Web 2.0 Course Blog

3 words – IT WAS AWESOME!

I am a facebooker. I love it, use it almost daily. So social networking is not new to me. But once again, I have never thought about bringing this into the school or classroom. The Web 2.0 group that we had to explore really exemplified the possibilities. I looked a several conversations of teachers sharing ideas on everything from classroom management, to different types of reinforcement. I believe it would be a very useful tools for sharing all of those ideas and more.

I also read about ning in a techlearning blog.  He discusses how many teachers ask him for tech advice and website help which he shares as the resident tech junkie. However he was frustrated by the fact that he always had to do this one on one. So he started using a ning network that his school had set up to answer these questions. Now when he answers the query of one person, dozens of others can see it and benefit. It a great way to work smarter, not harder. So that would be another great way to use professionally. By creating a school or school system network and using it to spread the knowledge quickly and easily.

For the classroom, I could see the use of students networking with one another and using it to discuss homework, get help with difficult questions, have book discussions, etc. And this would all be done with the supervision of the teacher and in a private safe environment.

So now my eyes have been opened and I can see the benefits of my beloved social networking being used in the school and classroom.

So I was reading my usual favorite techlearning and I found this blog entry. The point of the entry was to discuss how one school was changing their technology and their student learning. But what I gleaned from it was very different. The author linked to a website that has some amazing educational games for math, language arts and geography. These are high quality, useful games, and they are free. I will definitely be able to use these as a fun way for students to practice and improve skills. I also love that at this site you can create community games with multiple players so the students can compete against each other while playing on separate computers. Another awesome feature for teachers and students is that at the end of every level students get to see their wrong answers, as well as a graph that shows their progress over multiple games (login names can be created). These graphs can also be printed for a record. I can’t wait to get to school and try this out with my students and share it with my colleagues.

Pageflakes was a little bit overwhelming to me. I felt there were too many “flakes” going on on each page that made it hard to find what I wanted and hard to concentrate on the information I wanted. I don’t think that I will be using this very much with my lower grade students in a classroom setting. Hawever, I can value this for use with middle and high students.

For me, I think that pageflakes would be most useful as a parent portal of sorts. I liked some of the features like the message board, the class schedule and the calendar. I felt that those could help keep parents up to date on what was going on in the classroom. The flake for posting podcast would be useful for parents to listen to the work students had done; likewise the rss feed could link to a class blog. I found a webclipper tool that allowed you to make a flake out of any website – I used my school homepage, but other useful educational websites could go there too. And of course the anything flake could be used for countless purposes – posting videos students have made, slide shows they created. I know that I also have parents ask for help on how to work with students (how do I do this kind of math problem? etc) so I could post some instructional videos there to aid parents.But then again, most of the parents of students in my class do not have home computer access, so this would probably not be the best way to improve parent contact.

So, overall, I don’t believe that pageflakes will be the most useful of the web 2.0 tools for me. However, I am glad to know it exists and will keep it in mind for purposes later down the road.

My initial experience with Google docs was fantastic. First, on the personal level, I love being able to store my documents on the Internet instead of my home computer, or school computer. I don’t know how many times I have gone through the hassle with a thumb drive and transferring my lesson plans between home and work, or taking a pdf file from the computer on my desk to the computer that operates my smart-board, etc. This could help with so many of those problems by keeping everything in one place. The software seemed very easy to use. For my task, I collaborated on a document that was already in progress by another classmate. I had no problems changing and editing. It was wonderful.

Ideas for using this professionally are limitless. I often like to share my lesson plans with a few colleagues in order to collaborate and share ideas. this would take away the need to exchange emails back and forth and make the process easier.  Teachers could also collaborate on a presentation without having to take the time to meet together in one room.
Another use: earlier this year, I was in charge of creating a duty schedule for the other teachers on my hall. I made the first draft, copied it, placed it in mailboxes in the workroom, and though my job was done. However, someone later came to me with a change. So i had to create version two and go through the same process. As soon as I did that, a teacher became sick and we had to change our duty rotation to fill her spot. So, out comes version 3. Needless to say, if I had known about Google docs, then I could have shared it through email (saving paper) and then as people needed to change, switch duty days, or take over for another person they could have edited the document for themselves, saving me a lot of time.

Another idea would be to use this for parents to register for conferences, or to sign up to bring items to a class party.  parents could be invited to to document and add their name beside a time slot for a conference or beside the item they would like to contribute, etc.

In the classroom, this could work much like a wiki, with students collaborating on a document or presentation. It is also a bit more protected than a wiki because only certain people can access the document.

The forms feature would be very fun for conducting surveys, science fair projects, even giving an online quiz.

Really this could be used for just about anything. I think it is a fantastic Web 2.0 application and I believe I will really be using it a lot in the future.

