Summer Web 2.0 » Uncategorized

Thing #18, Podcasting in Room 108

lbyrd108 — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:33:41 +0000

Using Evoca to create my first podcast was exciting. It was a simple way to begin podcasting. Listen as I share ideas for using podcasts in my second grade classroom.

Thing #17, Podcasting

lbyrd108 — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 04:07:12 +0000

As the children say, podcasting is awesome! I truly enjoyed the student created podcasts. Mrs. Edmison’s class created weekly podcasts. This is a means for assisting students who truly enjoy communicating verbally. I liked the way each student was given a week to complete a podcast. The podcasts discussed weekly class activities, class council meetings, etc. Another podcast was WillowWeb, a radio podcast which included recitation of poetry, sharing of websites, and other news. The podcasts created by students were of benefit to me.

The ways to use podcasting in the classroom are limitless. There are several ways that I would use podcasting in my classroom. One way is to record the Bible memory verse songs (IICorinthians 9:7b) each week. Another way of using podcasting would be to record the students book reports monthly. These could be posted to the website for parents to hear. Parents often wonder how their child presented the reports. This would provide the answer. Podcasts could also be used to share weekly news, homework assignments for students who are absent, steps for completing math strategies such as partial sums algorithm (to assist parents), and poetry. One additional idea for podcasting would be to podcast the Back to School Night for parents who are not able to attend. I am excited about the possibility of incorporating podcasts into my classroom.

Thing #16, LibraryThing

lbyrd108 — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 02:40:35 +0000

In reviewing my Google Reader, one of the feeds was about developing an online book club for children. LibraryThing was referenced in the article. So at that time I had an opportunity to explore LibraryThing. I joined the site and added the books that I am reading this summer. It was amazing to see the number of people who are also reading these books. The options to communicate through book talks, blogging, reviews, and groups with those who are reading the same books provide an opportunity to hear the views of others. It will also give you ideas of books that may be interesting to read. This may be a way that teachers in area schools can have a book talk without having to meet in person. As a second grade teacher, I would use LibraryThing personally and professionally and probably not with the students. A site that could be used with the students would be Lookybook. It is a website for children which allows parents and children to read a picture book, rate the book, write a review, place on their bookshelf, and purchase.

Thing #15, Del.icio.us – Social Bookmarking

lbyrd108 — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 02:40:01 +0000

Delicious is true to its name. It is awesome! I love this social bookmarking tool. Working in delicious reminded me of Habit 5, creating your own learning toolbox, from the 7 1/2 Habits of Effective Lifelong Learners. Well, I just found another avenue to create my learning toolbox. I will continue to use this account to bookmark websites that are helpful to me. I love the option of being able to organize the websites you have bookmarked using tags. I wasn’t brave enough to include all of the sites that I currently have bookmarked on my computer. (I will eventually.) However, I did see that there was an advantage of using delicious. The tags decrease the time for finding certain sites that you may wish to review. I love the organizational aspect of the site. This is also an excellent way to share websites with colleagues. Using the tags, you will be able to only share the websites that relate to a particular subject, such as math or Making Meaning. Del.icio.us! Try it, you’ll like it!

Thing #7b, Google Reader Revisited

lbyrd108 — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:07:30 +0000

A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink has been referenced in several Web 2.0 blogs. In reviewing the feeds in my Google Reader, this book was referenced by Vicki Davis, who has also been cited in this course. In the Infinite Thinking Machine feed, “Inspiration and Innovation at Googleplex” posted by Lucie deLaBruere, Vicki Davis and others shared innovative ideas for using Google tools in the classroom. The world of technology is continuously changing and as educators we need to keep abreast of the most current tools to help students communicate and collaborate with others throughout the world. On many occasions, students are utilizing the most current tools at home. In part one of her Google Teaching Academy, Vicki Davis quotes Wayne Clough “Don’t send me engineers who can be duplicated by a machine, I’m sending that to India. Give me engineers who are adaptable and can THINK across disciplines.”

FlipPals was an interesting idea found on the RSS feed of the ActivEducator Blog. Students created flipcharts and the teachers connected learners by exchanging the flipcharts with another classroom. I would love to see the student created flipcharts. I especially enjoyed the idea of the Traveling Promethean Man, similar to the traveling teddy bear or Flat Stanley. The following title was recommended “The Amazing Adventures of Flippy the Flipchart.”

Thing #14, 30 Boxes, Ta-da List, and Weebly

lbyrd108 — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 17:55:24 +0000

My exploration of the Web 2.0 tools included 30 Boxes, Ta-Da List, and Weebly. 30 Boxes has already sent me a reminder about my grade level meeting on Monday. However, our school email system has this capability. 30 Boxes also was not as clear cut as I needed it to be. An option for reminders about birthdays was provided. But, all of the dates (in various months) that were placed on the calendar were reflected on the calendar on the same day. So further instructions were needed in developing the calendar.

Ta-Da List was beneficial to me. Ta-Da allows you to create a list of things that you need to do, and then send it to your email. The list was sent immediately (ta da) to my email after saving. Since I have a grade level meeting on July 14, I decided to create a to do list related to the meeting.

A recent request from a colleague in another state prompted me to explore Weebly. Weebly is a site in which you can develop your own website. Rather than send my colleague links of various resources via email, I decided to develop a website that she can access without having to search through emails to find something that is needed. I will continue to update the website with additional resources. This may also serve as my “technology toolbox”, which was mentioned in Thing #1.

