Thank you Shelley for a wonderful introduction to Web 2.0. I must say the course was packed with valuable resources – web links, video tutorials, and suggested readings… At times I felt overwhelmed by the quantity and quality of the activities; but I kept plotting through them. Even though I was familiar with many of the topics, I really enjoyed the time to freely explore them with great directions and tutorials to fall back on when I got stuck. Which does happen. I learned something new in every exercise. Thank you.

Now it’s time to reflect and pick several tools that I will bring to my students and teachers. We began using a wiki last year – basically as an avenue to share information (well really for me to share information). This year I want the staff to get involved and participate in discussions on our Wiki. So that is goal number 1. Then I want teachers to use Google apps – documents, calendar and sites. These are wonderful free and easy resources that will make their professional tasks seem easier. These 2 goals shouldn’t be too hard to sell. But you never know…

As for my students, I’m still working through how to use these web 2.0 tools with my K-3 students. As a teacher, I can use several of these tools to stay organized and to share information with my students. But I want them to do some collaboratively. Maybe voice thread is a good place to start? Not sure. Maybe the connections I’ve made on Classroom 2.0 will help me work this struggle out.

Thank you again – I’ve learned so much.

It was great to refresh myself with Classroom 2.0. I joined this network earlier this spring after listening to several online discussions. (It’s been a while since my last visit.) However, I found that I left each session with at least 1 tip or trick; usually something that I could use right there and then. In fact, on this occasion I came across a discussion about web resources for districts using the EveryDay math program. We are using that program and have talked about combining our district web resources into a centralized web site. I found a fantastic example as part of this discussion. Talk about just in time learning…

I also took some time to explore the “groups” section, as I hadn’t done this before. I joined 2 different groups – an elementary technology group and a Mac group. I’m excited about the possibilities of these 2 groups. Both groups should help me incorporate web 2.0 technologies with my elementary students. I teach K-3 and I am having a hard time determining which tools would be appropriate and valuable for my students to use. I don’t want to show them a new tool just for the heck of it. My time is limited with the children so each activity needs to be meaningful.

I wasn’t really sure about this “Thing” but surprisingly it’s been a very helpful exercise. We must always keep an open mind.

Another great article from Will Richardson’s blog entitled Willing to be Disturbed. I feel fortunate to work in a district with a new IT Director (1 year under her belt) who has a vision beyond “security” beyond the basics and who pushes the vision of everyone in the IT department. While other areas of the curriculum had grown in our district, technology just plodded along. There might a teacher here or there trying something new and enlightening, challenging our resources. But there was no way any global support of these changes; especially if it challenged our “security”.

I found this thought to be interesting from Will’s article -

It takes a vision to imagine what the change might look like, not to paint it with hard lines but to at least have the basic brushstrokes down.

Our district was so engrossed with the hard lines that we never made any progress. We are now making huge leaps and bounds. We have the general ideas and now we are trying to fill in the strokes – I think its going to get mucky as we make some of these decisions. But that’s ok. We need to be flexible and modify our vision as we start implementing pieces of new technologies. Thanks.

A mixed review of PageFlakes. It seems very similar to iGoogle. I’m not sure that I’m comfortable with the layout. I found it quite wordy or busy to use with elementary students. I looked at several elementary page flakes and wasn’t sure that elementary students would navigate the pages easily. But I definitely want to give it a try and see how it goes. Specifically I like the pageflake example with the math resources organized by topic. But I’m wondering why would I organize the information this way and not on a website or hotlist page. Why is pageflakes better? I think I’m missing something that pageflakes offers that a regular webpage doesn’t. I’m thinking that using a google site offers me the collaborative environment so why should I use pageflakes?

I see the benefit of having all of this information on one page. But I need to play with it more – not sold on this one.

Our district has been exploring google docs since May 2009. So I’ve had a head start on using it. We are making the switch to using gmail and along with that comes so many awesome tools – docs, calendar and sites to name a few. Since the beginning I’ve used the documents feature to: take notes at a meeting (then share with staff who couldn’t attend or as the notetaker for the group), create agendas for workshops, share summer work lists with other members of the technology department, create spreadsheets with computer locations, track ordering and budget information. The list just goes on…

We’ve also used the forms section to create our own surveys – compiling data to direct professional development needs for the fall, technology needs…

I began exploring the sites feature in June when I wanted to post student work. I was able to do most of the work from home and the interface was pretty easy to use. Collaboratively, I used sites to create a website for a podcasting workshop I was doing with a colleague. I wanted something different than the same old powerpoint presentation. So I thought what a great way to explore using Google Sites and then to have all the resources available to the participants from the get go. We were able to create the site together after hours and see each others changes live. It was so simple and easy. I’m hoping this was enough for the teacher to get hooked and have her take the lead in teaching others (instead of me as the technology teacher).

