As I have been playing with Second Life over the past month I have thought of many different ways to bring this into my classroom. First my thinking was using the rich culture worlds and students can role play in Egypt, Nazi Germany, Mexico and I even went swimming with sharks. So much can be done with this but, there are so many barriers that make it difficult to break through.
Second Life and Education
Podcasting in the Classroom
RSS FEEDS -THE NEW PAPERBOY
Remember when the paperboy would throw the newspaper on your driveway once in the morning and again in the afternoon? That was how we got the latest news of the day. Now we are inundated with news, news on the cell phone, news on the computer at work, news on the computer at home, news on all more than 20 Cable channels. News, News everywhere. So now we are blasted with news everywhere and it is difficult to filter what is important to us.
RSS feeds is the new sophisticated paper boy. Not only does he deliver the information to you directly but, he delivers the news the news you want and filters out the rest.
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and the news aggregator is the program you download to read the RSS feeds. Meg Ormiston describes it as "the News Aggregator is the television set and the RSS feeds are the channels you can select".
- Teacher can assign students a RSS feed to subscribe to, they are responsible for summarizing newsworthy information and can then update class. (great for current events)
- Have students subscribe to your class blog and when new and important information comes in they are sure to see it quickly.
- As a teacher if you have assigned students to create a wikki, blog or other site then as a teacher you can subscribe to their RSS feed and when they update you get the information.
- Instead of journaling students can create a blog for all journal entries. When the journals have been updated the feed goes directly to the teacher for grade.
- Educators can follow other educators and capitalize on each others work in a collborative fashion rather than reinventing the wheel each time.
- Professional Development on demand: Educators can keep up with their favorite author, blogger and podcaster. Follow them and watch/listen/read when you have a free minute or two.
"So What are you Doing?" Twitter and Education
A year ago very few people had ever heard of Twitter let alone twittering, tweets, tweetpics, etc. However more than 22 million people a day not only know what a twitter is but, they do it too! Twitter or microblogging is a form of digital communication that sends short messages to friends, family, co-workers and just about anyone else who wants to know what you are doing or thinking. The catch to this form of microblogging is to keep the characters under 140 characters. Short and simple or Keep it sweet and simple. Is this a social media Fad? Will this be here today and gone tomorrow?
- It is attractive to newer teachers who are in search of mentors and support. By following educators tweets you can keep up with trends, find resources and good ideas. (NEA)
- In a lonely classroom teachers find comfort in educational friendships as well as learning from each other what is working and what is not working.
- Inside the classroom teachers can review lesson plans and remind students what homework assignments are due.
- Teachers can tweet a provocative question and students can tweet back the answers via cell phone or computer.
- Teachers are using twitter as an innovative way to share a creative story. Each student shares a small piece of the story.
- Twitter quick and easy, not labor intensive or frightening for students who don't like to write. In otherwords... NO ESSAY!
- Together we are better
- Global or local.. your choice
- Self Awareness and Reflection
- Ideas, workshop and sounding board
- Time sensitive
- Immediate newsroom in a fast paced world
- Immediate quick professional development
- Communicate, communicate, communicate
- Your students are doing it... why not have them learn something with it!
- Who or what has your attention?
- Need an opinion ?
- Tweet about other people's blogs, tweets
- Make it useful.. give advice, show pictures (at twitpic.com), great ideas and websites
Social Bookmarking
Links are as old as the first website. We need a code/ URL/ www address whatever you want to call it to go where we need to go. As the world wide web grew and grew and multiple computers are in each household, we needed a better system of remembering the addresses to our favorite sites. Windows Explorer started with "Bookmarking" on individual computers. This created more complications such as favorite web sites were bookmarked on multiple computers at home, work and school. Then when we wanted to share some of our favorite bookmarks with others we had to get a "pen and paper" and write them down and share them that way. In an age where we "claim" we are going paperless, we seemed to be spinning our wheels.
