Thing #11.5

Can I get a whoop? I'm almost done...half a "thing" more.

1. My favorite exercise was the Image Generators 2 and Slideshare. Wordle & Glogster are fun tools that introduce pizazz into ordinary lessons. I loved finding out about 280 Slides too!

2. I'm always looking for new ways to introduce or teach things I have to teach, so this program has given me so many more tools to add to my arsenal and that I really like!

3. Many of the exercises at first glance seem to have little to do with actual classroom instruction, but could easily be used in the library. However, after playing with them I see more things I could do with many of them. There's always take-aways with everything you do.

4. I don't like having to download and create logins for all the different programs. I worry about them slowing down my computer as well as the insane number of emails from these companies/programs I am sure to get. In fact, I still get annoying emails from Shelfari from when I did the 23 Things last summer. I don't know how yall could do this differently unless you create a master account for SBISD that we could log into and then after playing around, if we want to create our own user login, we could.

Thanks for the fun!

THE END

Thing #11

Digital Citizenship is a form of etiquette, but it is so much more. There are many aspects to digital citizenship that should be addressed with students. Obviously we need to talk to them about safety in social networks and virtual worlds. We have all seen the headlines where Facebook or MySpace has created problems, sometime lethal problems for teens. This is something that should be stressed with students especially if we are going to encourage them to use things like Facebook or Second Life! Secondly, as a science teacher I see students year in & year out that do not know how to use the index of a book much less conduct research. CoolCatTeacher wrote about this. I have to talk to them about researching and how to do it properly EVERY year. I also spend some time talking about reliable vs. unreliable resources. The kids have a hard time understanding that not every thing they read on the internet is true or that the information on Wikipedia, for example, can be changed at anytime...I could change it right now, I tell them. We need to talk to them and instill a sort of untrustiness that encourages them to check more than one source before accepting something. This is something that I hope other teachers will work on with their students also so that they get this information streamed throughout their education.

Thing #10

My husband knew of Second Life from The Office. Chances are my highschool students do too. I read somewhere that one university held their commencement on Second Life, so I think students could probably visit different universities and audit classes via SecondLife. After reading Education in Second Life, I see that teachers could use it for professional development which has an indirect impact on the students.

Thing #9

I'm not sure if it is important for student's to use Slideshare or not. While students could upload their presentations and work on them from anywhere with anyone, I'm sort of leery about letting them use it to get ideas for their own presentations. They would be able to use it to share their presentations in Facebook, etc and that would be cool!

I had a student a few years ago in my AP class that did not have PowerPoint...I wish I would've known about 280 Slides then!

Thing #8

I hate this....ok, hate is a strong word, but I started working on this one yesterday, gave up for the night and now I'm still having problems. The mic on my computer does not work for some reason. I've messed with it, got my husband to mess with it & even took it to my parent's house and had my dad mess with it - all to no avail! Jing seems to be the most user friendly of the screencast programs (I tried more than one to see if that was the problem...nope). I could easily use this in my classroom to show the kids how to use PowerPoint since many of my freshmen don't know how to use it. I could also use it to show my students and their parents how to utilize my webpage and all it has to offer. That will be really great! This is what I was trying to make my screencast about, but on top of it having no narration, it also keep getting an error message. You can see what I was hoping to accomplish by clicking the link at the botton. I'm confident with a little more practice and a GEEK request, I can make this happen!

I can see the librarians using this to create a screencast to explain the library resources page. Every year I take my kids to the library to do research and every year with each of my 5 classes, Renae has to stop what she is doing and explain the resources found on that page and how to utilize them. Seems like she could create one screencast and show it to all of the classes that come into the library to do research...what a time saver!

http://screencast.com/t/2Cdza8ep

Thing #7

The PBS video Crash: A Tale of Two Species is a great video that could be used in our Ecological Relationships unit. Food chains & food webs cna get a little bland and this could spice it up a little. P.S. PBS lets you share to everything but Blogger...boo!

Blinkx had a bunch of great science videos too! I watched the following one on DNA Replication:
I searched for this on Blinkx, but evidently it came from YouTube. This is perfect for explaining this process in biology! I bookmarked this so I could use it again. I did notice that on some of the videos from Blinkx there are commercials...not too fond of that!

Thing #6

Although I have no desire for an iPhone, I can see how they could be used for multiple students in the library. I borrowed a friends and think Google Maps or Google Earth, and Touch Calc would all work great! Graphing calculator is great too since it streamlines (or personally would in college since we take up phones in HS) a student's backpack "arsenal." For use as a group in the library it would work. Word of the Day is perfect for SAT preparation and general vocabulary building. There are also books on the iPhone so a reading activity using the iPhones could be done.

Thing #5

As a long time Facebook member, I can easily see the value of microblogging in the classroom. Teachers can set up Facebook pages or groups for their classes and use them to post assignments, last minute announcements (because let's face it - the kids are on there all the time anyway) and they can hold online office hours. Twitter can be used in some of the same manners. I can see how back-channeling could be distracting, but teachers are always looking for ways to find out weak areas ahead of the game. If this could be successfully integrated into a lesson, it would be invaluable to the teacher especially for those kids who don't want others to know they don't "get" something. Perfect self-esteem saver!

Thing #4

I have uploaded to YouTube many a time and it is defeinitely very user friendly! I think my high school kids would love it if we utilized this in class...I've heard them talk about movies they have made for Guthrie Center classes, so I know they know how to use it. Having students upload to one of these sites would eliminate the hassle of keeping up with a bunch of disks or taking time out of presentations to pull from jump drives. All students' work would be right there and easily accessible for grading.

Thing #3

Skype could be used in some sort of international collaborative project, which would be super cool! I could have used it last year when the H1N1 virus surfaced to compare how the precautions we took compare to that of other countries. We could use it in a lab situation...perform same experiment and share results to have a more trials for more accurate data, etc, etc. Seems neat!

Thing #2

Wordle is pretty cool for non-educational stuff, but there are plenty of ways that students could utilize this tool. Definitely in a language arts setting, this could be used for a poetry unit or lesson and as the intro states, it could be used to find the main idea of an article or essay in any discipline.

Glogster wouldn't necessarily require different thinking, but it could. Neither scenarios would be bad. A student would probably simplify their finished project if using Glogster, which could make the student think about what is really important - not a bad thing!

Animoto is super easy to use. I have had students use it for projects before (an animal kingdom project) and they seem to enjoy using it also. I probably could use it when introducing the kingdoms or maybe different types of bacteria...I don't know. I'd have to work out the particulars. As with many of these things, using them in a science classroom takes a little thought and tweeking. Voki could be used to add voice messages to my assignment website & class blog. I think the kids would get a kick out of it, although I've heard that the district filters block Voki...silly!

Bookr - Here is one way I thought of using Bookr as an introduction to biology on parent night or the first day of school. Intro to Biology by Mrs. Hiler Students could use this instead of PowerPoint. I found Bookr to be frustrating to use though...I had to fight with the pictures to go in the place I wanted them, so I'm not sure I would use this.

Thing #1

The connectivist teacher's role at first glance is minimal since the student is in charge of much of his learning, but when one thinks about it, the teacher is the facilitator. He/she will instruct the student on how to use the tools in his tool box. He or she will also guide the student as they implement theses tools. This is the epitome of student led learning, which is what our ultimate classroom goal should be. The video, while very dry, illustrates just how easily a well-connected student can embody student-led instruction/learning. I think a librarian could easily play the role described by the video.

Here I go again...

11.5 more things to learn about, so here I go!