Thing 20

I had a little trouble with my podcast, but finally got one done. I like to use music in the classroom whenever it is appropriate. I find that playing music from the time period we are studying helps kids connect and makes the people of that time seem more real to them.

My biggest problem is finding free music in the right format. I have had problems converting some files, and can spend a lot of time before I find what I really want.

To listen to my podcast, go to: http://patort.podomatic.com/

Thing 21 Poll Everywhere

As much as we prepare kids for the 21st century, I think colleges tend to lag behind. I think college professors still tend to lecture and that use of technology as it is in the K-12 setting is not as good. Not that some professors aren't using Web 2.0 tools, but I've noticed most of the college classes I take, unless they are tech based, tend not to include much of what we are learning to use in the K-12 Setting. Use my poll to let me know what you think about this.

Get a free sms student response system at Poll Everywhere

To respond via the web, us this link: http://www.polleverywhere.com/free_text_polls/MTU3MzkyNTQ3OA/web

Thing 17 Social Networking

Ning was pretty cool. I joined the Web 2.0 group, then I joined the beginner's group in that. I can see this as a way of gleaning good input from lots of other teachers. Last year I tried launching my own web page because I feel really isolated working with the Alternative high school students. I wanted to be able to interact with other teachers. Our staff is very small, and we rarely have time to have deep discussions or share ideas.

My web page floundered, however, because once school starts I don't have a life. Also, I was teaching 2 nights per week, and from Sept. to Dec. I was taking classes at KVCC two other nights a week. It was too much (although I did well in my classes :-)

Now, as a result of these workshops, I see I can use Ning and other resources to do excactly what I wanted to do, and it's free. I really like collaborating with others and need other people around!

I look forward to sharing many of these resources and skills with the other full-time teacher in our program.

As for the kids...I'm sure this will be of value. I am certainly going to teach a lot of these skills in my CRT class. I need to think about how to meaningfully use them in my other classes. After all, I have 6 computers. Not exactly one-to-one. I can take 2nd hour to the lab, but 4th hour there's always a class in there, so it isn't easy. I'll have to do some brainstorming on that one.

Thing 16 Digital Storytelling

Actually, I took a Digital Storytelling workshop last year, so I have done this. For this class I started a slide show meant to be an introduction to the American Revolution, but I got bogged down. I wanted to make something I would really use in class, and it is too long and I need more resources.

In class, I have storyboards for the students to use when they create a slide show (or video). I have only had one student who hated storyboards. She wanted to create everything on the screen without any planning, and it was hard to get her to do otherwise. We sometimes have kids with different barriers to learning and her reaction to the storyboards was part of a larger issue. Most kids, though, did fine with them. They only had to draw little stick figures to suggest each frame of their story. (Lots of kids worry when you ask them to draw, as if they are afraid to look foolish if they can't draw like a professional).

I will try to make a shorter slide show for this class.

Thing 11 Google Sites

Last year I taught a career prep class. I found a lot of good resources on the Internet. One of them was a video telling students how to use (and not use) the Internet for finding a job. In addition to the usual admonition about being careful about what they put on their Facebook pages, was the suggestion that they have a personal web site geared to show their interest and preparation for the job field they wish to enter.

This sounded like a really good idea. We could go through the same kind of process we did in class to identify their transferable skills, and take the product of their classwork and turn it into a web site designed to sell them to an employer.

They would blog about their prefered field of interest. They could share information about challenges they have faced and overcome. We could pick some of the things interviewers often ask and build blog entries or short video clips around them. Kids could practice, so that when they finally taped their video, it would be smooth and confident.

I'm very interested in seeing what we can do with this. I have also been suggesting to my son, Paul, who just graduated from SAU, that creating a professional blog based around his field could be a great tool for getting a job. I think this has lots of good possibilities.

Thing 13 Geocaching

This was pretty cool. It would help my students really understand what GPS is and how coordinates pertaining to location work. We study this somewhat in Geography class, but a few always seem a little disconnected when we talk about latitude and longitude. Never assume anything...I've had some who didn't know what GPS was, and as tech savy as we assume our students are, I was really surprised by that.

I'd have to give some thought to how to best use this in class. I like the idea of walking down to the park and putting our own geocache there. I also like the idea of mashing this with Google earth. I need to try out a few things of my own and figure out what I want students to get out of it and how to evaluate them when we are done. Hmmm.

Thing 5 Social Bookmarking

I think the best use I will get out of Delicious is personal. Already there is a lot for me to explore with just two classmates, plus Janene and Gina on my network.

I could see having students bookmark sites for their research to share with a small group. For example, in American History we could divide up several topics having to do with Colonial America and have small groups of students (even pairs) research their topics and record the best web sites they found in Delicious. I have always required students to document their sources, but no matter how many times I tell them, there are always some who do a sloppy, incomplete job of this. If they bookmarked their sources on Delicious, that information would not be lost. I could have them use their Delicious bookmarks when citing their sources and giving credit for pics, etc.

Thing 3 RSS feeds

RSS feeds can be very helpful because I can get updated info from sites I use as resources for teaching my classes. On the other hand, messages can really pile up and I don't always have time to go through everything I get. Or, I get some stuff that really isn't useful, but I want the feed for those things that ARE helpful.

In the past I have had trouble using RSS feeds. I think that with this practice, I will be able to utilize them more effectively. But I also think I will have to form the personal habit of checking my feed results on a regular basis!

