2nd Life/Facebook

I checked into 2nd life and was impressed with it. I am not aware of this idea of a virtual world that you can manipulate and contribute to. I thought it was pretty cool. In fact, I might spend the rest of my kid's naptime this afternoon working on making my own world more complete. This can be used in the class room to simulate the real world and help students see what it's really like to live on your own. They have to maintain their currency so that they can buy land and build a home to live in. Now there are plenty of other educational ideas floating around in this idea however, it's probably better suited for a college audience because there is an age limit of 18 on second life. There is a teen version however, which I haven't looked into yet.

I found a few ideas of the use of facebook in education. You can find others in your classes, share notes with them, start a forum discussion, do a video chat and more. You can also keep track of assignments, upload your own notes and manage your course activities. I was surprised quite frankly to find any ideas on how to make facebook more useful at all considering that I find facebook to be a waste of valuable time.

Also, an educational store, institution, or professor can create a facebook page and post valuable information they have. Friends can easily comment and share with one another. This seems to be a pretty smart idea because only those who are invited (as friends) can access the information and make comments. Therefore, this is a little bit better controlled than a blog.

I like the idea of having a protected page on the internet like facebook, although I would use other routes to protect my information with students than facebook. For one, facebook has a reputation/understanding that it is a social networking site and as a teacher I would not consider it professional to give students a facebook page to visit and participate in. Instead, I would create a private blog or a private wiki and request they use that route to view information I have for them.

Google Earth

Hi Alison,
I'm sorry I'm a day late. I checked out google earth on my computer and tired a few different locations out. Now I've never used google earth before and it seemed cool but I wasn't sure where to go with it. I googled kmz files and found all these cool files from google earth that give you views of all sorts of fantastic stuff. I looked at the following kmz files:

1. golden gate bridge
2. statue of liberty
3. large V of geese
4. cairo pyramids
5. herbert volcano

I choose the first two because they are places that I have never been and would like to see some day. The large V of geese was great because I talk about that in my classroom how birds fly in a V formation to reduce wind resistance and therefore save energy. The cairo pyramids I took a look at and appreciated through the computer because although I would love to see them I don't like to travel enough to go to Egypt in order to make that happen. And the herbert volcano was just an impressive site. I saw some beautiful patterns of nature with the aerial views that google provides. I just love nature.

I found a couple other interesting leads which I took a look at. Google sightseeing (http://googlesightseeing.com) was a cool sight because each new day google takes you on a sightseeing tour of different places around the world. Another website worth mentioning was http://www.googleearthcoolplaces.com and this is a site where users upload a cool place they found through google earth. The website organizes and keeps track of all of them.

I checked into lesson plans for using google earth in the classroom. The only idea that I have (and still have) is to use google earth to show students poverish conditions in a 3rd world country, where sanitation is very poor and water is contaminated leading to all sorts of diseases. I have pictures of this for my classroom but to pull it up on google earth would have a greater impact.

I found a couple of good sites for google earth use in the classroom. I used scoopler, a real time search engine, which I am really liking :)

http://clifmims.com/blog/archives/2610 a list of 23 different ways to use google earth in the classroom

http://olliebray.typepad.com/olliebraycom/2009/06/great-video-of-ideas-for-using-google-earth-in-the-classroom.html a blog by a guy named ollie bray who posts a video of himself explaining what he does with google earth in the classroom.

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/ this has become a favorite of mine. Mr. Byrne is nothing short of a genius in his compilation of ideas for using technology, not the least of which is google earth.

Gapminder

I checked out gapminder today and took a close look at it. I changed the graphs around several times and took the time to interpret what I was seeing. There would be good use for this site in a science classroom because students always need more practice reading graphs. Now it would be very useful to input information into gapminder and see the results. My students would be interested in graph information they have obtained in the classroom. I have an activity where we graph the success of a population and that would work out nicely in gapminder. I checked out the requirements for adding information to gapminder and it doesn't look too bad. I'll try it once I get back to class :)
The graphs on gapminder are pretty complex to interpret which is why using this would be good practice for my students. They need as much exposure as possible to graph interpretation.

YouTube in the classroom

I had an idea to check a real time search engine for good videos to use in the classroom from youtube. I checked this out on scoopler.com and came up with this website: http://www.classroom20.com/profiles/blog/show?id=649749%3ABlogPost%3A177332&page=2#comment-649749_Comment_351425 which is a list of the top 100 videos on youtube to use in your classroom. It's awesome. You've got to check this out!

