Monday, December 7, 2009

Week 9 Thing # 23 Web 2.0 book notes

First I want to say thanks to the web 2.0 team, this has been a very worthwhile class and "easy" as you said, just VERY time comsuming. I learned a lot, and feel good about my progress in Web 2.0 "Things".


Chapter 1 outlines for us a rapidly changing world which is easily observable in the last few years. The challenges which lie aheas afe met by people who are tech savvy and working collaboratively to develop new businesses & means of communication.


Our role as educators is to guide our students to use this new technology in ever more creative and innovative ways. By combining their intelligences new energies will emerge.


Chapter 7 Online safety & security is always a concern when students are involved. They are trying their best to find the places they shouldn't be. Their vulnerabilities can cause them to be targets for other students bullying as well as for cyber predators. Their immaturity and lack of sound judgment require that they be taught a n online code of ethics and guided through the confusing morass of copyright.
Administrative issues in using internet tools with students are numerous. Then there is the involvement of parents who may or may not know about the internet. The parents need to learn about potential problems with the internet and how they can exert control over their child's use. I can see adding a wiki page on Internet Safety to the Steller website because we have no formal training at our school.
Schools often block sites with potentially harmful material, substituting others deshgned especially for schools, such as Nettrekker. Schools can also place tools on an internal net, behind a firewall and not accessible to the outside web. this "walled Garden approach provides safety & security desired by many.

Chapter 9 New Schools.
Mike Prensky says our students are no longer the students our schools were designed to teach. How should new schools look? Ideally each student would approach learning in the way he/she liked best, information would be accessible 24/7 and be interactive & able to suggest new avenues of exploration and new resources to use, much as Amazon suggests new books to read.
All of this will come together on free open-source software.

This sounds great, but it may require these digital natives to become teachers themselves bafore the reality matches the vision.

MORE TO COME later, out of time at the Naples public library. OK, here we go again..

Chapter 4 - New Tools in Schools. - Stories from real schools using Web 2.0 tools.

Science Technology Engineering , Math, (STEM) people are 40 % of graduates from the new Tech High School in Napa. The cost of running this new school is very high, Servers and support plus software, Costs will go down with open-source software.

Students are motivated to learn to write well because of the Audience of the Web. They know that others will see their work. They are empowered at an early age to write in Blogs.

Pocasting is used to get student feedback on lessons. Digital storytelling gives students insights into their own experiences as they work our their stories. They come to value the story and strive to do their best., knowing it will be viewed by many people, not just their teacher. In effect, simply publishing to the web validates the importance of the students' work.

Blogs on Dickinson & Frost, Imovies on family histories, personal stories to illustrate history, (Where were you during the 1964 Earthquake?) , current events through communicating with soldiers in Iraq, The possibilities are limited only by our imagination.

Math Students are blogging about their strategies in solving problems, geography students have Google Earth to give them a bird's eye view of the world,, and more.

ESL learners are using language lessons on an IPOD, their own portable language lab.

Perhaps MOST IMPORTANT is that the use of technology engages the students in their studies and learning in increasing. Students who would never say a word in class can make meaningful contributions online. They can approach the subject at their own level...often surprisingly well above that demonstrated so far in class.

Chapter 10 Tutorials

Here is hands on a literal contiunation of the Web 2.0 Class. Many we have done in class, and I've enjoyed trying out a few more...things I've HEARD about, but haven't taken tht time to explore..Such as Google Earth, My Husband and I carefully traced the route of our upcoming vacation, able to even see the undersea floor, which gives an explanation to the great snorkeling and deep sea fishing in the Western Caribbean. I also intend to use Photostory 3 for my pictures when we return. The Bubbleshare photo site i used before has shut down, and it was really fun to makd a captioned slide show for my relatives who live far away. Hopefully I can add audio with Photostory, and have a nifty presentation to show them.

