Thing 22

My brand new love....wikis. I was happy to see I could spend Thing 22 exploring a bit more. I have a lot of work to do now, because I have so many ideas running in my mind about the possibilities for classroom wikis. I just hope there are no IT issues in my way!

First, I enjoyed reading all the other participants' plans for wikis. It is motivated and reassuring to hear so many others ready to move on and catch up with these young digital learners! There is so much potential with wikis, just as there is with blogs. The difference is that with blogs, you can only comment, you can really edit and add. Someone posts, you comment. With wikis, the ideas and knowledge of a topic can just keep growing and growing. Students can realize what true collaboration can really have amazing results. The examples I explored in Thing 21 demonstrated this clearly.

I started to create my own wiki to help assist students with technology questions and make them feel empowered and more confident. I am also hoping they will choose to share cool discoveries and knowledge of technology as well.

Thing 21

Before completing Thing 21, I must admit that I was pretty "anti-wiki"...mostly because my experience with them has been with students trying to use wikipedia for their number one source for information during research (simply because it always seems to come first in a Google search I believe). Granted, there is much good information there, unfortunately we have encountered quite a bit of incorrect information too.

But looking at wikis in a different light, using my students as the authors, suddenly gives wikis much more appeal. I took a lot of time to browse through the list of wikis listed on Web 2.0 Thing 21's post. I enjoyed seeing two hemispheres of students come together on a wiki to share their findings about weather and seasons. Very cool!

I also found the wikiHow (largest how-to-manual) to be a pretty cool idea. I thought that this might be a great idea for my students. I could require every student to add a "How To" to our own Computer Education wiki. They would have to provide step by step instruction and commentary on one computer related skill/activity. I really like this idea.

Looking at other examples of Educational Wikis, I came across a wiki from a Pennsylvania school that had some really cool ideas on using technology with kids (similar to what I have learned in this workshop) and lots of great examples, videos, and help links. I came across another great wiki that a class was doing using video, audio, illustrator to do some awesome projects. I bookmarked a load of items while searching these wikis. I found so many useful things!

Finally, I even set up my own wiki for my class that I am going to test out. It was from PBworks.com. I cannot wait to get to work experimenting with it. I have truly enjoyed Thing 21. I have benefitted tremendously from what I've just learned and seen here.

Thing 20

Books..books...books...it is so nice to be able to streamline your book search online over and over and do such quick previews and see reviews online. Technology has brought us a long way. I remember, in college, I thought it was so fabulous that journals and documents were just starting to be available online. Now, I can have access to complete reference materials, textbooks, required reading novel and leisure reading online at the click of a button. I love this.

I searched through quite a few of FriedBeef's "Best Places to Get Free Books". I found some cool computer reference materials...even downloaded a whole one (PDF File) on Windows 7 shortcuts. A few items I looked at were no longer available for request, but overall, I could see myself spending some time searching here.

Google Books was quite helpful and I added a good number of Windows 7 reference books (anticipating many questions at the start of school) to my library. There were some great illustrated books I think could be excellent for middle school students. The previews were really great. I don't have the time to wander around book stores and go through materials like this. I appreciate the large previews available online. I found some good material on video editing as well.

The reference collections at the NHS library were fabulous. I have a 7th grade project that involves research and website building that could really be helpful in assisting them with this. It would keep them focused on credible sources and still allow them to be utilizing technology!

Students need to see all that is available from the library online and the fact that they can cross-search databases. What resources! Just the experience of exploring the options that are out there could open up students (and teachers!) eyes and minds. I found some great ebooks on American History that would tie right in to the Grade 7 and 8 curricula. I also found some good books on inventions and animals too, which would work for my lower grades. I am wondering why Wallace has NO ebooks available to its students!!!?!?

The biggest benefits of ebooks for my students would probably be that it opens up much more access to books and puts the excitement of technology in reading. When a teacher gives a booktalk in class about amazing books that are available, and the student can go home and download that book instantly without leaving his/her room (I realize devices are needed here, but this is where we are headed quickly!), reading becomes even more exciting, especially for those who may not have been as enticed before. As a teacher, I have so many more references available to me and opportunities to explore texts before I purchase.

For myself as a reader, I am ready to head to the Apple store again for the second time in 2 weeks, and purchase myself a fabulous new Ipad. Books, magazines, and papers look amazing on these! Now I just need to find more time in a day to sit down and enjoy what technology has so graciously brought to the world of literature and information.

Thing 19

I absolutely love Thing 19. I think this will be one of the most useful items for me! As a computer teacher who is continuously repeating the process of "How To" over and over and over, this is a huge timesaver.

In the past, I have had to resort to lots of written reference sheets and reteaching lessons for students who need to get caught up. With these screencasts, it will be more effective for students as opposed to simple written directions (which some kids have much difficulty with). I can also see this being VERY useful for tutors who come into my classroom with very little computer knowledge and are very nervous about helping their own students. They will certainly benefit from these videos, as will some interested parents who want to help their child (or themselves) at home.

