Sunday, August 8, 2010

Thing #11.5 Evaluation

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
I always like finding new things. My favorite part was going thru YouTube with my daughter and seeing all her favorites then creating my own YouTube with my son on a subject I actually teach. My surprise has been 28 viewers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NK__GOdh5Q&feature=related
2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals? It does help me to see that you can learn something new every day on the web
3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you? I will be using the computers a lot more next year with the students with doing project based learning.
4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept? I do not have any insight on improvement but do thank you for setting it up.

Thing #11 Digital Citizenship

I started with the cool cats but first paragraph and I am stuck The are quoting a survey My question of who US the world ?? how many surveyed ?? 5, 500?? Then the kicker 2005 wow 5 year ago keep reading 87% used the internet what about the 13 % have not??
Ok so with these number of high school using the web the question is do they know how to “how to validate sources” then it jumps to the 31% of adults who are "Elite Tech Users." ,again a lot of questions here. I thought this would be a good article but I she is loosing me with her limited research and old information Yes we all need to talk about how to use the web effectively and so often .
Ok digital literacy and the class room
At least it is 2008 Ok so she said our schools only let our student see some of the web That district sensor out so much. Haven’t school done this for years. Can the students get any book in the library? Do literature classes only teach with particular book? In Math class we use protective problem when studying multiplication than the word problems all require multiplication. In science the experiments all have a predictable out come. We are teaching with standards. As the students mature we open it up wider and teach them to think critically but we can not do it all as once so true is the web.
OK ISTE should be good they are the standard they were last updated 2007 and have always called for safe legal and responsible use of information and personal responsibility Yes and critical Thinking , Problem solving, and decision making, Sounds like what I expect out of a good math students .

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Thing #10 Virtual Worlds

Second life is a great way to get students into the action of learning I love that the avatar slumps over when the students is not engaged. It also seem great for the virtual field trips. Taking studnets to new places.

Thing #9 Slideshare

There is a reason not to leave this till the last of the summer I was not finding many of these post but posting your presentation to an online site is a great Idea for traveling nothing to carry and nothing to sync makes for thing to be so much easier It will make it work for the students as well because help with what they can bring in for a project .

Thing #8 Screencast

Screen capturing software is wonderful. I have purchased snag it years ago and find I use it a lot
I also like it when you can capture the screen actions.

Thing #7 Video Resources

I liked the video viewing but what I found to be most helpful was the copy right video It is hard to teach the student fair use. I am going to be trying a project the first nine weeks of school and will be sure to teach fair use.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Thing #6 iTouch Apps

I have wondered about what I could use an I-touch or and I-pad for Reading though the list I could see the students using:
Ifbphone for collaboration
bookshelf for a book and acrobat reader
Poptiq for videos would be good for instructional videos
Google earth is good for word problems using real places
I also found on my own a Pod cast that explain several middle school math concepts with the quick and dirty tricks The Math Dude These are quick 10 min lessons that explain how to do math TEKs I will use this with the project base learning I am planning the first unit this year.
I my children have Ipods and Iphones but I do not have one I have touched them at the Apple store
I also did my research and this update on the MacBook.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Thing #5 Microblogging

I had heard of all the wonderful things that could be done with face book so last summer I had started a face book account to use with my students but when I returned to school and spoke with our assistant principal he recommended that we not friend the students. His reason is that there is just too much drama going on to get involved. So now I use the face book for keeping in touch with my high school friends and people I’ve work with.
I have also joined some great groups like Edutopia. They have a recent article:
How to Use YouTube in the Classroom
www.youtube.com
Educational consultant and former Edutopia.org blogger Chris O'Neal demonstrates educational uses for YouTube.
So it is great for keeping up with new ways of teaching.
There also seems to be a lot of videos on how to do. These quick videos could be used as a hook for a lesson
I have also used it to put out information. I have posted the link to the YouTube video and with in 24 hour I have had a 10 viewer. I have also posted a link to raise money for a cause and was able to raise my goal of $150.
I also have a twitter account but have not figured out what to tweet about I know there are a lot of research on all the social network like
Is The West Coast Happier? Twitter Says Yes

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

It is great having videos on line that can be added to a lesson. Back in the old days you had to order videos or movies from the service center than wait at least a week for them to come in then barrow the equipment needed for viewing and preview the material then schedule the best time for the class to view the material
Now you can preview the night before and use it the next day. There are also a lot more available.
I also like student created materials because then the students can actually see that they can make their own and if they create the instruction they own the learning.
I have given a student created video a chance. Making the movie was easier than remembering my user name. This year I discovered it is connected to my goggle account. Hopefully I will remember that next time I go to upload.
Here it is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NK__GOdh5Q

Friday, July 9, 2010

Thing 3 Skype communication in the class room

I do like Skype and have had lots of use with it. When my daughter moved to Japan we used Skype a lot for special day we would have a meal together. We also use Skype with my son in law while he is in Iraq. Though as the popularity has grown and the internet connection has not the quality of the picture has gone down. I do find using the instant messaging helpful.
My favorite classroom use was years ago when I taught in an elementary classroom. My brother is a university professor in France. I was teaching my students about communication on the computer and we connected to the university in France. Most of the student’s primary language at that time was Spanish and my brother’s student’s main language was French. The 2 classrooms connected and the students on both ends shared a lot as we were finishing up. The French side was getting their first snow fall for the season so they turned the camera to the out side window and my Houston students were able to see snow it was very exciting.
I hope to be able to connect my middle school math students to gather with another class room. I think they could both present how to solve a particular problem having the student do the actual teaching . I feel that the size of the active board would help in the process.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Thing #2 = Wordle or Wordshift, Glogster or VoiceThread, Animoto or Voki, and Bookr

Wordle or WordSift, Glogster/edu or VoiceThread, Animoto or Voki, and Bookr
So I have viewed the great web designs and wonder how can I use this in a 7th grade math classroom
Wordle can be used for students reflections put into wordle to see if they are suing rich math vocabulary
Word shift is an interesting ways to visualize text I tried last years blog and found word I sued most often. I liked that it also gave back the original text
Glogster Inter active poster project here is one on graphs
http://edu.glogster.com/edit/glog/?action=glogs_create
Voice thread could be used for students to comment on a problem and re- teach each other how to solve problems
Aminto The students would enjoy this but when they finish their video it would have to be purchased
Voki create you own Avatar this could be good for having the student explain math
Bookr uses flicker to create photo books this could be used for geometry but why not use the apple software to do the same thing?

Thursday, June 24, 2010

11.5 things Thing 1 Registration and Anticipation

I am now ready to start another summer of teaching and learning. I did get 8 Mac I books in my classroom this year and used them a little I am looking forward to using them a lot more next year nad hope to find some more gems this summer to help out.
I attended one training this summer where the participant were all asked to add to a google Doc It was so effective for sharing ideas that I hope to use it in my class I would replace the gallery walk and it was great because each group created an idea to a specific topic It would post instantly and then we commented on everyone else’s post again instantly. It was very powerful.
I liked the video and hope that I can set up students to be online learners.