activities in the area for extended stays could be shown, with others sharing their experiences of those. This might encourage more to take part and give valuable input.
In education, it's hard to expand upon the 100 ideas for use already out there, but I can see progressive meetings or ones in stages taking place around, say a book or piece of literature. Page by page elementary grade level team members could contribute their comments on the important aspects: main idea, important verses interesting, literary conventions, character development, details, setting, etc.
Students could even work in groups in this way, assuring each one of their choice of response while using technology to help express themselves clearly. Group projects at any grade level--even higher education--could be effected without the sometimes difficult task of all assembling together physically in one spot. Virtual meetings, even of faculty or staff development could employ Voicethread to everyone's advantage.
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