The bottom line is others will get hooked when they have a need for it. When teachers see the value in it (saves them time, and planning), then they will use it! We can show them tons of videos, give them examples on how to use it but it’s really up to them.

I’m finding YouTube to be a very useful resource. I’ve delivered 2 workshops over the summer and both times I’ve used YouTube to help prepare for my presentations. The topics were podcasting and using gmail/google apps. The videos were short and sweet and great resources for me to use prior to the workshops and to share with teachers so they could review the concepts after the workshop.  A sample YouTube video on composing a message using gmail. As educators we know there are many different types of learners. So providing written instructions along with a video to walk them through the steps offers our clients well-balanced resources.

Video is a wonderful way to capture and share concepts. Students are engaged when using this medium. As for teachers, we have many new technologies this year. I’d like to create video resources for their use in easing with the transition.

Since I’ve used garageband before to create podcasts, I wanted to try a different tool. So I recorded using Vocaroo on my mac. I found the recording to be easy – I think the sound quality was ok. Downloading took a minute as it was not clear on the website how to do this – but thanks to Shelley’s quick video tutorials I was able to complete the downloading task. It took me a couple of tries on the recording and I still have a few blunders – but what are you going to do.

Converting the wav file to mp3 using zamzar was so quick and easy. I had use zamzar a few times before and it took 24 hours to get the file back not 5 minutes! What a great improvement. Overall I found this task to be straight forward and easy to complete.

I created a welcome back podcast for the teachers at my school – a technology update. I think I could easily continue these updates throughout the year and post them on our wiki. Sometimes teachers don’t always “read” the technology news so providing them with a quick video or podcast might be a nice alternative. Well I give it a go and see what happens.

I had trouble getting onto gcast so here is my podcast.

lokertech

Why wouldn’t you use podcasting in your classroom? I’ll admit that it may take you a little bit of searching to find podcasts that will fit with your curriculum and grade level but they are well worth the search. I have used a few from iTunes and the students love it. I have also used Garageband with teachers and students to create podcasts. Our podcasts were on a specified topic not a weekly episode. Most of our podcasts were a work in progress. There never seemed like enough time to put the finishing touches on them. I am definitely a novice at this and would love any advice or suggestions on planning and implementing podcasts at the elementary level. One of the most challenging pieces has been finding a quiet environment in which to record – how can you replicate a “recording studio” atmosphere? This year we are going to try recording directly into ipods and then transferring the sound files into garageband; whereas in the past we usually record in garageband and then add the musical elements and pictures. It’s a project both the students and teachers enjoy working on.

What a fantastic site…I must admit that being the mother of a 7 year old and working full time doesn’t really give me much time for reading. I read my journals and some magazines but I just have not found the time to get back to novels. Not that I live under a rock or anything, just part way, as I’ve been engrossed in the world of Disney, Nick Jr and so forth.  Therefore, it was a little challenging searching for books. On the titles I searched, I found the reviews to be interesting and helpful. I could see making a classroom or grade level group, where students can discuss books inside and outside of school. I work with elementary aged students so I am constantly looking for safe environments for students to utilize collaborative skills. I will definitely share this site with my colleagues. Professionally, I could see setting up a book group for our district in which we share books on both a professional and personal nature. What a great find! Thanks for sharing.

PS – While searching for books and reviews, I stumbled onto a cool new website for elementary students called LittleClickers. A really cool thing about this course is that you can’t predict what interesting new tools and gadgets you will discover.

I found delicious to be a very powerful and useful tool. The way our school network is set up, we have difficulties saving bookmarks. Delicious would be a great solution to that problem. I briefly looked at Delicious a couple of years ago but didn’t pursue it any further. Then several weeks ago, I stumbled upon it again (prior to Thing 15) while looking for podcasting and garageband resources to use for a course. Of course, I discovered these delicious bookmarks the day after my course. Apparently, this MA teacher has been using delicious for several years being that she had several hundred bookmarks on her delicious site. Just a little behind the times – I am. But her resources were spot on — I can’t wait to use them this fall.

To begin, I’d like to use delicious with my technology colleagues within my district to play with it more. Then I’d like to use it with teachers so we can share the abundance of curriculum resources out there. We have a wetpaint wiki set up currently but maybe we can incorporate a delicious piece to the wiki. Yet another fabulous tool I should be using. Having access to all of your bookmarks from any computer – gotta love technology.

Here’s my delicious link.