I was already very familiar with YouTube outside of the classroom.  However, I had never given much thought to using it to supplement my teaching. However, this past week I had the perfect opportunity to use this in my classroom. During a lesson, my students had a a question about the word “kneading” that they had read in a book. I did my best to try to explain the meaning of the word, even using examples of playing with play-dough and kneading that. But I continued to be met with those blank confused stares… the kind a teacher hates to see. I teach second grade inner city students. Half of my students don’t even understand the concept  that bread starts as dough and is then baked (they just think it comes from the store). They were really struggling to understand the concept of kneading. So… thanks to prereading this task, I quickly hopped on to YouTube, searched for “Kneading Bread Dough”, and viola…a perfect 2 minute video segment showing the concept and explaining the process. It was a wonderful teachable moment that I could not have made happen without the benefit of YouTube. I would embed it to share with you but the embedding is disabled by request. I look forward to using this a lot more in my classroom.

Teachertube was very similar, just a much narrower selection of videos to choose from. I was disappointed with a lot that I saw. One that I enjoyed was a group of teachers modeling a literature circle. That was very helpful. I think that as I look forward with an eye for producing content, that idea would be useful. Demonstrating teaching techniques for other professionals. I also enjoyed seeing a video of two young students demonstrating a math concept they had learned. I feel that could be a way of my students producing content.

A few other things I found while searching YouTube that were worth mentioning: a video that taught me how to fold a t shirt in 2 second (woohoo for laundry day when I can try it out), a vlog (video blog) by a hilarious British youth that I am now addicted to, and an interview with author Mark Teague that I would love to share with my students to encourage them in their writing. Also an old favorite… see for yourself…

Hooray for YouTube!

Podcasting. I’m familiar with it, I have used it before. I have an iPod and have used the feature occasionally. My husband subscribes to sermons by Pastor Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA. I have listened to podcasts from local ministry XL (Rome, GA). Unfortunately I am not able to provide a link to this as the ministry is currently in transition. There are videos available on youtube.  I also subscribe to a syndicated radio show that is also podcasted.

So I was familiar with podcasts, but the idea of students using them was totally overwhelming to me.

As I searched for podcasts, I used the widget provided on our page and found my first, a smartboard lesson podcast. As i listened, I also used the Education Podcast Network and Learn Out Loud to search for other podcasts to explore. Since the first was a professional podcast, I wanted to explore some podcasts made by children. I listened to richmondroad podcasts. These were short and students made so I listened to several. I was pleased with what I found. i do think that what I listened to and viewed were valuable for ideas. The student podcast even appealed to me for use with my students. One was about a student trying to persuade the local community to add a bicycle lane and sidewalk to a local bridge. Since my class is working on persuasive writing right now, I thought that would be neat to show how this can be used in real life by other children. I can’t wait to do a little more research and really dig into all the wonderful opportunities that are out there for using this technology in the classroom.

I love books. I read a lot (not as often as I’d like these days, but I devour books during the summer). I think this site is cool, because sometimes, I just don’t know what else to read. Therefore I’m very appreciative of the clouds and recommendations available. I went ahead and registered for the free version and added a few of my favorite authors and books to the list  so that I could see what recommendations came up. I may check some of those out as soon as I finish the two books I’m currently working on.

Some uses for the classroom that I can envision are that we could simply keep a running list of books we’ve read in our classroom. I know that our school wants each child to read 100 books or 1,000,000 words. This would be a way to help track that. Students themselves could keep a list of the books they’ve read and even write reviews for them as a response to literature. They can also rate the books to offer their opinions. Students individual libraries could be linked through a group with the rest of the class and students can have conversations and receive recommendations from friends. I’ve written before about how students would feel a little more engaged in their writing if they knew it would be viewed by a larger audience, and I cant help but wonder if that sentiment would apply to reading. If they knew their opinions and reviews could help someone else (not just classmates) choose to read a book, they may place more value on it. It could also become a little bit competitive- in a good way- in that other people would be able to see how many books you were reading. In short, it could be a way to keep kids more accountable.

I think I will use this in my classroom and in my personal life.

This is cool! I will definitely use this in my personal life. I don’t know how many times I have been frustrated with my bookmarks being located on only one computer, whether between the 3 in my classroom or going to my parents house for vacation. This is genius, though it does take some work to get set up if you already have lots of things bookmarked.I actually went ahead and imported my personal bookmarks, but also added some new things that I have been using in school for a while. As I imported my old bookmarks, I changed and edited the tags as well to make searching them a lot more convenient.

Professionally, I could see establishing a class account to store certain bookmarks for students to use, or even a school acct that teachers could add to and share among each other. Even on a smaller level, teachers throughout a school could easily share resources through the buddy system available on the site. Even teachers from other schools throughout a system could collaborate in a way that is not often seem, all with minimal effort.  Also,  I love the value of being able to find similar websites that other people have found useful, even if you don’t know them. It could save so much time and headache.

I think that this system is easy to use and install, saves a lot of headache, and opens up resources that teacher might normally keep to themselves.

Here is a link to my delicious acct. It has both personal and professional bookmarks on it. Feel free to add me to your network if you would like.