Summarization:
This chapter reiterated points from the previous 9 chapters and one of the main points with all the technology tools was the switch from a very independant education to cooperating and collaborating with others in your education. Richardson listed the switches that would have to take place like not "owning" your curriculum, but sharing. Learning at any time of the day, any time of the year rather than during school hours and knowing where to find information were two of the other shifts that really struck a chord with me.
Application:
Like anything in education, I think this could be a hard change for those that are used to "their stuff". I'm excited to share more and not just with someone in my school or my district, but potentially worldwide. Increasingly students have shown up in my room before school in the morning to inform me about an earthquake that happened or volcanic eruption or to tell me about a cool video of some scientific thing that we have learned about during the year. The students are finding out on the Web on their own time about these different things. However, I still think their is value in having face to face contact with students to learn how to work with each other and to get guidance about what is truthful/accurate and what is not. One thing I've gone away from in my teaching is the memorization, especially of numbers (how many miles to the sun, exactly how much is an AU, etc) due to the ease of looking these up. My philosophy is that it is way more important to understand how and why things work the way they do in science. I also really liked switch #10 "Contribution, not Completion". How many times have we caught or suspected kids of cheating as they just needed to complete the assignment. Isn't our ultimate goal always to have kids contribute, but sometimes find it had for each kid to contribute in their own unique way? Maybe using more of these tools would help cut down on cheating as the whole world (or at least your class) could see that they had the same thing as someone else in your class.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Chapter 9: Social Networks
Summarization: This chapter dealt with Social Networks like Facebook and Ning. Facebook is more a social community and I belong to this so didn't learn a ton of new stuff about it. I did play around with the "create a group" feature a little to see if I'd want to use that in the classroom. The book also suggested to look into "Courses" on Facebook. From the posts I saw it looks like it didn't work very well and lots of people had issues, so I don't think I'd use it.
Ning is more a place for people for shared interests. There is a charge for Ning, so I didn't sign up for an account as I'd never use this with middle schoolers. The other thing I found interesting in this chapter was on page 145 when talking about kids misusing the computer. I found the quote, "when kids cross behavioral lines at school, we don't shut them down, we address the issue and try to learn from the experience." very interesting. This is so true with technology that teachers, administrators, and districts shut down or block something, yet we accept all kids. We need to treat technology not as something to be feared, but something to be taught how to use repsonsibly and respectfully. We owe it to students to teach them what they will need to deal with in their life and technology is a big part of this!
Application: I might use Facebook as most students are familiar and have accounts. When I tried creating a group I was only able to invite current friends, and really don't want to friend my students. I guess I'm wondering if there is a way around this? This would probably be the easiest place to post pictures of students in class so they would actually go and look at them. I would be more likely to check this and read posts and comments.
Ning is more a place for people for shared interests. There is a charge for Ning, so I didn't sign up for an account as I'd never use this with middle schoolers. The other thing I found interesting in this chapter was on page 145 when talking about kids misusing the computer. I found the quote, "when kids cross behavioral lines at school, we don't shut them down, we address the issue and try to learn from the experience." very interesting. This is so true with technology that teachers, administrators, and districts shut down or block something, yet we accept all kids. We need to treat technology not as something to be feared, but something to be taught how to use repsonsibly and respectfully. We owe it to students to teach them what they will need to deal with in their life and technology is a big part of this!
Application: I might use Facebook as most students are familiar and have accounts. When I tried creating a group I was only able to invite current friends, and really don't want to friend my students. I guess I'm wondering if there is a way around this? This would probably be the easiest place to post pictures of students in class so they would actually go and look at them. I would be more likely to check this and read posts and comments.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Chapter 8: Podcasting, Video and Screencasting, and Live Streaming
Summarization of learning:
Chapter 8 dealt with making your own radio shows, broadcasts, movie clips, and more. I learned that there are a bunch of free ones on iTunes, but had a little trouble when trying to actually access them. But I was able to view several other referenced in the book like "Parents" and found another similar one called "Lego Buddies" that was pretty cute with a good message.
On page 117 the book gave ideas for use in the classroom - the Spanish teacher at my school used Audacity last week to have students record lyrics to a song in Spanish. Last October I went to the National Science Teacher's Convention and a teacher presented the idea of instead of having student answer lab questions, they would record their voices to go along with pictures that represented what they did in the lab. It incorporated technology and made sure each student was participation in the lab. Since I don't own an iPhone, I also learned what the term "Jail-breaking" meant!
Application:
I've thought about having students do the lab write up on our Rock Cycle (melting crayons) lab by recording what they have learned since last year and I guess this would be the one student use idea from this chapter. I would also like to work on recording some directions for if I'm gone that a sub could play for students, as it's hard to leave science plans sometimes. I honestly am not sure about this in my science classroom, but maybe something to explore with Advisory students. Maybe with our Future Cities Unit or with our service learning project H2O for Life?
