One Last Thing!

What a semester! Two graduate level courses crammed into 5 weeks was a little much. I probably would have taken away more from EDUC5540 in a full 28-week semester but this has been soooo informative.

I really found utility in the LiveBinders exercise. Having these binders and being able to share some of them as needed is great. It should provide a huge benefit in my next job. I also was intrigued by the "Google" suite of sites. This will also be very helpful in the future.

I never thought of myself as a blogger, but I will definitely stay on that routine. The collaborative opportunities in the wiki sites was also an eye-opener.

The site that I had the biggest problem with, was mashups...I just couldn't seem to get things to cooperate. I was really disappointed that Mappr was not functioning.

The 23rd Thing

Creative Commons

The screen shot to the left shows the credits statement for the 23 Things for Teachers blog. It indicates that the 23 things format was borrowed and duplicated with permission under a Creative Commons License.

Having a knowledge of Creative Commons will be beneficial to me as a teacher. I now understand if-and-when I can use and alter other published materials, based on the Creative Commons designation. This will also encourage me to publish web materials and understand what priviledges I can give to others to use and alter my work.

Thing 22 (and counting)

This blog is about LiveBinder. The LiveBinder application has been a life saver for me! I have been struggling with a WebQuest assignment in which I needed access to a map that was over 6MB. The WebQuest document only allows JPEG's of less than 140 KB. I have now placed the file in the Geology Binder within LiveBinder and it has been hyperlinked in WebQuest. Problem solved!!

I've created 3 binders, one for education, one for religion, and the third for geology. Click this LiveBinder link to view my public binder for geology.

I see multiple applications for the LiveBinder technology in education. I can create collaborative binders for class work to make resources available to students. Additionally, I can create a separate binder to be shared with my colleagues that can address educational materials that we can jointly access.

Thing 21 with Animoto

For this thing, I choose to load a bunch of my 'subterranean' pictures of Mammoth Cave. It's interesting to watch them with classical music in the background and some of the Animoto animations are kinda fun.
This would be a fun project to do with pictures of projects or activities that would help the students remember something they had all contributed to.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Thing 20

I've used YouTube in the past, primarily for viewing videos that were sent me as email links. This is the first time that I've actually searched for material based on topic and content. I found a lot of good stuff for my student level (grades 9-12) that dealt with topographic maps, the topic I'm working with in my WebQuest.
I found one neat video of a group of 6th graders creating a topographic map from a soft clay volcano. They cut the volcano into horizontal slices and then, beginning with the lowest (and largest) level they traced the outline of the pieces on a sheet of paper, keeping all the centers properly positioned. The result is a series of contours that represent the landform of the original volcano. This YouTube is linked below.

Topographic Maps

Thing #19 - More social networking

Once you sign up for 'TeacherPop' you have to wait to be approved. I'm waiting now. I requested a badge but at this point, I'm not sure how it gets embedded onto my blog. Having a badge might make some feel like a deputy (possibly Barnie).

I can see the utility of having a social networking site for educators. Would be wonderful for sharing ideas or activities that are successful, but would also be good for gaining on others experiences. I looked at several of the sites, Gather wasn't that appealing, even though I do occasionally listen to NPR. The site that should have the greatest utility for teachers is Classroom 2.0, simply because it will be instructive in staying current with so much of the cutting edge of technology in the classroom. I plan to investigate this further after this immediate CRUNCH of Summer I has ended.


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Visit TeacherPop

Thing # 18 - Social Networking?

So.....I'm now on Facebook! My first task was to look up all my family and invite them to join me. Getting registered and setting up my home page was not a quick 10 minute chore. I just spent about 2 hours, and still have more to do.

I think understanding how social networks operate is important because this technology is totally engrained in the students daily routines. It is so much a part of their lives. When an educator can share this technology with his/her students it allows the educator onto the student's 'turf'. Then the technology can be incorporated into the learning process.

I haven't yet been convenienced that twitter needs to be involved in the educational process. I suppose having a teacher that can tweet to his class gives him direct communication (constantly). I'm just not sure I would utilize this very frequently.

Thing # 17

The link to Delicious had to be bypassed because its not currently functioning. I just Googled 'Del.icio.us uTube' and found the 8 minute video. This is a very instructional presentation, even if there is a pixel problem so that its not very well focused. I think this will be a great tool, primarily for helping me organize my bookmarks, but also because I can share bookmarks with colleagues or students. It will have far greater utility than just adding a site to my favorites bar on the web browser. Just of interest, I also like that the Delicious home page shows what sites have been bookmarked recently and how many people are marking popular sites.

The Digg tutorial didn't work but I did take a quick look at the home page....looks similar to Delicious.

The StumbleUpon site would be wonderful for moms with young children or teachers of K-6, but its probably not the best social bookmarking site for the high school science curriculum.

I visited the 'apsu23things' site on Delicious. There are only 6 tags. I wanted to add a couple but couldn't log in. One of the bookmarks (Edutopia) had been marked a lot so I clicked on it to see what it was all about. It was an older blog which listed educational blogs that are frequently visited. I saw one titled 'dangerously irrelevant' which sounded familiar so I clicked it. This is a current blog site and the most recent one was dealing with the problem of creating learning environments that prepare kids for a digital, global world. I thought the ideas were stimulating in that, by identifying problems with current educational trends, we may also be 'shaming and blaming' administrators. Looks like this might be a good blog to follow.