Links of interest I found

http://www.obsurvey.com/ (Another survey creator)
http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/vocab/ppt-vocab.html (templates for several games on powerpoint, such as bingo, wheel of fortune, 25,000 pyramid, jeopardy, who wants to be a millionaire)

Motionbox

Hi Alison,
I looked into Motionbox because I've been looking for a good video editor for awhile. I liked this one although I had a few problems that are mostly related to a poor internet connection. I'm visiting my parents in Utah right now and their internet connection is touch and go with my laptop. I was able to upload a video and edit the video with ease but getting the video to play back to me was a challenge. I had a difficult time finding the buttons I needed and once I did the video played back REALLY slow but that's an internet issue. I think this would be a good tool for science projects because students love to make videos for presentations and this allows them to edit the extra/time consuming stuff out of it. Using this site is going to help them create concise and efficient presentations. I like this! Here is the video I created. It's nothing intriguing really. I took a 3 min video and cut it down to 18 seconds. I would like to do more with it, such as combining different video clips but with my internet limitations it just can't happen right now. But I'll keep it in mind for the future. Once I get done with this vacation I plan to put together video clips and post them on my blog. I'll try out motionbox for that and see how it goes with a high speed connection.

Online Testing

Take our online test
Here is the link to the online test I created using classmarker. When I was teaching middle school the life science department collaborated on every unit. I loved that. We worked together to write tests, assignments, etc. This would have saved us a bunch of time and effort however we would have had some difficulty executing the use of this online test. Having a student go home and take the test seems too loose. They could easily cheat. But, there are only two computer labs available to us so we would have to stack our classes over the course of a week and with that kind of delay in time the last classes to have taken the test would be aware of what was on the test because they would have talked to their friends.

Alison, have you ever used an online test? Do you have ideas on how to make this option work? It seems that this would be really quick and useful if you had enough computers in your classroom to have the kids take the test in one class period. Grading would be a cinch! But without that you've got problems.

Survey Monkey

Hey Alison,
Ok I created a simple survey on Survey Monkey. I ran into several internet connection problems but no site problems. I can see the value of this tool for my classroom when I am looking for feedback on a unit, an activity or the school year. This could easily be added to the classroom blog to provide anonymous feedback.
Here is the link for the survey:

Click Here to take survey

Wikispaces

Hi Alison,

I checked out wikispaces and created a wiki on this site. I have made wikis before, just a couple really, and used zoho. I think zoho is easy to use and straightforward unfortunately they charge you to have more than two wikis...which I know I've already mentioned...but I still think that's dumb.

Anyway, wikispaces is pretty good. I tried another wiki site out called tiddlywiki.com and thought I would find my way around that but it was confusing and frustrating to use and I gave up. I don't have much technical patience. If I can't find my way around a site, whatever it may be, in no more than 20 minutes then I'm a gonner and on to the next available option. I worked on wikispaces yesterday for an hour and the site was really slow and then finally shut down on me. That wasn't too cool. Anyway I created something very simple about visual search engines and I'll include the address at the bottom of this post.

As far as using wikis in my classroom, I have several ideas that I would like to explore. The most prominent idea though is that of an ethics battle in science. EVERY year there is some ethical issue that comes up in the news that we talk about in class. The discussion could last forever if I let it but obviously can't. I could post the discussion on the wiki and encourage my students to use it (with a little point incentive of course...) and see how that conversation evolves. I would be very interested in the results of the activity and I think it would ge a good mind opener to my students.

Other ideas involve conversations about human use of the environment, a disease research project done in pairs where the information required is posted on a specific page of the wiki and then presented in class, and perhaps even using the wiki for casual and respectful conversation about a topic of interest that we cover in a day.

I have to say here that thinking this through and writing it up makes me so excited to get back to the classroom!

Anyway, here is the address for the wikispaces site:

http://visualsearchengines.wikispaces.com

I don't know if you remember or not, I just remembered in fact, that I do have a disease wiki on zoho that I kept and plan on using in the classroom as soon as I can. Here is the address for that if you are interested.

http://classroomdisease.zoho.wiki.com

One last thing, when it comes time for me to try out wikis in the classroom, I will likely pay for a zoho account because so far, zoho has been the most user friendly.

Week 3

I checked out a different web-based office suite besides zoho and google docs because I have used both of those and thought I should explore something else. I found one called ThinkFree Online and I made a ppt, spreadsheet and word doc on that host. I included the links down below and sent you an invitation to be a collaborator as instructed in the assignment.

I didn't care for this web-based office too much. It was slow and who likes to wait around?? I have used zoho quite a bit and really like that one. Although I am disappointed to find that zoho is now charging for its wikis. You can only have two wikis for free and have to pay for anything else. I don't know for sure but wouldn't be surprised to find that you are only given a certain amount of space for any of the apps and have to pay above and beyond that. Are they all like that? I don't even know but I hope not.

I can see the value in having your information on the web for accessibility purposes. I don't however mind carrying a zip drive around with my stuff on it so I'll most likely be sticking to that until these suites are as fast and as good as the microsoft office package that I've been using for years and love :)

I use Zoho for a recipe wiki and I have the other wiki on diseases on there that I created in my last class with you Alison. I don't want either one of them erased and I don't want to pay for zoho so I'll have to use another wiki provider if I need it. The word processing, spreadsheet and ppt options are good on zoho even though they have some slight limitations, funky little editing issues and other minor irritations. I like all the different apps that Zoho offers even though I don't use many of them regularly. I have played around with the notebook, planner and chat a bit and found them easy to use.

Should I create another word, excel and ppt on a different web-based office like zoho or google docs?

Web-based office suite (Thinkfree Online)

Powerpoint link
http://member.thinkfree.com/myoffice/show.se?f=96832986e2967c0645dd4c71d74f98eb

Excel Spreadsheet link
http://member.thinkfree.com/myoffice/show.se?f=a7cfcf99d670058068316f75a595c1c1

Word Document link
http://member.thinkfree.com/myoffice/show.se?f=a7cfcf99d6700580518bbecf9828d4b4

Link for 10 most underhyped webapps, that I thought was interesting
http://www.bspcn.com/2008/01/10/top-10-underhyped-webapps/

CNN Article

Hi Alison,
I just came across this news article about search engines on CNN this evening and thought I would share it. I'm going to check out all the search engines it recommends and see what they offer.
Michelle

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/05/12/future.search.engine/index.html

CC

Creative Commons is something that I am learning to pay attention to as I have taken my Masters courses. I understand that it's important that I am aware of the copyright laws and that I abide by them and teach my students to abide by those as well. Before I started this degree I never paid attention to copyright and didn't know a thing about it.
To teach my students about CC I would do the following:

I would plan to teach this lesson in a computer lab where students could access the following videos. After each video clip students are to record what they understood and anything they found confusing.

Video #1

Video #2

Video #3

After the video opener to the lesson we would discuss what the students watched, what they understood and what they didn't understand. Following the viewing of the videos they would be directed to the creative commons site and instructed to fill out a worksheet that outlines the different levels of creative commons (Attribution, Attribution Share Alike, Attribution No Derivatives, Attribution Non Commercial, Attribution Non Commerical Share Alike.

As homework, they are to create a piece of work and bring it to class to display and they will choose and explain their level of creative commons. They will also be assigned to check out flickr's creative commons area and http://animalphotos.info/a/ for a list of animal pictures that are free to use under the creative commons law for class projects.

It is expected that any projects using a piece of artwork (in whatever form it may be) will be used properly under the creative commons laws addressed in class.

Visual Search Engines

Visual Search Engines are becoming more and more common it seems. I haven't used them much because I am stuck in the google rut. I'm so used to using Google that it doesn't occur to me to try something new out. I can see some benefits to these search engines that I think my students will enjoy. The search results are "blended" or you could say layered because they provide text resources, video resources, even twitter resources and they are presented in a picture format which has greater interest appeal I think. If a student is trying to find a website they have visited before they will be more successful using a visual search like Searchme where they can see the webpage as they flip through the results.

Visual search sites that offer information in different formats will create a more thorough research experience and can help a student create a better project perhaps.

Other visual searches like touchgraph are very visual and I'm sure would appeal to a certain group of visual people/students. I do not care for touchgraph however, because the minute I see that cluster map loaded with multiple circles and lines I want to close the site. It is too much for my eye. It seems confusing and overwhelming to me and I don't even want to attempt to straighten the mess out. However, when I do attempt I can see that the cluster map has divided the information into different groups which is nice and helpful, but I still don't like it.

Overall, I admit I like Google the best. It's a nice linear list and it seems very clear and easy to use. Like I mentioned earlier I am stuch in that rut. I did like using searchme and redzee and I would be willing to add them to my list of search engines to use. I don't see the visual search engines taking over just yet but they are slowly creeping up on us.

Here are a couple good wedsites I found while I was taking a look at these search engines. You know how it is, one thing leads to another and the next thing you know you are swimming in a wealth of knowledge and you wish you could take it all in.

http://www.geocities.com/vance_stevens/searchen.htm

http://www.lclark.edu/~krauss/usia/home.html

Alison, do you use any visual search engines with your class?

Ideas for Classroom Uses of Blogs

Using a blog in my classroom is something I really want to try and make work. My ideas for using it are simple at this point but hopefully will develop with some research. I have a personal blog where I post information and pictures about my family to share with other family members across the U.S. An extension of this idea for the classroom would be to create a classroom blog with pictures that follow our activities in the classroom. I think this would be popular with both the students and parents. The students are going to love to get on there to see pictures of themselves and the parents are going to feel more informed and involved by viewing the blog. I've thought about extending the activity just a bit and having a student write a post about an activity or concept in class. I suppose I would send the student home with the write up as a homework assignment and require that it is proofread and polished before it can be submitted. The post would have the student's name on it of course, and maybe that will be an exciting thing to participate in!? I guess we'll see.

