Week 9 #23 Sum it Up

I, like many others, enjoyed the Fair(y) Use Tale. Very clever. That must have taken a lot of time to find just the right words to use in all those movies. That's why the team of creators (in the final credits).
This has been one of my most challenging and lengthy one credit courses. Balancing time to work on the class undisturbed with personal and professional duties was a little tricky. Each #thing took me hours to play and explore. I'd say there was easily twice as many hours involved as the expectation of 36. Even 72 hours is a conservative estimate. I loved every minute of it and appreciated the self paced online activities. I plan to refer back to this blogspot frequently until I am truly comfortable branching out on my own.
I appreciated the suggested reading material (Ch 4 and 5 were good too) and want to keep this book in my professional collection.
Reading others' blogs was one of the best activities. I appreciated the blog comment opportunities as well. I noticed there were a lot more blogs here in the final days of the class. Tee Hee. Thanks, Ann, for all your comments and e-mails.
I don't know that I would change a thing with the exception of updating some of those links which are dated (Week 9 #21)and unavailable.

Chapter 9 reflection

This chapter reminds us everything tech related is ever changing and changing quickly. Already, several of the links we have looked at over the weeks were unavailable or I was redirected to a new site. With that, we need to design our teaching to be able to adapt to the technology advancements and according to Prensky (2001), educators should learn to communicate in the 'language' of digital natives.
It was interesting and not so far in the future to consider web-based educational software will become a type of electronic personal education assistant. Text books could be on wikis, the tool would track a student's progress or lack there of and make or respond to comments and suggestions quickly. School educators could advise and keep track of student's work through educational blogs. It could be quite powerful to be able to choose the software best suited for each student's learning style. The polls and surveys by techlearning.com suggested people believe a school's physical location would be less important. That is true in other aspects of work. As an example, I think of the many realtors who continue to collaborate using web tools with their employers from great distances. (HGTV-House Hunter fan)Personally, I still need the human to human (3-D) contact with students so there will have to be a good balance between physical and electronic learning.

I agree with Jeff Utecht when he says today's kids are probably wired differently because of what they have grown up with. Just yesterday, a first grade girl told me she was getting a laptop and ipod for her birthday. Just, a few years ago, someone this young wouldn't even know what those were. If we want to reach her and her generation we need to teach using web 2.0 tools. You can bet that is where she will be as she grows and understands her computer.
'Learning from Games' by David Warlick provided 5 components of video game activities which made these games so intriguing. This helped explain clearly to me why games, IM, myspace and other social networking sites are so popular. Our continiuing staff development should include ways to tap into the video game mentality and use this for instruction.
Finally, I appreciated the online links to educational conferences about web 2.0. I like to read what others have said and where they feel we are headed.

Chapter 7 reflection

As more and more web 2.0 tools develop, school districts will need to be more diligent about monitoring online usage on and off school campus of district computers. Control is a controversial item within schools. When used appropriately, many sights currently blocked by our district could serve educational purposes. I am thinking of Youtube as this is a concern for some staff. It is such a balance act. Filter/not filter. Block/not block. When in doubt, error on the side of caution. I understand that. I liked some of the alternative suggestions at the end of the chapter for school districts such as putting tools on the intranet.
The copyright guidelines by Davidson (2005)were important to remember. This should be clear to all staff during technology staff development training. I learned about Creative Commons using Flickr. Very good. I like their saying, 'share, reuse, remix'.
I read another's blog where they said the acceptable use policy is read (we hope), signed, and filed at their school. DONE That happens at our building too. During open house or the first of the year technology night, this might be refreshed with parents. I feel most of our teachers are still in the infantile stages of using web tools and we also may need a review of those four steps (Warlick 2006b) to help understand the importance of the acceptable use policy.
Parents should be a key player in what their children do online. We can help enforce this again at a first of the year technology meeting by providing parents with guides and online sites which give ideas of how to help them with their children use the web appropriately. The news continues to share stories about cyber bullying. Such a terrible thing to have so many people wishing to harm others in such a cowardly and somewhat anonymous manner.

Week 9 #22 E books and audio books

Free ebooks! I am Scotch and quite cheap so like how that sounds. I was in project Gutenberg and most things required a password. Needless to say, I didn't sign up. I'd like to read some of the Women's Writer collection. Also, the user friendly for kids is important to me. The children's books I found were older stories (some might say classics) but not totally appealing to young children. Librivox was quick and easy. Another e book site was 'Well Told Tales'.
Nothing really caught my attention. Our district subscribes to Tumblebooks and the colorful visuals with simple animation make this site a winner. Many students access site from home. I'll continue to explore some of the other sites for e books which may appeal more to young students.
On another note, how do I move the title in my header off the birds and into the middle. I tried to adjust this in the layout and must be missing something.

Teacher tube

Today we had SBA testing and after some students were finished, they came to the libray. I let them on the computers for some online activities. One asked if they could look at youtube. I said it is blocked but we could look at teachertube. I had a lot of students watching as I navigated. Though the student decided not to go there, I know there was interest. I also shared the three links I put on our catalog home page with both teachers and staff today. The teachers were more excited than the students but all seemed curious and willing to explore more. Bitty steps.

Week 9 #21 Podcasts

This was a long exploratory evening. I love to podcast and have done this with classes already. I have a teacher who loves to incorporate technology and so I collaborate with her frequently. We've been doing podcasts using garage band making the final product accessible within the district only. The parents come in for a presentation and are quite pleased. With new knowledge, we could make this web based for those parents interested in sharing their child's work with the grandparents down south.
My search was quite long because when going to the yahoo podcast tutorial, I had no success. It didn't show. The same for podcast.net. Podcast alley is sure to be blocked by the district. Highly inappropriate popular podcasts on the home page. Teacher Created materials were selling their products on their podcasts. Educational Podcast Network included some very lengthy material and I couldn't sit for the entire podcast. I couldn't see where to listen to podcasts on Techsavy girls. I listened to some library podcasts explaining how their library works. I looked at podcast.com. I finally settled on some book review podcasts which I enjoyed. Children's book radio included many book reviews for children. Easy to find and listen to. Not too long. Another site I had fun with included 'One Minute Danish' podcast lessons. I speak the language and enjoyed hearing a native speaker.
I would use the children's book review site. I'd find books I was reading to children and share the podcast. This could launch the class into creating their own book review podcast. I like adding pictures to the podcast so I don't have to look at the 'swirly twirlies' for 5 minutes.
I want to go back to the language site because Danish was not the only language taught via podcast.net. This would be nice to share with our ESL/ELL teacher. She and I have been talking about some of great things I have seen to date. She is motivated to learn more about the web 2.0 tools.

Week 9 #20

This lesson was a lot of fun. Thank goodness teachertube is not blocked in our district. I enjoyed looking at various videos. It was also fairly easy to embed this video. I chose it because it was quick and fun and related to the library media center. I liked the simplicity of teachertube. I was able to search for topics of interest quickly. Most videos had some sort of educational value. On our older computers at school, it may be too time consuming to download those videos which are about 8 minutes long. It is worth a try. I did create links to several videos which might be helpful for topics being studied currently at our school. I linked these to my library catalog site. Setting up tutorials and uploading them to teachertube might be a nice feature. I might use teachertube as a weekly transitional piece showing different videos which pertain to different grade levels. EX: I might have the states and capital cartoon ready to view when fourth graders come in. It was great to see celebrity videos (Hannah Montana's bones). Kids love to see the stars in an educational setting. Mrs. Burk was really clever with her different raps. I noticed a lot of the same characters in various videos. How did 'Be Kind to your Eraser' get the mouth movement embedded in the rest of the video. Clever

Week 8 #19.1

WHCasejuly4
Originally uploaded by cmak2009

Found in the Digital Archives. The photographer is my great Grandfather, William H. Case.

Week 8 #19.1 Alaska's Digital Pipeline

Everytime I explore, I find something new and interesting. I've added the SLED toolbar. Love that. The flash movie helped to explain enhancements though I would have liked sound. My new folder is quickly filling of articles for me to read. I have a journal alert set up. I haven't done that before and after reading other blogs, I don't know how long I'll keep it if the e-mails are many.
Looking through the school interfaces, each progressive level included more search opportunities. There was plenty for each grade level to use. I have introduced some of the search sites off the elementary school interface already but kids don't naturally use these for searches yet. I am thinking it still looks a little wordy to many students. I have this site on my catalog homepage for easy access but may need to fine tune and continue to show this.
The Consumer Health Database was new to me. I enjoyed exploring and will use it on a personal level as well as share it with teachers. It could enhance many Science lessons.
I also realized, the more I play the more comfortable I feel exploring SLED. I giggle at the auto repair because that is so not me. My children would have better luck with this site.
I love looking at old Alaskan pictures. Particularly, because my great grandfather was instrumental in documenting Southeast Alaska history. Below is a one of many pictures in the digital image collection. This one is from the fourth of July. I'll play so I can have this viewed right on the blog.

