Linda's blog

Wow! Teachers could customize the homepage for whatever task they have assigned their students. As a primary grade teacher, I did a unit on Japan. As I looked through the available flakes, I kept thinking about how much fun this would have been while we studied Japan. We could have had a webcam of Mt. Fuji, a video of making a paper crane, an audio podcast of simple songs in Japanese, so many things!

I also see how the people who supervise the computer lab could use this, setting up a different homepage for different grade levels, or for different purposes. If students are going to do research, they will need different links than if they are to take a test on OAS, for instance. Having the pagecast up would focus the students on the programs they need, and keep them from being distracted by programs they don’t need.

Playing with the various flakes was really fun for me; I have one set up and plan to keep working on it. I think this would be lots of fun -while learning -for students. As a teacher, I think I would especially appreciate the ability to customize pages for different groups and for different purposes. Once again, another powerful tool for teachers. How do you choose on which ones to spend your time?

I can see even young students loving to help design a page for a certain topic. Of course, much supervision would be needed with younger children, but older students would be comfortable doing it with minimal help.

I really had fun with this. I have looked at YouTube before when someone suggested a certain video. I often click on one listed on my yahoo page as a funny pet video. Also, my grandsons watch their favorite things on YouTube under the watchful eyes of their dad, Aidian watching tornadoes, and Dylan watching videos using Bionicles. I had no idea there were so many useful videos!

I love the common craft videos introducing the Web 2.0 tools. The one on blogs gives very useful information. Their other videos are also very easy to understand and are full of good information.

An interesting video on using wikipedia could also be very useful. This video gives students hints on using wikipedia to aid students in a research project.

Another interesting video was one submitted by Mr. Numbers. His video gives some interesting little hints in helping students remember multiplication facts that I had never heard before. My third grade grandson enjoyed this one.

The video that I enjoyed watching most of all was one produced by a teacher at my grandsons’ school. Dylan had Ms. Hefner in first grade and I certainly appreciated her use of technology while teaching him. Her class’s Thanksgiving video was highlighted the week before Thansgiving on TeacherTube. The first graderslisted the things for which they were thankful.We Are Thankful

What a powerful way to get messages to people! I can certainly see possibilities of this tool.

Subscribe Free
Add to my Page

I am amazed at all that is available as podcasts! I Using several of the listed directories, including Learn Out Loud, Podcast Alley, and NPR Podcast Directory, I found several interesting possibilities. I was already a subscriber to one MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) podcast, the Grammar Grater. I have enjoyed those podcasts about the correct use of the English language. Personally, I found the NPR music podcasts, All Songs Considered, very entertaining but not sure I could ever use them in a class. I also found the source page for the CommonCraft videos that have been part of our lessons. I know I will find those useful as I help teachers discover uses for Web 2.0 tools!

I can really see the usefulness of this tool in the classroom. I remember years ago when I gave each first grader his/her own cassette tape so we could record progress in reading. We recorded once every six weeks, and the students took the tapes home at the end of the year. Think about how much more powerful podcasting could be! Auditory learners could profit from having summaries recorded for them to use for study. Children who have issues with writing due to small motor problems could use podcasting to respond to literature, create a story, etc. This would provide them a chance to use vocabulary and sentence structure that they would normally avoid due to their specific learning problems.

What possibililties!

What an interesting concept! I really enjoyed the “Suggester”, and found some books that I want to put on my “to-read” list. The suggestions I got were very similar to the ones that Amazon gives when you purchase a book, but some were more specific to topic than the usual Amazon recommendations.

What a great site to use with reluctant readers. Both of my grandsons love to read, but only non-fiction. I have always been a voracious reader and encouraged my own children to read a lot, and they do. I couldn’t wait for grandchildren to pass along that love of books, but I have really had to revise my aspirations for them. They just don’t like the kinds of books that I like for their ages. So, I can see myself using this site to find age-appropriate books on the solar system, tornadoes, and whatever strikes their fancy next. I hope other educators will realize the potential of this site for those hard-to-please readers.

This is a great find. I can’t wait to share it with our media specialists!

Wow! How handy is this! When I worked as a math specialist for an elementary school, I often emailed another great web-site I had found to help teachers teach particular skills. I hoped that teachers kept a document on their desktop that they could easily add to as I sent updates. That did not happen too often, but if I had been using this, I could just tell them to check for updates. I can see that carefully adding descriptions to the bookmarks could help teachers find exactly what they needed.

I have realized that I can not do all I want to do right now so I have limited my bookmarks to just a few for now, but there will be more to come. I will be guiding a group of teachers in a book study of Using Technology with Classroom Instruction That Works after the holidays, so I have looked for some information on that.

This is just one more thing that I have added to my list of working on–when there is time. I can see a set of bookmarks for each area of curriculum as well as for each of the Web tools that teachers are likely to use. I am anxious to see what other people have come up with so that I can link their lists with mine. I can see this becoming as much of an obsession as the RSS feeds.

I have really enjoyed skimming the posts that come through my Google Reader. It’s amazing how much new material is available every day!