Other ideas that I found on the web:
1. Post classroom reading assignments and enhance these reads with weblinks that enhance the information and add interest. Maybe this will be more successful than a textbook.
2. Blogs are interactive. Students can comment, ask questions, etc. I must say here that experience is my teacher on this point. How much time will I be able to devote to interacting on the blog with my students in addition to the full time teaching position and full time family position? Actually doing this will help me know.
3. Promotes ESL participation. This sounds right. Computers are a great motivator and an ESL student may feel more comfortable in front of a computer on their time frame accomplishing an assignment.
4. Electronic Agenda - keep due dates, test dates, assignments posted on the blog and students can access them anywhere. This sounds extremely valuable!!
5. Allows a student to work from home if the focus in the classroom just isn't there. This may be very appealing to some students. This sounds good but I can see that this could turn into a double edged sword because if students are coming to class with the mindset that they don't need to pay attention in class because they can just go home and do everything off the blog then you've created a management nightmare. I think this is probably a fine line to walk.
6. Participation on the blog is not directly in front of peers so it takes away some of the pressure for those students who are nervous or shy about standing out in front of others. Plus, this participation is likely to become more extensive on the blog than it would in the classroom, therefore students can learn more from one another.

Free Technology for Teachers (hosted by Richard Byrne)

Oh my, I have so much to say about this blog. I checked this one out because of the title and I am so glad I did. Richard posts technology tools for the classroom that are useful and free. I loved it. For example, he just put up a post leading us to a website that puts the weeks news into a rap song. He has the current weeks news up on a youtube video so you can see a sample. The rap is clever and intriguing. I think the students would love this.
He also posted the following things that I went through: GIS in the classroom (a detailed description of his use of the website and why/how he thinks this would be helpful in a classroom), Podictionary (a site that features one word a day, its spelling, grammar, and history), KMLFactbook (a site that allows you to input data and it maps the data sets around the world, Richard talks about how this has been useful to him and recommends it), and Creative Commons (a slideshow and youtube video that discusses the different aspects of creative commons and how a student can successfully follow copyright rules).

This blog is a wealth of knowledge. I am finding that the best way to use the web is with each other. The blogging platform is such a valuable tool because it puts us in touch with bits and pieces of information that we can really use to enhance our teaching and personal lives.

The Innovative Educator (hosted by Lisa Neilsen)

I took a look at the last 5 posts on this blog to see what current trends she is talking about. She discusses the importance of ensuring our schools are preparing students to succeed in the 21st century by teaching them digital literacy on the web as well as modeling that behavior. I thought some of the points she made were really quite fascinating. For example, she feels that teachers have an obligation to be a facebook role model, in other words teachers should be using facebook and that they should model responsible behavior on facebook but using common sense and not posting inappropriate information about themselves. This idea really caught my attention because I've never heard this approach before. I can't decide if I agree with it or not. I agree with part of it and that is that you should never put information on the web that you would not be comfortable showing the world, including future employers, family members, etc. As far as teachers having a responsiblity to be a "facebook role model" I don't think that is necessary.

Lisa also makes a point about not being able to navigate yourself through the digital world, such as not being able to interact with others online, is being seen more and more as a weakness. I agree. I think being digitally illiterate is becoming more and more of a handicap to a person and will continue to get worse. I would dare say it's as bad as not being able to read. Technology is a huge influence in our lives and will continue to become more so. People have got to adapt to survive! (a little biology thrown in there...)

Explanation of Web 2.0 and its Value in Education

Through my coursework at Regis I have used many of the web 2.0 applications and really come to enjoy it. Web 2.0 puts us in touch with each other across the world. It truly adds meaning to the phrase that "two minds are better than one". All the different people in the world who share their talents and strengths on the web are able to do so because of the interactivity of web 2.0. It facilitates communication between us, it connects us, it strengthens us and makes us more complete as a species. We are able to learn and gain from others insights and abilities making us stronger and more aware of each other. I think it helps all of us to see the world outside our realm of familiarity and allows us to experience interactions that we may not have otherwise right in our living rooms.
The value of web 2.0 in the classroom is enormous. Through web 2.0 we can share lessons, best practices and points of interest with each other as teachers. We can use the many tools on web 2.0 to teach and expand our students minds as well as create and build tolerance of others even though we may not ever meet them face to face. It helps to make the teaching and learning experience more complete because it can put you in touch with effective materials and ideas that you may never have thought to use or do in your classroom.