July 23 – July 29
1. Definition of Tool Of Choice Assignment:
This week is a bit different than previous week’s, because this week it is up to you what you would like to learn. This could be something we have not covered in previous weeks, or we are giving the option to go back to a previous week and learn about that tool in a bit more depth or to start developing it for implementation for the coming school year.
2. Choose Your Assignment:
Option 1: Choose a completely new tool. There are so many social sites out there that help you network and connect with other educators or to help in communicating with parents and students. There is no way we could cover everything in one class. Check out these sites that list web 2.0 tools to choose a tool to evaluate:
- http://www.go2web20.net/ - a list of everything 2.0 – but might be a little overwhelming. Each tool is BRIEFLY described, but they are searchable based on tags – or key words.
- Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators - A list of tools for educators; some are free and some are not. Kathy Schrock has done a nice job identifying resources most applicable to educators.
- http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0 - The 2008 awards for web 2.0 tools – tools are broken into categories and given rankings based on usability, usefulness, social aspects, design and content.
Option 2: Go back to a previous assignment and learn more about it and go in depth. After reading many of your blogs and info on the wiki page here are a few suggestions on what to revisit from previous weeks:
- Creating/Expanding a class blog for parent communication – spice it up with extras on widgets and info. (Note: If you want to post audio files EASILY you might want the new blog to be on edublogs.)
- Explore podcasting further – Many of you were interested in creating video podcasts (vodcasts) or wanted more time to work out the kinks in audio podcasting. Take some time to work through these issues or learn how video casts can work for you.
- Here are some handouts to create official mp4 (video) files that can be downloaded to ipod video players.
- Software for Vodcasting and Podcasting
- Audacity How Tos
- Installing Jodix - free program that will convert your video to a mp4 format.
- Vodcast – PowerPoint to PhotoStory to Vodcast
- If you are not worried about the ability to download files, stop at the Photostory part and skip Jodix. You can upload a finished Photostory to TeacherTube.
- Screencasting – Several people asked about how to create a screencast of what is happening on the computer screen – like what was used in the wiki assignment. We used Jing – a free download that gives you a choice to save the file as a swf file (this format will not upload to TeacherTube or YouTube) or to upload it to a space on the Jing website.: http://www.jingproject.com/ (Note: Please don’t plan to have this program downloaded at school.)
- Here are some handouts to create official mp4 (video) files that can be downloaded to ipod video players.
- Creating/Expanding a class wiki page and add content that your class can use to start the year.
- Media Sharing – Contribute to the world of media sharing by creating and uploading content to TeacherTube.
3. Learn
- Comment on three other classmates’ blogs – see Weekly Comment Rotation
- Respond as a comment to this blog entry your plans for this week.
- In your blog:
- Identify your tool of choice.
- Give a definition of it for others to learn from and an explanation of why it was chosen.
- Provide links to learn more about it
- Explain how you plan to use it in your job this coming year, giving specific examples.
4. Reflections on Course:
This is the last official assignment in this pilot course. We, the organizers, have learned so much from working with everyone and look forward to meeting all of you face to face on September 18th. We walked into this as much as students as teachers and have appreciated your patience and willingness to take this journey with us.
We know that ya’ll have worked very hard and put in way over 2 hours a week to get the assignments completed so we have been talking to the staff development department about increasing the number of credit hours everyone will receive to at least 21 hours.
To help us move forward, please answer the following reflection questions in your blog:
- How would you describe this course to a colleague?
- What was the best part of the course and why?
- What will you take away from this course to use in your classroom?
- What is one thing you would change about this course for the next group?
- Would you recommend this course to anyone else? Why or why not?
We will explore your reflections more at the follow-up session in September as well as asking everyone share how they are using these tools in their classrooms/jobs this school year.
I think I will be exploring a couple of the Web 2.0 Tools we have not used in this class. There are so many and so little time. I know myself well enough that when school starts and things get hectic, I like to stick with what I know and expand on that. New tools slot in when and if I have time. I hope everyone has had as much fun with this class as I have. The time commitment was way more than I expected, but well worth it. Thank you to the instructors!
Michele
I tried out Scrapblog this week. I may try some other Web 2.0 tools as well.
Now, how am I going to pick just one??? Well, thanks to Emily I read her comment for trying Scrapblog. I have three daughter-in-laws that scrapbook every chance they get, so I knew it was extremely popular. I figured that if I mentioned scrap…anything, ears may perk up. I also figured that if I start a school Flickr site for pictures then teachers would have an extension with Scrapblog.com. Here is what I said on my blog:
I once had an activity for the students in Language Arts where they made a scrapbook on a book and character they read. After seeing Scrapblog.com, I thought students could scrapblog their favorite book. They could do it using the perspective of the main character in the settings in the story or as themselves using their own imagination within the elements in the story. They could also show how the character changes as the story progresses.
Another idea is to use uploaded school pictures from Flickr to create these Scrapblogs for students and families to view and comment.
I have played with Scrapblog.com and have created just a sample to show my teachers using one of the template themes.
Check out my blog to see my very simple sample.
Forgot to give a definition for Scrapblog.com. It is a site where you can create an online scrapbook of your photos and video adding backgrounds, buttons, text, balloons, shapes, frames and music. It is a blog so it includes a comment area.
I found a blog entry on how to link a jing screencast to your blog. I thought it might be useful to this course. