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The process of learning Web 2.0
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Thanks Leslie for the incredible experience. This class has by far been the best use of my time for professional advancement. Now on to more playing and learning…
The class has been waiting on me to join. I have finally done it. Welcome Zola Draconia to the group. We can now get our picture taken and do more investigating. My time visiting was short but I made it to ISTE Island. The whole process seems surreal. Nothing strange happened. I played around with my physical characteristics, but unfortunately could not change my hair color. I have more clothes, but I didn’t change those either. I didn’t want any naked episodes! One person spoke to me, but he was Italian and didn’t speak English. Clearly I must spend more time exploring in order to discover the full benefits of this second life. There were a number of islands that looked interesting: a music appreciation island, a museum, and a game that looked fun but I wouldn’t try it until I have more experience. Just trying to sit on a log at a campfire was a difficult process that I still haven’t gotten the hang of yet.
Okay, I’m one of the hold outs. People have been trying to get me to join a social network for a while now and I just haven’t done it. That is until now. I just joined Facebook. It’s still confusing at the moment but definitely something that I could get used to quickly. When I got on one of my “lost” friends from high school was online so I got to catch up with her which was wonderful.
I am contemplating joining Classroom 2.0. They all just seem so advanced and is it just me or do most seem to teach computer technology? It doesn’t matter one way or the other. There can only be benefits from this.
A few of the other sights I looked at seemed user specific. On a few the latest postings were from this past summer, which seems ages ago.
I didn’t realize anyone could set up their own social networking site. It would be cool if the Academy created one. Is anyone up for it? Many states have one. Maybe we could get one for New England or Maine…
My favorite flake from the list was from the unquiet library. The have a great flake for science and I also like there library flake. I really like the ideas of how you can use this for all kinds information in your class. It’s much more visual and visually pleasing, which is great for all of our visual learners. I could see the students really liking this format.
When I first began I was so excited. The creative juices were flowing yesterday with ideas of how to use this in my classes. The ideas are still there but my technological talents are lack there of have literally slowed the flow to a thick molasses consistancy. It’s still there but this is definitely going to take some time familiarizing myself with how everything operates. Right now everything just keeps freezing up on me, so I will try again later and let you know how it goes.
At the same time I began an igoogle page and found this to be much more user friendly. Thanks Jen B.! I’m just not sure it will work with what I had in mind.
First, Heide has done an incredible job setting up the slide show. I will have to learn the ins and outs of this because I see many different opportunities for these online programs. Since yesterday I have been contemplating how I could use it. I even talked to my husband about how something like this could really improve communication at his workplace. Of course this was at 5:30 this morning and he just kind of looked at me strange and then said, “Sure, okay.” The vacant look he gave me was evidence he had no idea what I was talking about and that it was way too early to be talking about such things anyway.
At least once a year I have students complete a powerpoint. Often times they are able to work with a partner, but this can be difficult when it or rather time consuming when they have to figure out how to combine their work into one final product. Googledocs eliminates this issue! I love it! That made me also think of other areas such as various school groups. Student council could be much more organized and have much more input from everyone if the information was on a document everyone could view and edit. Of course this could be incorporated to include other classes within our school and elsewhere! People are doing this right now. I am so behind…
The idea of placing lesson plans on Googledocs instead of my hard drive and usb drives would be much more accessible and more difficult to loose.
The list continues, but I have to get ready for class. I
I love this video from some of our students at the Academy. It’s part of the Free Hugs movement.
Here is a video I put on our Biology class blog. Crazy….
Here is another video I used for Cell Structures.
Youtube is a great source for scientific videos. I use it all the time these days!
Teachertube is good but I find it much easier to use Youtube. It’s more convenient and the selection of videos is more varied. I have not had problems with inappropriate videos, but I don’t go looking for them either.
This was much simpler than I thought it was going to be. The only problem I really ran into was me! I literally can’t talk right now, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Instead of listening to me blather on about something you get to hear one of past students, Andrew, perform a song! Enjoy.
Okay, par for the course this was not as easy as I thought it was going to be. But, it was still managable. I was not able to download the song as I had hoped. My guess is that it’s not formatted correctly. The phone option obviously worked.
What I didn’t appreciate was the comment the servers from GarageBand.com site wrote: “The file you sent us was a bit short. We meant a REAL song!” I didn’t know that a song had to be a specific length in order to be considered a song. If I’m reading this correctly, the only reason they didn’t download it to our specific podcast is censorship. Any ideas or feedback on this? I realize the site is primarily to download music, which is what I was intending but not primarily music that everyone would want to download. The problem could be the educational piece. Perhaps it doesn’t work for the school oriented project, song, as I intended. Just something to note for future reference.
Am I actually at thing 17? A sigh of relief escapes my lips. I might just make it through this. Podcasting is again something new for me. Yes I have listened to audio versions and watched video versions and they are an incredible tool as long as I and others can access them. In Thing 18 we have to actually make one? Now comes the true challenge. It sounds like a great idea and the uses in education are possibly infinite. My guess is that the students themselves will be much more creative, so I would prefer to just hand it off to them…
Personally, I have never had an ipod so discovering all the tools has been fun. Who knew you could make a quiz? Have you ever been on a scavenger hunt using cell phones? Now you can use “ipods” for a class scavanger hunt. This would be great for the Botany class – plant identification, etc. Here’s a list of other uses:
I listened to the NPR Science Friday Podcast which was about the new 3-D science technology. The only disappointment was that it was only audio. Who wants to listen about 3-D movies when you can watch it!
Yes!! This is my kind of thing. How have I been spending my time on this cool wintery February break? Well, reading of course. Not all of the time, but I have gotten a little bit of pleasure reading in when everyone else goes to bed. The Alchemist is my most recent and one that a student recommended to me. I was delightfully surprised at how much I enjoyed it. You can always tell a good book by how often you think about it after you have read it. More books by this author are in my future and now I have a fantastic way of finding them and other books I might like as well.
Last year I saw that one of my favorite biology blogging teachers had a list of recommended books for her students. This is a great way to get more students reading and interested in topics we’re currently studying. Now I can add suggested books to my class blog. This is also a good way to connect with your students. I have had many great book recommendations from them.
Check out some of my favorite books on my sidebar! Yes, I got it to work…for now.
Things just keep getting better and better. Delicious is a great social bookmarking site. I like the fact that I can now find some of my favorite resources on any computer I happen to be using at that time. An added bonus is being able to create a network of resources with other people using the site. I’ve added everyone from the class to my network. Look for me under jensthoughts if you want to add mine. Most of the resources are for science but I have attempted to add a few sites that everyone might be able to use. They did not show up as a link on the falibrarywiki, but you can reach it through Delicious: http://delicious.com/tag/fa23things
The idea of having a specific tag set up for research with a group of students is an incredible resource. When does it (the information) get to be too much? Can there be an overload for the students or could it just happen to the teacher? Yes, I’m trying to laugh!!
While I’m thinking about it I should mention the possiblity of students adding inappropriate sites. Management is still important.
Leslie, I’ve been attempting to play around with the wiki page to no avail. I’m sure once again it’s something simple that I’m forgetting to do, but could you help me out? It sounded so easy in the directions. Do I have to manually add the link to the wiki or should it just appear on the wiki once I add fa23things to my tag? Maybe I have to be signed in to the wiki page when I do it?
The urge to try out Diigo will happen soon. Let me just soak in everything else I just learned.
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