Because I am new to using so many web resources, I especially like the posts that give you new places to look. For instance, the Cool Cat Teacher blog has a daily spotlight that refers to websites of interest to educators. I often click on at least one of the links and usually find something of interest. I have started files of sites that I want to explore further, when I have time.

I have enjoyed many of the other Cool Cat posts, but one recent one especially interested me. It Makes Sense to Use All Senses really makes sense to me! I read this one soon after participating in an IEP meeting for my youngest grandson who is autistic. The IEP discussion about how he best learns went right along with this post. I loved her class schedule; it’s obvious that Ms. Davis thinks not just about her subject matter, but also considers how her students learn best. We can all learn from that!

Asperger’s Syndrome is another topic in my Google Reader, and, again, I am amazed at the amount of current information. Many of the most recent posts have dealt with new research that links autism with rainfall, or of a popular TV series that has a character with Aspergers. This feed has really made me think about how our students have to be taught about how to judge a post, when to trust an article on the web.

I have enjoyed my choices of feeds, and I plan to continue reading even when I don’t have to do it for a class!

(my own photo of blue jay edited in dumpr as amazing circle)

This is the fun part! No wonder kids want to spend hours at the computer, playing. I’m interested in hear how teachers use these sites with students. Do they get sidetracked by playing with all the special effects–as I did? Do you use these fun sites as a reward?

These sites remind me of my first experience using “Math Their Way” in the classroom about twenty-five years ago. The trainer told us to allow our kindergarten children to just play with the manipulatives for several weeks–at least four weeks–before we began using the materials for a specific content goal. I am a serious teacher, and I did not think MY children would need a month to just play with the materials, so I skipped that part. Or at least, I skipped that part for about four days. I realized the children were so interested in what they could do with the pattern blocks, the counting cubes, the geoboards, etc. that they could not focus on what I was asking them to focus. So, I gave them a month to just “play” and we made so much progress in math for the rest of the year. I wonder if that is what is necessary for these sites. Do you have to give the students permission to just play for a while, then let them use the confidence they developed through experience in using these tools to get a concept across?

I just know that I am having fun!

The following puzzle was developed on JigZone.

titmouseautumn Jigsaw Puzzle

I listened to two sessions of the online conference. One was “Kicking It Up a Notch: Oh the Possibilities” by Lisa Parisi. This focused on the management of project-based learning in the elementary classroom. Ms. Parisi gave some great hints about letting different students take the role of expert in different software or online programs, or specific skills. For example, a child who knows how to copy and paste URLs into the blogs could help children who have trouble with that particular procedure. She gave a brief description of what project-based learning is, how it can be managed, and how to assess the students involved. There was good information in the presentation and a few new things, but overall, I was not impressed with the presentation. It moved very slowly and had information that could have been gleaned from an article just as well as from a visual presentation. I really did not SEE a lot that was helpful. It also moved very slowly which made it hard for me to really focus on the main points. I’m not sure I would recommend this presentation to others.

I also listened to a 2006 presentation that intrigued me because it focused on how first grade could use Web 2.0 tools. “Week in the Classroom: Using Web 2.0 Tools in a Grade One Classroom” was much more interesting to me. This was a presentation by Lani Ritter Hall, a teacher of grades one and two, and had lots of different ideas about using the web tools with younger children. This presentation seemed to move along more quickly, had lots of visuals that explained exactly how many of the tools were used, and many examples of what the students were doing. I’m not sure that the presentation was actually that much better thatn the first one I watched, but I certainly did get more out of it. I have emailed the link to several first grade teachers that I know are interested in adding more Web 2.0 tools to their classrooms.

I certainly do like this anytime, online delivery so that more people are able to see the presentations, and repeat the presentations as many times as needed. This could even be a good tool for parents to have when helping children with certain projects. Also, I liked the varied choices. Most everyone could find something helpful. However, I am sorry they seem to have dropped the “Week in the Classroom” strand which appeared to me to be the most practical of the strands. Maybe they felt people had become more sophisticated in their uses of the tools and no longer needed the basics. This is one site I will be using again and again, both for myself and for teachers.

I was really excited to sit down and work on this blog. I spent hours looking at Creative Commons photos and kept thinking of different ways teachers could use this resource to make their teaching more “connected”. However, after trying unsuccessfully for several hours to get my photos to show up when I tried to embed them in this blog, I decided to try another tactic.

Although I have lots of classroom experience, I am very new to my current position of instructional technology specialist. Also, I am part-time and serve all seven schools in the county. One of my big challenges is to show teachers what is available, but then focus on what they think will help them the most. As I investigated wikis, I decided a wiki could introduce several Web 2.0 tools to teachers, and help me identify the tools in which teachers have the greatest interest. I had planned to start that wiki after the holidays. However, when I could not get the Bubbleshare slideshow to embed in my blog, I decided to go ahead and start my wiki now. I had no trouble getting the slideshow to embed in that wiki.

This was a great reminder to me that any Web 2.0 tool that teachers will use has to be very user-friendly, and I have to be ready to assist them in any that won’t work just right. Experience is a great teacher!