Yes, the end has come and it’s time to celebrate for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I’m finished!
I’m graduating!
It’s time to celebrate!
But on the other hand, I have become addicted to this blog and I don’t want the class to end.
Thank you to Shelley and David for their encouragement along the way! Some days I felt stupid, and some days I felt accomplished….mostly the former, but who’s counting days!
I feel like I have learned sooooooooo much in this course. I know we are suppose to use the resources online, but I would love to have a printed copy of the sites and where to go for what. I am a vintage teacher who still needs her instruction booklet in front of her. I have a hard time going back and forth from site to site. When I work on this course, I have the K12 site, my blog, my wiki page, google, and several other things open to manipulate back and forth. Am I crazy or what? No wonder my computer is slow! Many times I would print off instructions to have them in front of me and it did make it easier.
I believe this course is way beyond what they are learning at the college level and I have impressed my family many times over. Even my son who graduated with an Advertising degree and New Media is surprised by what I have learned. Guess what? I’m surprised too!
The favorite tool I have embraced is “blogging”. I feel very good about my skills and have created a class blog for our last novel this year. It has been fun for all of us…especially the students. They love “not” writing out paragraphs on paper and communicating through blogging. I have some good questions and suggestions for EDUBLOGS and how they can improve this site for normal, regular teachers like me.
Our department has started the library site for book talks but we have not gotten as far as we planned. Maybe next week when I put this blog to bed, I will have more time to devote to the other.
I have read several other blogs throughout this class and one thing I agree on…..administrators should HAVE to become familiar with all this stuff so they know how much time and effort it takes a teacher to do this. We are doing some great stuff and they don’t have a clue!
As I talk to fellow teacher friends in other areas, it becomes very apparent that I am very fortunate to teach in a place that values this kind of learning……we are so far ahead of what the majority of teachers are able to do out there in the world….wow! This is definitely cutting edge stuff and I’m glad I have been able to learn from some of the best! OK…..all of the best!
I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel…it’s getting brighter!
I have lost all sense of self preservation and joined Classroom 2.0. Yes, I even joined a group called “A Crazy Place Called Middle School“….sounded like fun! And I commented about my blogging to see if I would get any response. They obviously know I’m old when I said how long I had been teaching…Overall, I think I like Classroom 2.0 especially the tool bar on the right side…very handy information.
And yes…I explored Ning and went directly to Frequently Asked Questions to figure out what the heck a “Ning” really is. Now I know…but the whole time I was asking myself how and why I would use a ning. Then I found some discussion about social networking asking about whether to use a “wiki or a ning”. Good question! After reading several comments to that question, it became clearer. The comments suggested that a wiki would be utilized in more reporting situations (kind of like I used the 8th honors wiki to house projects) where as the “ning” would be a social networking place where dialogue takes place during various stages of the learning process. I think that sounds reasonable.
So, I’m thinking that if you had a burning question or problem you want to solve, ning would be the thing!
I created and saved this pageflakes as my homepage. It has everything I need when I log into my computer. I want to see weather, catch the news, turn on the radio and get a laugh! What a way to start the day!
This was quite easy to get going but the options are so overwhelming that your page can become out of control.
I think I will begin with this and start using it…then modify it as I become comfortable with the kinds of flakes I have posted. This is only a start! But it’s a start!
Wow! This is fun! I love this tool and can think of a million ways to use it…….for school and home. I could even send my family a form to fill out about what they want for dinner, but I don’t really care–they will get what I cook! But the possibilities are endless.
Because I have been involved in study hall for a while, that topic came to mind as we are all going to take a part in this school activity. For those of us who have no life, it does not bother us, but for many, it will be pure misery! Sorry!
In order to give Mr. Notestine some feedback from faculty members, I have composed a collaborative google doc for others to log in concerns and suggestions.
I think this will be a great tool to use for getting feedback from the faculty. I went further and created a series of questions for teachers to answer that would help facilitate a schedule.
We are exploring TeacherTube and YouTube as a resource more and more in reading to complement our lessons. Here are two that really interested me because it actually showed how to run literature circles. I have heard about them and read about them, but never actually seen one in action. This really was much more beneficial than reading about it. I guess that’s where the value comes in….I’m a visual learner! I want to actually experience what it feels like to do it! This look at YouTube and TeacherTube made me feel more comfortable with the sites and where to look for items of interest.
Here are two that were particularly interesting for teachers:
This one is an example of what we are doing in the library for middle school independent reading classes…..could I download other book talks to put on our site? I would love to give them credit; we not trying to steal anything, but don’t want to reinvent the wheel!