I also intend to guide, (push, shove, compel) my daughter into Web 2.0. She has just announced her intension to become a Math teacher, and I very much want her to be as technologically savvy as possible. She will be a good teacher without it, because of her ability with the kids, but a mastery of the web will allow her to reach so many more. We need teachers like that.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Week 9 Thing # 22 eBooks & audio eBooks

The World EBook Fair does feel a lot like the World's Fair, a bit of everything, from everywhere and certainly something for everyone. The current goal of the project is to collect 2.5 Million books available online by July 2009.

The project looks at the numbers of Kindle and other Book storage devices, verses the number of cell phones operating worldwide, and wonders how to make books available on your cell phone. Amazing.

Organization by collection is logical, and the collections vary from US Government documents , American, Canadian, British literature, to collections from other countries, and even ancient cultures such as Etana, from the Near Eastern Archives. Music, Science , Law, Medicine, Math, even the ebook archives of my Alma Mater, Penn State.

Students doing research would be well served to check here, especially if they are encountering difficulties in locating information. This resource adds an entirely new dimension to the espression, "So many books, So little time."

Add in audio books, and there is no excuse to ever miss a title...for any reason. You can even get into the act of recording them if you like. What a service these folks are performing.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Week 9 # 21 Podcasts

Podcasting should be done very early in the morning. Anytime between 5 and 7 am is much preferable to "normal hours" when everyone else is online. The Education Podcast Network gave me some spectacular results this morning. I have already sent emails to teachers alerting them to" This Week in Science" and the many tech skills topics available (60) .

The link to Podcast.net is no longer working, and Tech Savvy Girlz Podcasts opens, but doesn't seem to go anywhere, perhaps because it was later in the afternoon when I got there. The time factor, did not seem to affect Education Podcast Network on a second visit, nor Teacher Created Materials: Podcasts. Now that I know more about podcasts and how to locate them, can I justify the expense of a mobile "device" with which to carry them around? Somehow, I think I'd hate to give up my airplane reading time for Podcast listening time....I seem to have so little time to read.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Week 9 # 20 Teacher Tube

Teacher tube is a wealth of information available to the classroom. It was quick and painless to locate a video produced by a group of students who had visited some Mayan ruins. The quality and content were excellent, and should hold the class' interest.

Posting it to the blog was another question. Following the directions step by step did not produce the desired result. Another possibility presented itself through the share button on the teacher tube site, I was able to share the site to Blogger, and appeared to be logged in, but could not get it to display on this page. Help tried to be helpful, but again the desired result was not forthcoming, a bit frustrating. I finally downloaded the file to my desktop, then added it to the blog.

Here it is visit the Mayan Ruins and learn about the culture.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Week 8 # 19.1 Digital Pipeline

This is a good exercise in using the more refined features of digital pipeline.
Making an alert to the School Library Journal may remind me that it's out, and I should scan the contents.

My initial efforts in finding a diagram of the eye in the consumer health database ended unsuccessfully. I eventually located the diagrams/charts box on the bottom right of the initial search page and found the chart I wanted. Found no animations or videos, references to them, but nothing "live".

The tutorial on the new features is fantastic. I'll add a link to it on my Wiki. The students would prefer it to my verbal instructions.

The more section was eagerly inspected. My "hands on" people are interested in this, especially for older models of cars that can still be worked on without computers and lots of sophisticated equipment.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Week 8 # 19 Library thing

What a nice tool for small libraries. I'm not about to start adding all 5,000 titles in my small school library, but the Church library is only about 10 shelves, and that would be "do able". In this format, it would also be attractive to the younger generation, perhaps they would even help. We won't have many fancy covers, though. so it mught look as dry and dusty online as it does "onshelf".

As for my personal collection, maybe its a good way to remind myself of what I have, and serve an an impetus to organize better. No, those stacks, ARE organized, just not according to Dewey.


Week 8 number 18

I just copied and pasted this post into Zoho, and posted it to my blog. It posted beautifully, exactly as created. Then I tried to edit it, but I generated a" HTML error, The tag is not closed:DIV". Since I don't know how to fix that, this is an interesting experiment. When previewing the post, I see the header I created survived intact.