Chapter 8 dealt with making your own radio shows, broadcasts, movie clips, and more. I learned that there are a bunch of free ones on iTunes, but had a little trouble when trying to actually access them. But I was able to view several other referenced in the book like "Parents" and found another similar one called "Lego Buddies" that was pretty cute with a good message.
On page 117 the book gave ideas for use in the classroom - the Spanish teacher at my school used Audacity last week to have students record lyrics to a song in Spanish. Last October I went to the National Science Teacher's Convention and a teacher presented the idea of instead of having student answer lab questions, they would record their voices to go along with pictures that represented what they did in the lab. It incorporated technology and made sure each student was participation in the lab. Since I don't own an iPhone, I also learned what the term "Jail-breaking" meant!
Application:
I've thought about having students do the lab write up on our Rock Cycle (melting crayons) lab by recording what they have learned since last year and I guess this would be the one student use idea from this chapter. I would also like to work on recording some directions for if I'm gone that a sub could play for students, as it's hard to leave science plans sometimes. I honestly am not sure about this in my science classroom, but maybe something to explore with Advisory students. Maybe with our Future Cities Unit or with our service learning project H2O for Life?
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Chapter 7: Fun With Flickr
Based on your reading and analysis of the selection, record
Four of the most critical things that you learned from the reading:
1. On p. 102 Richardson talks about sharing the classroom with student and parents (and even the whole community or world). Often time I take pictures of students in the classroom, but they don't even see it. This could be a tool to share with students and parents and possibly as an end of the year slideshow type of thing. Especially for 8th graders we could compile pictures from 6-8th grade for an end of middle school slideshow.
2. One thing I may have issues with is constantly uploading pictures so that my account isn't deleted because I haven't uploaded for 90 days. I think this will especially hard in the summer, so may have to upload something random just to keep it active.
3. The annotation tool could be very important in a science class. I like that I could annotate something myself. It's always a pain when students miss a lab. Now I could take pictures and annotate them so students would have an idea of what they missed. Or I could post a picture of it for students to practice annotating in preparation for a test (human body parts come to mind).
4. The next thing I could interesting is the Creative Commons part of FIickr. I'm always searching for pictures of volcanoes, clouds, plants, ecosystems, etc to illustrate what students can't see around MN. This might be a great source of images that I wouldn't have to worry about copyright issues for and students could use them when putting together a project.
Three connections that you made between your teaching and the reading:
1. Model Making p. 104 - another colleague brought an ecology model/lab to our Professional Learning Community this year as she struggled with having the kids understand how to set up the parts in 3-D based on a paper map and understanding it. I wonder if having the kids look at the Jane Goodall example with annotations first would help them to understand? Or maybe setting up the Ecology model, taking a picture, putting it on Flickr with annotations and then having students look at it before the lab day would maybe help some of the confusion. I can't wait to show this to my colleague and brainstorm with her.
2. I was excited about having the fetal pig dissection on Flickr, but disappointed when I went to look. There are a couple of good images, which could be used on a particular day to illustrate what the kids should see. But I was hoping for an actual video that could be used with the whole class of just the kids that missed a particular part.
3. I was also very excited about clouds - that is coming up in a week or two. I think I'll put Flickr up while kids are doing a matching game of cloud types. Students who finish early can watch the cloud pictures. I could also do this on the day of the "Cloud in a Bottle" lab before to review cloud types and how they are made and again after to fill time for those done early.
Two connections to other reading (research) or learning you have had related to the topic of the
reading:
1. This site ( http://blog.simplek12.com/social-media/how-to-use-flickr-in-your-classroom/ ) gave some of the same ideas in the chapter, but also the idea of posting an image and having students try to interpret it. I like the idea of doing some easier ones to start with and then maybe putting a picture of the Ecology Model on for students to interpret to see if it helps their understanding. For Current Events, you can click on the map and see what is going on in the world.
2. Jake's site ( http://www.jakesonline.org/flickrsites.htm ) could be a really useful place to go for not only ideas, but for resources, tools, learning applications, specialty sites, etc. It helped give me ideas of what I could do with Flickr.
One question you have connected to your practice and your continued inquiry:
1. I wonder about posting our kids pictures on Flickr. Am I going to get in trouble for posting pictures of kids on the internet if I don't put names or anything identifying them?
Four of the most critical things that you learned from the reading:
1. On p. 102 Richardson talks about sharing the classroom with student and parents (and even the whole community or world). Often time I take pictures of students in the classroom, but they don't even see it. This could be a tool to share with students and parents and possibly as an end of the year slideshow type of thing. Especially for 8th graders we could compile pictures from 6-8th grade for an end of middle school slideshow.
2. One thing I may have issues with is constantly uploading pictures so that my account isn't deleted because I haven't uploaded for 90 days. I think this will especially hard in the summer, so may have to upload something random just to keep it active.
3. The annotation tool could be very important in a science class. I like that I could annotate something myself. It's always a pain when students miss a lab. Now I could take pictures and annotate them so students would have an idea of what they missed. Or I could post a picture of it for students to practice annotating in preparation for a test (human body parts come to mind).
4. The next thing I could interesting is the Creative Commons part of FIickr. I'm always searching for pictures of volcanoes, clouds, plants, ecosystems, etc to illustrate what students can't see around MN. This might be a great source of images that I wouldn't have to worry about copyright issues for and students could use them when putting together a project.
Three connections that you made between your teaching and the reading:
1. Model Making p. 104 - another colleague brought an ecology model/lab to our Professional Learning Community this year as she struggled with having the kids understand how to set up the parts in 3-D based on a paper map and understanding it. I wonder if having the kids look at the Jane Goodall example with annotations first would help them to understand? Or maybe setting up the Ecology model, taking a picture, putting it on Flickr with annotations and then having students look at it before the lab day would maybe help some of the confusion. I can't wait to show this to my colleague and brainstorm with her.
2. I was excited about having the fetal pig dissection on Flickr, but disappointed when I went to look. There are a couple of good images, which could be used on a particular day to illustrate what the kids should see. But I was hoping for an actual video that could be used with the whole class of just the kids that missed a particular part.
3. I was also very excited about clouds - that is coming up in a week or two. I think I'll put Flickr up while kids are doing a matching game of cloud types. Students who finish early can watch the cloud pictures. I could also do this on the day of the "Cloud in a Bottle" lab before to review cloud types and how they are made and again after to fill time for those done early.
Two connections to other reading (research) or learning you have had related to the topic of the
reading:
1. This site ( http://blog.simplek12.com/social-media/how-to-use-flickr-in-your-classroom/ ) gave some of the same ideas in the chapter, but also the idea of posting an image and having students try to interpret it. I like the idea of doing some easier ones to start with and then maybe putting a picture of the Ecology Model on for students to interpret to see if it helps their understanding. For Current Events, you can click on the map and see what is going on in the world.
2. Jake's site ( http://www.jakesonline.org/flickrsites.htm ) could be a really useful place to go for not only ideas, but for resources, tools, learning applications, specialty sites, etc. It helped give me ideas of what I could do with Flickr.
One question you have connected to your practice and your continued inquiry:
1. I wonder about posting our kids pictures on Flickr. Am I going to get in trouble for posting pictures of kids on the internet if I don't put names or anything identifying them?
Chapter 6: The Social Web
This chapter focused on Twitter and Delicious. I am familiar with both as I have signed up for our school Twitter account and already had a Delicious account (could use this more, though). The main thing I learned from reading this is the importance of tagging in my Delicious account. On p. 85 Richardson states, "we get back just as much if not more" from the web. This struck a chord as I'm often looking for labs or lessons, but don't put my own stuff out there very much. I guess I should be willing to give if I'm willing to take! I never tagged any of my Delicious sites because I didn't understand how that could be important and help others.
Application for the classroom:
I have used Delicious with my Life Science class as they needed to access a couple different websites I had bookmarked for a project. Our tech people can set the computers to come up with one website automatically when kids log in, but not several. So I put the pages on my Delicious account and set that to pop up. Kids could then just click on the sites they needed. I'm seriously thinking of putting all my bookmarked paged on Delicious and linking my it to my school webpage as our server is slow and unreliable. However, that has been one of the "when I have time" projects!
I'm also intrigued for with the idea of having kids use cell phones for formative assesment (p. 89) in class. Again, would have to look at logistics, like our no cell phone policy. But it would save the district from having to buy devices if we could just have kids use cell phones!
Personally, I'm interested in LibraryThing.Com or Shelfari to get ideas on books that I may be interested in when I actually have time to read again for fun.
A personal goal is to use our Team's Twitter account more to keep kids and parents updated about school!
Application for the classroom:
I have used Delicious with my Life Science class as they needed to access a couple different websites I had bookmarked for a project. Our tech people can set the computers to come up with one website automatically when kids log in, but not several. So I put the pages on my Delicious account and set that to pop up. Kids could then just click on the sites they needed. I'm seriously thinking of putting all my bookmarked paged on Delicious and linking my it to my school webpage as our server is slow and unreliable. However, that has been one of the "when I have time" projects!
I'm also intrigued for with the idea of having kids use cell phones for formative assesment (p. 89) in class. Again, would have to look at logistics, like our no cell phone policy. But it would save the district from having to buy devices if we could just have kids use cell phones!
Personally, I'm interested in LibraryThing.Com or Shelfari to get ideas on books that I may be interested in when I actually have time to read again for fun.
A personal goal is to use our Team's Twitter account more to keep kids and parents updated about school!
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Chapter 5: RSS The New Killer App for Educators
Summarization:
RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication which will send you updates on blogs that you follow. It will save the time of searching through all the blogs you like to see if there is new info or posts. This way, all updates are sent to one place and you just have to check there for the day.
Application:
I see myself using this for science info. I have a couple sites that send updates to my e-mail already - Spaceweather.com which updates about comets, eclipses, and other events you may want to watch. It's very handy that when something does happen, it notifies me as I often forget to check. I would like to keep up more on other scientific discoveries like the Big Band experiment at CERN (and others) so I don't have to spend the time before I do that unit each year searching out the latest updates.
RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication which will send you updates on blogs that you follow. It will save the time of searching through all the blogs you like to see if there is new info or posts. This way, all updates are sent to one place and you just have to check there for the day.
Application:
I see myself using this for science info. I have a couple sites that send updates to my e-mail already - Spaceweather.com which updates about comets, eclipses, and other events you may want to watch. It's very handy that when something does happen, it notifies me as I often forget to check. I would like to keep up more on other scientific discoveries like the Big Band experiment at CERN (and others) so I don't have to spend the time before I do that unit each year searching out the latest updates.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Chapter 4: Wikis: Easy Collaboration for All
Summary of chapter:
This chapter explained what a wiki was and how it can be used. I found p. 57 bottom paragraph really interesting where it talks about how everyone can edit a wiki with, "no expectation that their contributions will be acknowledged..." I was just having a conversation with a teacher in my building about how everyone used to keep all their lessons, labs, etc to themselves. She said the attitude was "I might be able to publish this someday and make some money." This is a huge shift for people that started teaching that way to share all their resources.
The other part of the chapter I found useful was about Wikipedia. Often in the past I have really harped on, "No Wikipedia". However, I use it a ton to look up facts (how many miles to the sun, etc) that I don't have stuck in my brain, but always get asked. I found it freeing to say that it's OK to use, if you explain to kids the downfalls and to be critically thinking about what they read on there.
Use in classroom:
Two things really struck a chord in this chapter, Wikipedia and classroom textbooks.
I think I will allow my kids to use Wikipedia more if my goal is not research strategy, just finding the science info. There are some projects I do that have info that is hard to find anywhere else!
Textbooks: I have a class set for 8th graders and use it about 5 times a year (and usually for a diagram that could easily be found on the web). I love the idea of putting up a "Mrs. Kramer's Textbook of Earth Science" and having kids edit what they need to know each year. Putting in my powerpoints and other info so that kids that are gone or just don't get it have a place to go to. I think this may take years to do, but would rather do this and have kids have a laptop (or something) rather than spending $$ on textbooks.
I found this site http://www.ischool.org/studentpages/web_design_07/Dianna/science_fun.htm that I think is a good starting point for me on how to arrange a wiki for my class. I could have all the units on the side that we cover and run the same wiki for both my 7th and 8th grade classes.
This chapter explained what a wiki was and how it can be used. I found p. 57 bottom paragraph really interesting where it talks about how everyone can edit a wiki with, "no expectation that their contributions will be acknowledged..." I was just having a conversation with a teacher in my building about how everyone used to keep all their lessons, labs, etc to themselves. She said the attitude was "I might be able to publish this someday and make some money." This is a huge shift for people that started teaching that way to share all their resources.
The other part of the chapter I found useful was about Wikipedia. Often in the past I have really harped on, "No Wikipedia". However, I use it a ton to look up facts (how many miles to the sun, etc) that I don't have stuck in my brain, but always get asked. I found it freeing to say that it's OK to use, if you explain to kids the downfalls and to be critically thinking about what they read on there.
Use in classroom:
Two things really struck a chord in this chapter, Wikipedia and classroom textbooks.
I think I will allow my kids to use Wikipedia more if my goal is not research strategy, just finding the science info. There are some projects I do that have info that is hard to find anywhere else!
Textbooks: I have a class set for 8th graders and use it about 5 times a year (and usually for a diagram that could easily be found on the web). I love the idea of putting up a "Mrs. Kramer's Textbook of Earth Science" and having kids edit what they need to know each year. Putting in my powerpoints and other info so that kids that are gone or just don't get it have a place to go to. I think this may take years to do, but would rather do this and have kids have a laptop (or something) rather than spending $$ on textbooks.
I found this site http://www.ischool.org/studentpages/web_design_07/Dianna/science_fun.htm that I think is a good starting point for me on how to arrange a wiki for my class. I could have all the units on the side that we cover and run the same wiki for both my 7th and 8th grade classes.
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