You’re correct! There are thousands and thousands of podcasts out there on any subject you can think of. I went through several different ones…of course, Pam Anderson on The Perfect Recipe on Losing Weight and eating Great! ( I ate a piece of cake while listening!)…I also surfed through Podcasting in the Classroom and The Discovery Channel podcasts…but the one I really scored on was Nancy Keane’s Booktalks Quick and Easy…podcasts on a variety of books. I listened to a few of our popular authors and they were great.
The middle school reading department is in the process of developing our own blog for the Independent reading classes in Carlos Library. In an effort to have a more personal way for students to locate interesting books, we are filming video and audio podcasts for students as a reference blog. It will be divided by genres and have student podcasts as well as teacher podcasts. I think ours will be even better than Nancy Keane’s because we will have the added value of video. Just this week, I videoed a student in the library for a podcast. (Will download asap)
This blog will be an ongoing project as we update booklists and add student podcasts. My question is….are we trying to REINVENT the wheel?…..can we use podcasts that are already out there for the books we need? Even though there won’t be video, it would be a great start.
I have also used podcasting for my honors class as we added a podcast of students singing “Beasts of England” from Animal Farmto our wiki. It was great.
I think the future of podcasts in a classroom is tantamount to YouTube, TeacherTube,and all of the other cutting edge web20 tools. Just think how excited a middle schooler would be if you REQUIRED them to bring their IPOD’s to class to download a lesson! Maybe I could put the SAT words on a podcast and they could go to sleep listening to it…and let their subconscience do all the work! They would much rather listen to my voice then have to look at me! Think what I would save in makeup, clothes and jewelry!
The 43 Things has been unsettling for me. After clicking around, making my list, and joining this site, I got nervous! This tool is “way too personal” for me. Looks a little like what I have seen of Facebook or MySpace and people are just devulging way too much of their inner feelings. I would say this is probably the younger generations way of writing in a journal or diary, but without the KEY! Everyone can see it! Is that suppose to make it better? Do we really want feedback from the world ? Is this the way we find out that other people care about us? I personally don’t like this because when I write personal stuff , I want it to stay personal. I feel better after I write it, but it is not necessary for the world to know what I had on my chest! I guess I haven’t really joined the world wide web in a complete way!
Another scary thing happened while I was working with 43 things…I was working from another computer and trying to get back to some sites for this class. I expertly googled K12learning20 and oh my Lord! All of my blogging was right there on google and it was there for the taking. I know that we were told to be careful and we may not want to use our real names,etc….and I tried not to be too personal with my writing…it just makes ME look like a fool, no one else, but this was scary! Now, I am going back over my blog and seeing what I need to delete to keep my information a little more personal and trying to wrap my mind around just how big this world wide “thing” is! Wow!
This web2.0 tool is the best one yet for me personally. I am always looking for new authors to read and Amazon.com has just been ok. This makes finding books much more fun and helpful. I did join immediately and started adding books to my library….many I had read and some I had not read just so I can read the comments before getting them. I did include my favorite authors! I like the way you can organize your information/lists and comment.
As for school, we are always looking for new books for our students and this will allow us to find genres of new books out there that are suggested. We always give the library suggestions for new books to purchase and I hope this tool will help me stay connected to what is new out there without having to go search around for it…….it will come to me!
I also learned something “new” while working on this page. I am a “newbie” at this technology stuff so I have to have K12learning20 open on my browser as well as the site I’m working on so I can go back and forth…..I can lose my place very easily and that is frustrating. Well, while I was using LibraryThing on Firefox, I opened K12learning20 and found they are both open on my top browser and I can flip back and forth….Wow! What else am I missing?
The more I get involved in this web20 class, the more I am liking it because I can find things “out there in cyber space” and I’m not losing it on my computer! Of course, yesterday I thought I had lost cyberspace, but that’s just ME!
Finally, I’m doing something I feel sort of comfortable with. After completing an abbreviated version of this class last summer, Delicious was one of the few things I grasped and have used. The whole “thing” is user friendly; there are no tricks or weird settings. It is all elementary so I tried the stretch activities!
I especially liked the new trick our Thing 14 explained about highlighting the text/copy/and then click TAG. That really works! I always wondered what to write there so I solved one problem. I made a new tag bundle named k12learning20 where I can tag all of my tools and anything that comes through for this class.
There is an art to “tagging”…I had originally started out just flinging words about whatever came to mind! Kind of like brainstorming! But we need to be more intentional about how we want the information organized. I had tags on my delicious site that were no good/lots of repetition, so I purged the tag list that didn’t belong anywhere…good move! It cleaned up my list! The cloud form for tags is easier to read and use I think.
I also subscribed using tabs that I was most interested in like middle school, reading, literature, K12learning20! I will be filled to overflowing soon!
Having used Delicious before, it was easy to accomplish this “thing“, but I did add my buttons to Firefox and Internet Explorer. I also went back to my bookmarks and saved them in a file on my desktop ready to import into Delicious….but that’s another day!