Thing #13, “21st Century Online Conference”

lbyrd108 — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 22:14:09 +0000

What an innovative means to attend a professional conference! Technology is truly advancing in a way that the needs of learners are met. The online conference provided an opportunity for my visual and auditory needs to be met. Silvia Tolisano of Jacksonville, Florida, USA facilitated a session entitled Week in the Classroom: “iPods- iSpeak- iSing- iListen- iLearn” that was of interest to me. The presentation was an online “auditory cast” that shared information about iPods (Mp3 players). This presentation was helpful to me because like Silvia Tolisano, I am a “newby” to iPods. She quoted a statement from Vicki Davis that I will commit to memory “There is power in being a newby.” She shared the potential and possibilities that the impact of iPods/Mp3 players can have on student learning. Some of the ideas were students using iPods to record current events, word of the week, digital audio cookbook, projects involving music which assists students in remembering concepts, i.e., mnemonics to remember the spelling of months of the year in Spanish. This year one of my second grade students and her mother compiled a recipe book of her classmates’ favorite foods. The digital audio cookbook would have been an innovative way to publish the cookbook.

Another session of interest was Week in the Classroom: “Listening to the voices: student empowerment
through collaborative learning projects beyond the school walls” by Sharon Peters of Montreal, QC, Canada. In one portion of her presentation, the audio interview was conducted with one of her 16-year-old students who shared his view of how the internet connects you to the real world and how learning certain subjects will apply to your future. Another part of her presentation provided students an opportunity to share their experience in using various technology tools through “interview videocasting”. This type of “interview videocasting” would serve as an opportunity for second graders (who enjoy talking) to share their ideas about a particular topic or story. Also, the questioning through videocasting could serve as tool for teachers to determine a student’s understanding of a particular concept.

In reviewing Sharon Peters’ Wikipage, the Technospuds Project peaked my curiosity. The site has creative projects for Pre-K-6 Elementary Classrooms. The activities are truly creative. The students learned about measurement through an egg roll project. There was also an egg roll fashion show, which was captured using a bubbleshare slideshow. There are other creative learning ideas on the Jenuine Techno site.

Thing #12, “Let the Slideshow Begin”

lbyrd108 — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 06:51:48 +0000

Creating a slideshow was fun! Having the capability to upload pictures from your own picture file to a video is “cool” as my students say. I used Animoto to create a video of pictures taken on my field trip to the Fernbank Museum of Natural History. Click here to view the video of God’s Amazing Animal Creations. It took a while to upload my personal photos. However, in reading information on the website, it was noted that it took longer to download because the picture sizes were too large. Recommendations were made for changing the size of the pictures before downloading.

In Thing #11, using Flicker, I went on a virtual vacation in Hawaii. Slide was used to make a slideshow of the pictures from that virtual vacation. The slideshow is entitled Linda\’s Hawaiian Virtual Vacation

Photo Credits:

Photo 1: Hawaii Mountain Temple-http://flickr.com/photos/divemasterking2000/493535386/
Photo 2: Hawaii Surf’s Up-http://flickr.com/photos/taiger808/380294355/
Photo 3: Hawaii (Kauai) Napoli Coast II-http://flickr.com/photos/jeepeenyc/1297480879/
Photo 4: Hawaii Art by Music Uncle-http://flickr.com/photos/rjmalfalfa/1350167540/
Photo 5: Akaka Falls, Big Island-http://flickr.com/photos/virgomerry/523848528/
Photo 6: Palm Jungle

Photo 7: Rabbit Island

Photo 8:Hawaiian Sunset

Also, it would be interesting to have the students develop a slideshow that retells a story in their own words, similar to the slideshow created by Ms. Paul about The Very Hungry Caterpillar. They could take pictures of school activities to include in the slideshow. The slideshow could be posted on the our class website or class Wiki for the parents to hear about a school day in the words of the students. In addition to the slideshow options provided, Photostory would be an option to use in which students’ voices would be recorded to retell a story.

Thing #11, Exploring Flicker

lbyrd108 — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 05:32:35 +0000

What an enormous array of pictures! Exploring Flicker was fascinating. You could spend a large amount of time just exploring. I enjoyed being able to take a virtual vacation using Flicker. It has always been my desire to vacation in Hawaii. Well, today I had that opportunity vacation in Hawaii through pictures.

Palm Jungle in Hawaii, Photographed by Brewbrooks

Flicker would be a great source of pictures for second geography lessons, especially when we cover landforms. However, my teaching assistant and I would have to download the pictures. There were several pictures that were inappropriate for elementary students. In reviewing the uses of Flicker in the classroom by David Jakes, it was noted that he used pictures from Flicker to illustrate words in his favorite poem. This is an interesting way to bring the poem to life through pictures. Since poetry is the second grade’s unit for backward design, this is another idea I will consider as we begin writing poems. The pictures from Flicker could also be downloaded and used as a story or poem starter.

Thing #10 – Creative Commons (CC)

lbyrd108 — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:12:36 +0000

CC has taken on many meanings throughout the years. In researching cc, there were many acronyms associated with CC. However, I was not aware that CC represented Creative Commons. It is good to know that Creative Commons exists. There are often times I wish to use images from the internet in materials that I create. However, I am often reminded of the copyright laws. Therefore, I am very careful about using pictures or materials from the internet. On one occasion, I contacted a company to obtain approval to use an image for a VBS flyer and was informed that the company had hired someone to create the pictures for them on the website. Since it was on their website, approval was granted. Now I wonder if it should have been used without CC approval from the image originator.

Based on the information gained from reading about Creative Commons, the copyright laws are refined through Creative Commons. This provides more opportunities for the use of materials that have the CC license. In the future as I search for materials/images to use, I will be make sure I look for the creative commons (CC) license. As a songwriter, creative commons will be helpful to me as well. I still feel I need more clarification before I actually use CC.

In reviewing the OER Commons site, the Lego Robots video was of interest. Our elementary school counselor serves as coach for our elementary robotics team. This would be an interesting site to share with the team.