- Social bookmarking has many advantages. First as a teacher your students can be researching a topic and all team members can bookmark sites and everyone can get to those sites with little effort from any computer.
- Teachers can use social bookmarking to organize bookmarks efficiently and effectively and then retrieve from any computer.
- www.buddymarks.com - a good bookmarking site that filters inappropriate sites so good for students K-12.
- http://delicious.com - popular bookmarking site
- Managing and sharing bookmarks: This is the collaborative portion of the tool. As educators we can share what "goodies" we have found and share with our other colleagues. Students can work on projects together and share common information and sites to help one another. Management of social bookmarks is easier and more efficient than the standard google search. As we find relevant sites we tag them with key words that help identify what the topic is and make it easier to find. This management is also a good organization format for students to learn.
- Tagging and Commenting: By tagging the sites students as well as educators are able to get to the relevant information. Social Bookmarking allows for users to make comments and provide a quick summary of what they can find on these sites. This is a great summarization tool.
- Reusability: By using social bookmarking sites a user is able to find and share bookmarks from any computer over and over again. Even when the computer crashes the bookmarks are still there because they are saved on the internet instead of the personal computer.
A brave new World-wide-web video
What a great video explaining how new technologies can influence and change our educational system.
Social Bookmarking
It is EASY! Yes, easy to bookmark using social bookmarking. I have been resistant to try this new tool. But, I jumped in and now wonder what has taken me so long? I cherish my bookmarks because when I find something great I want to make sure I can get it back. Now with the social bookmarking I can get those bookmarks from any computer (yes, work and home) as well as see what good "stuff" others have found. Now I the question is.... do I go back and bookmark everything in delicious.com or just start marking from here on out? Well if you are interested in seeing my bookmarks check out mine at:
Blogging and Education
We are living in a new time where information is readily available, communication is instantaneous and collaboration is used at a remarkable level. As educators we are bombarded with cell phones and ipods, computers and technology. Many teachers look at these items as distractions to education. I look at this as motivators and engagement in learning. Blogging is one of those "technology" sites that were frowned upon a couple of years ago in my district. The possibility of students making comments and feedback was frightening so walls were built and blogging was shut out. As educators use these tools more and more they are not at frightening, in fact they are very motivating and engaging. Luckily blogging is one of the tools that have been reopened to the district. So now it is even more important to use these tools so that the educational system can start to embrace the ideas of web 2.0 applications.
There are many great resources for blogging in education. First before starting a blog consider some of these things before jumping in.
1. Who is your audience? Are you writing to parents? students? fellow teachers? Make sure you know who your audience is and write to them. Make sure it is engaging and relevant to the needs of your reader.
2. What is your topic? Will you be talking about your class? maybe a topic a day? How about discussions? How do you want to handle that? By answering these questions ahead of time you can stay focused and organized in your blog.
3. Collaboration? Will this be open to all? Do you want the collaboration to be open to everyone or just those you allow?
There are some more blog basics to consider at: http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/howtoarticles/blog-basics
So who is blogging anyway? Teachers and students are blogging, professionals and stay at home parents are blogging. In fact the BBC spotlighted a 7 year old blogger. This 7 year old has a very large following and he discuses everything from his friends to homework. Turnbull says that "The children using weblogs are streets ahead of their peers in IT, and they have made greater advances in literacy than we would normally expect for their age group." (turnbull, 2004)
Educational Blogging - How to make it effective?
Virtual Field Trip- ANY WHERE!
I love google earth but, at my district I can't get it because it is a server hog. So I have been looking at some other sites that are similar to google earth. I FOUND IT! I FOUND THE PERFECT ONE! 360cities.com allows you to travel to some of the most amazing places on earth and get an up close and personal view. You can see china, the pyramids, as well as get inside of a jet fighter plane.
Paper Less Teaching???
Now this is a idea that I think we need to look further into. Paperless Teaching, can we do it?
MISSION STATEMENT
Cool new tool for 7/8/9
Take a bite out of your twitter page.. and paste it into your blog. A mosaic of all of your followers.