http://vilda.alaska.edu/u?/cdmg21,7124

Chapter 2 Reflection

There are some astounding statistics regarding technology use in this chapter. More students use internet than watch t.v. Students use and are used to playing video games, text messaging, instant messaging, searching internet sites, downloading music, working on homework and more. Digital natives describe today's young people while we teachers and parents were described as digital immigrants. More American households have internet access than not. Half the young people on Youtube are under the age of twenty. The statistics continue. Because of this easy access to technology, young people think, work, and play differently than we do. I thought it interesting the chapter said 'myspace' had replaced the mall as an afterschool past time for teens. That seems the situation at my house with my teens. The chapter also mentioned there is technology developed for children as young as nine months. Another study showed increased academic progress and attendance in schools offering one on one computing skills.
There were some good suggestions for educators and technology use. We need to accept technology use is growing and incorporate it more into our teaching practices. It should not be an 'extra' learning experience. Students should have access to technology and should be able to use a multitude of tools for presentations. Since the technology world is changing, our lessons should help students adapt to new situations and continue learning. The media center and the media specialist should be good resources for assisting with incorporating technology into lessons. This class is a good step toward increasing my comfort in that role.
As I sit and blog, my daughter is on myspace, one son is playing an online game and another son finished a DVD. My husband gets most of his news online. We are pretty plugged in but I know there is more to learn.

Chapter 1 Reflection

Blink and things change. Technology is ever shaping how world leaders and world companies do business. We've gone from working less in isolation or local to global collaboration using technology. With the cost of doing business much cheaper abroad, many U.S. companies are also moving out of the country. Asian countries are now quite competitive in the technology market and in fact have surpassed the United States in areas.
There are many financial benefits to developing the new technology. Online shopping has exploded with companies like Amazon. Online blogs, wikis, e-mail, and instant messaging allow people to collaborate from great distances quickly and in relative private. Many companies use online tutorials for their staff. Some companies track customer purchases, customer satisfaction as well as job candidates.
Techonology in education is similar. It is constantly changing and with technology so 'second nature' to our students, we need to recognize this and adjust the way we teach. The United States sees the need to improve the technology taught and used in education. With Web 2.0, we have a new collection of web-based tools to assist in educating both the young and old. Much of it is free and quite easy to access with the use of a computer and internet. Many of the recent studies say using 21st century tools in the classroom will help close the gap between how students learn in their everyday world (video games, cell phone texts, personal computer use, etc) and how they learn in the classroom. To be literate today, students must not only be able to read, write, and think but also they must be able to process information, navigate existing technology, and collaborate and communicate what they have learned using technology.
I guess Chapter 1 really talks about keeping up with the times. Technology is changing so rapidly, and in order to remain productive in today's job market we need to learn those 21st Century skills. It is pretty scary to think about how much I don't know. I read this chapter early on and didn't even understand some of the tech terms. Thanks to our class, I am taking bitty steps towards being a more productive 21st Century learner myself. My own mother has generally been ahead of me in this area. Kind of embarrassing but true. She has had the time to play around with many tech. tools whereas I couldn't find the time. Thanks for allowing me time to play.

Week 8 #19 Library thing

I enjoyed adding books to my account. Not all are the books are mine but most belong to people in our house. Web 2.0 is on loan and will be deleted soon. This catalog system was very quick and easy. I could not find one book (Moon Music)when searching so added the book manually. That took very little time. Several books are popular with other accounts and several had great reviews. I enjoyed reading some of the conversations and posts from readers. The Red Tent had a lot of positive comments. Most readers had similar reactions to the books I read. I searched by author, ISBN, and title for these books in order to catalog. It was great because it was so easy.
I also liked looking at similar books and took some recommendations from other accounts. My personal wish list increased. ;)
This would be nice for my personal collection. I am frequently asked about some of my favorite titles. With this, I can share my library with my friends. At work, teachers might like to have their classroom collection web-based organized. I am wondering how the public libraries use Library Thing. I looked at some of the sites but didn't quite find the answer.