I can't wait to start making these screencasts this year (perfect timing now that we have switched to Windows 7). Finding the time might be tough, but I can just keep adding and adding new screencasts for new skills as I find the time. I wonder if there is a limit on Screenr.com to how many I can create. I will have to look into that. Otherwise, I am very excited about the possibilities for this in my class.

I found this extremely easy to use. I had to do two takes before I got it right without pausing too long or misspeaking, but overall, I loved it. Doing these before a presenting a new classroom skill could even help me revise and improve my instruction. It helps to be the "viewer" and not the "presenter" to critique my technical instructions.

Thanks for the great tool.

For this post, I created a screencast on how to post to our new classroom blog hosted by Kidblog.org. I notice, when I view it full screen on my blog, it is very blurry. But I would use this through my bookmark on mydelicious, which shows up fabulous through the link rather than a downloaded & embedded video.

Thing 18

I must admit, I have been interested in finding out more about podcasts and videocasts. I explored the NPR site, the Educational Podcast site, Podcast.com and even a few others when I tried a general search.

Throughout my search, I found it very difficult to find something I would deem appropriate for my middle school students. Most of the podcasts and vlogs I came across were very techie and not speaking at all to a young student audience. I did not find a single thing I liked on the new Windows 7. I thought I might use that as an intro with my students at the start of school, but I found nothing. I also searched for podcasts on video editing and Adobe Premiere, but came up short.

I did find a guy's podcast who gave some great computer demos of Microsoft Excel Shortcuts. I have a lot of students who are always looking for more shortcuts, rather than using the mouse. This might be a neat video podcast to show them:

http://technology.podcast.com/episode/57022896/17173/ - Excel Shortcuts Episode

#1209

For my personal use, having just purchased a new iMac last week, I was interested in some of the Mac podcasts. I found one on the in's and out's of customizing my Mac:

http://technology.podcast.com/show/68254/Ask-The-Techies-%28iPod-Smaller-Version%29/
ask the techies - Customizing your Mac OS

Finally, this podcast gave cool little tidbits of Apple History. It was a quick and easy way to remind us just how far we have come. http://technology.podcast.com/episode/61598951/11173/ -On this Day in Apple History

Overall, I was a little disappointed. I think I would be more likely to use podcasts if a friend or colleague directed me to a specific one that was worthy. I found the search process to be exhausting and unproductive. Perhaps this is just because of my topic choices. I can certainly see how creating my own podcasts for students might be helpful, but very few of the ones I searched seemed to fit my classroom needs.

Thing 17

You could spend an awful lot of time viewing these presentations. I think this could be a very useful tool to help you in the classroom so that you can use a great presentation that is out there instead of reinventing the wheel. It is a given that strong visuals make for great lessons. A great presentation from one of these two sources, Slideshow and Zoho, could be just that.

I discovered that the best products come from the Featured Presentations or Most Viewed or Most Downloaded. When you try to search by topic, you can go through endless pages of junk. I searched "technology" and got a lot of junk. I am especially critical as a Computer Education teacher when it comes to professionalism with slideshows, not cluttering the slides, and not writing a novel on each slide. There was a lot of this going on. But I did find some interesting things within the Featured Slideshows section. I found some great slideshows displaying amazing photographs. I added these to My Delicious Bookmarks so that I can send my 6th graders here during our short segment on digital photography. I am hoping they will be inspired by what they view.

I am embedding one of these presentations displaying such photography. I know it is beyond what a 6th grader can do, but I think the shots are so eyecatching, they excite me to take shots of my own. I also think I can use these shots to discuss angles, closeups, and choosing objects to shoot that aren't just portraits of friends. Students will enjoy these photos surely.

Thing 16

I wish I had endless amounts of time to explore all that is out on the Web. It is such a short time to explore and discover, it seems, once I put the kids to sleep and really get to check out new sites that can help with my curriculum, my students, and even me and my family as well!

But here I am, happy to have a nice little list to choose from for Thing 16. After looking at my choices and quickly assessing a few to see where my interest might lie, I decided to check explore bubble.us. I thought this might be a sight that could be a great resource for both me and my students.

The first thing I liked was how I could try it out and decide if it was worth signing up for. I began to create a concept map for my Computer Education curriculum. I created a very quick version displaying the different technology concepts learned from 5th grade to 8th grade. It was very user friendly and allowed me to save it in my account and also share it or embed it on a blog or website. I decided to try it out and save it on my blog that I am currently testing to be used with my 7th graders (Kidblog.com- Thanks Terri!) It was easy to embed although appears a little small even though students can zoom in to their area of interest. I think I will have students use this for their notes during research. They can access it from home and school which is nice and they can easily print it or embed it as well. My seventh graders can even add them to their blogs for me to check over from home...an added advantage (one with less paper peddling too).