Thursday, April 16, 2009
WEEK 9, # 23: Summarize Your Thoughts
Since my primary lifetime learning goal is to keep learning, I'd say that this program has moved me along that path. I revisited some applications that I was already familiar with, and discovered new ideas that I am enthusiastic about.
One of the outcomes from this program that really surprised me was that sometimes the best ideas are totally outside the box. I'd say this is true about Book Crossing, which combines the idea of reusing books, talking about books, and giving back to the universe in a unique way. It may be the one thing that I am most excited about discovering!
My favorite ideas that I came across during this program include creating avitars, Rollyo, and Book Crossing. I think that whoever maintains this course should really consider adding Book Crossing as a resource to explore.
The format of this course was fantastic. I liked the independent study, tutorial format and the way that ideas were grouped and divided into things. I completed the course in sequence -- starting with Thing 1 and ending with Thing 23, but I think that it could be completed effectively in any order. If you offer an extension of this course, I am interested!
I've been looking at the Learning 2.0 for Teens and am recommending it to the students who have just left my class and are moving on to middle school; I think it will prove fun and helpful for them. The only improvement I'd recommend has to do with maintaining links. Some of the links were closed (such as Yahoo Podcast Directory), and some had new URLs.
The one sentence that sums up my Classroom Learning 2.0 learning experience is: Hands down, this is the most useful, effective, and flexible professional development that I've undertaken in the course of my career. My hope is that many of my colleagues participate in this experience; the curriculum makes for a band of common knowledge and language to move forward together from.
WEEK 9, #22: ebooks and Audio Books
WEEK 9, #21: Podcasts
WEEK 9, #20: YouTube and video
Then I tried You Tube, which I didn't have to register for because it is linked to my Google id. You Tube is easy to navigate and organized for quick search results. I wish it had a download feature because then I could use the videos in the classroom. I quickly found this animated Shakespeare series that I'd like to use when teaching The Tempest, provided our district allows teachers to stream You Tube:
Part Two:
Part Three:
WEEK 8, #19: Library Thing
While I could have one LibraryThing account for the entire class, this is what I use my reading blog for. The advantage that the reading blog has over LibraryThing is that my kids learn how to blog by participating in it -- and blogging is a current skill. Also, LibraryThing is still BETA, and so I wonder what happens if it closes? Do I really want to invest a lot of time in something that could disappear without notice?
I like the book discussions. For me, however, it is important to know the person who is recommending or commenting on a book. I know which of my friends have tastes similar to mine, so those people's thoughts about books are more credible to me. LibraryThing would be a wonderful tool for collaborating with our librarian. She always has such great recommendations, and it would be good to have them all in one place!
My catalog link is: http://www.librarything.com/home/mfront
WEEK 8, #18: Online Productivity Tools
WEEK 7, #17: CL2.0 Wiki - curriculum connections
WEEK 7, #16: Wikis
WEEK 6, #15: Copyright, Creative Commons, and What's Coming
Okay, so I had this entry completely written and Safari quit on me. Arrgh! I always tell my students to work offline and then cut-and-paste to the online venue, just to avoid this very problem. Cheap reminder.
As a teacher, my primary interest in this course is centered around how to teach 2.0 to kids in an integrated and meaningful way. To that end, I chose to approach Thing 15 from a more practical teaching perspective rather than a reflective one. Basically, I modified the assignment to fit my agenda. But hey, that’s critical thinking, right?!
Guiding 10- and 11-years olds through the very abstract practicalities of copyright, fair use, and plagiarism is tricky, at best. I found the Disney spoof video clip to be highly entertaining, and I thought that it would be an effective hook to begin the discussion with my students in September. Happily, I believe that I’m going to have access to some YouTube videos through our district server, so I will probably be able to use it.
Creative Commons seems a bit daunting. I got the idea but, again, I’m thinking about it in the context of mentoring 5th graders. I’m attracted to the idea of teaching kids to modify image searches so that they are about to locate material with CC attributes. The instructions for modifying a Google search proved overly complicated. Yahoo, on the other hand, has an elegant solution for filtering image searches with Creative Commons attributes under its Advanced Search menu: simply check a box. Now, that is something I can teach a 10-year-old!
Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org/
Yahoo image search: http://images.search.yahoo.com/ [choose options, advanced search]
I took a gander at the Lessig blog and followed a link to the CTAP4 Cyber Safety Project page on piracy and plagiarism. There, I came across helpful links to curriculum guides for 3-5 grade and middle school, which I intend to use with my students in September. I think that covering this material early will set high and clear expectations for the students’ use throughout the year. Components of this curriculum will give the kids something to work on at the beginning of the year while gmail ids are being set up by their parents. I think I’ll also a link to Cyber Tree House to my blog because I think the kids would enjoy the site, plus it reinforces smart use.
http://www.b4ucopy.com/kids/B4UCopy-MiddleSchool-Teachers-Guide.pdf
http://www.cybertreehouse.com/
All in all, this is a confusing arena for kids. Hopefully, these ideas will help!
WEEK 6, #14: Technorati and tags
WEEK 6, #13: Tagging and Del.icio.us
WEEK 5, #12: Roll Your Own Search Tool
WEEK 5, #11: Web 2.0 Award Winners
WEEK 5, #10: Image Generators
ImageChef.com Poetry Blender
WEEK 4, #9: Education Feeds
WEEK 4, #8: RSS Feeds
WEEK 3, #7: Blog About Technology
WEEK 3, #6: Flickr fun and mashups
WEEK 3, #5: Explore Flicker
From 2009 Fish Dissection |
From 2009 Fish Dissection |
From 2009 Fish Dissection |
WEEK 2, #4: Register Your Blog
Take a look at some of these teacher blogs:
8th grade history teacher
High School teacher in Arizona
Kindergarten class blog
Take a look at some of these school librarian/administrator blogs:
Assistant Superintendent Blog in New York
High School Librarian in Pennsylvania
Alaskan Librarian
Take a look at some of these student blogs:
Fifth grade student in China
Abby, 7 years old in Colorado
Newly Ancient, 15 year old blogger