Thing 15

I've used Discovery Learning for a number of years, but I like their new and improved site! Today I added the following videos: Basics of Geography, The True Story of the Internet: People (for CRT), and Age of Reason, a video I plan to use to lay a foundation for understanding what the Founding Fathers were thinking (and why) when they wrote the Declaration of independence.

There are several webinars that are of interest to me. There is a Web 2.0 week with lots of interesting topics. I also would not have thought about the trainer's tool kit until it was explained in class. Sounds neat!

Thing 14

Flickr, now partnered with Picnic, emphasizes photos. Photobucket puts its slideshows and video capablilty out front as their most important feature. Photobucket seems to be set up to put my photos in my blog really easily. I thought Flickr was a little clunky...not as user friendly as it could be...and should be more intuitive.

I'm interested in trying Photobucket in conjunction with my blog. (The art in the right sidebar is a result of taking a pic from Photobucket and adding it to my blog).

You know, it's really great that all this is free, too. I can teach my kids how to use these tools and it adds nothing to our school budget :-)

Google Earth Thing 12

I would like to be able to rotate things to see them better (like the Capitol building in D.C.) and would like the time lines to go further back. I am including a practice tour I created today.

I think I might need to visit places on Google Earth first, in some cases, to make sure my students will see what I want them to.

Thing 10

I like the calendar, but still need to work out how to add docs to it and how to indicate to students there are docs attached.

We have a lot of trouble with attendance. These calendars will help me make sure students know what we did in class and access documents as needed. There's nothing like having someone come in after a week's absence and ask, "Did you do anything while I was gone?" Hard to answer that without being really sarcastic :-)

Anyway, I see this as a way to communicate even better with students, as well as a way to let my administrator know what we are doing. And it is easy to update. I like that, as my lesson plans always end up getting rearranged! (some things take longer, less time, etc).

I can point students to the calendars from my school web page, too, or imbed them. Since I only have to update them in one place, I can have them imbeded in several places and it's no big deal. Not bad.

Thing9

My first reaction, "Not another e-mail!" But the Google mail has a lot more flexibility and more options that the other e-mail I use. This forces me to decide if I should keep all of my e-mail accounts!

Also, this account is for school. I also have another (personal) Google account I started last year.
This one (the school one) I access via the school web page under the resources tab. I cannot log into this Google account straight from my browser and access it.

So...if I want to keep some contacts in the future regardless of whether I am in the same job or not, should I direct my SPS google account to share with my personal Google account? Or should I add those contacts on my personal Google account manually? Hmmm.

Thing 8

I like the concept, but need more practice. I couldn't find our group presentation when I went on my computer at home. I need more time to explore the different things you can do within a presentation. Also, if a class broke up into small groups and each group did a presentation, is there a way to share with the whole class without having to list everyone (create a group that automatically sends shared docs to everyone)? There must be. How does that work? Also, if a group makes a presentation, wouldn't you just have one person in the group go through the process of sharing with the rest of the class? Otherwise, wouldn't people end up with the same doc 3 or 4 times?

Thing 7

I like the spreadsheet but am thinking about practical applications for sharing this and other forms at school. One thing we could do is have the kids put the log-in names and some other basic info all our teaching staff could use, then share it among the teachers at SCC.

Again, we'd have to identify what we really want to know so we weren't just creating a form with no real purpose or value, just for the sake of creating a form. One thing we could do is collect information like when the student expects to graduate (we have alternative high schoolers, so our classes are a mix of different grade levels), what career plans each student has, whether the student has a child (or children), etc.

We could use this for the yearbook, etc. to collect data. We could create a poll and use the spreadsheet to see how many people responded a particular way. I could see doing that in my social studies classes. It is something like the Forum in Moodle, but more concise and easier to compare responses.

Thing 6

I like it that any Google docs document I update is automatically updated on my blog and anywhere else I may have put it. The spreadsheet showing responses to my form is great, although I think I need to be thoughtful about what questions I ask to really get the data I want and I think it good to know ahead of time what I plan to do with whatever data I collect.

Collaboratating on a doc was OK, but somewhat limited. I couldn't access the slide show we were working on as a group when I got home. I told my son, Paul, who just graduated from SAU, about the things we were doing and he was really interested in learning how to us the Google docs, etc.

My next step will be to look over the content of my first trimester courses and decide how best to use Google docs in class.

Form for visiting teachers

Thing 4 Google Start Page

The Google start page allows me to customize information I want, like local weather, etc. I like the variety of things available. I have stuff like weather, art and news, but also a gadget that allows me to watch videos on-line. I can see how this could be useful with students, but if I were trying to have them keep up with particular sorts of information, I'd have to go through and find what's available first. I'm sure they'd like the games, etc., but if I want them to follow the economic news or delve into something else relevant to our classes, I'd have to tell them what to add.

There are SO MANY things to choose from, that could be problem. It can take a lot of time to go through all the posibilities, and sometimes gadgets don't work. I expect this is fairly rare, but it does happen. I deleted a couple of gadgets that didn't work. The other challenge is making the google start page relevant as far as a tool for class...to really accomplish an educational goal with it. It is easy to be distracted by the daily cartoon, joke, games, etc. I would need to give students a PURPOSE before sending them to the Google start page, or they could waste a lot of time playing around.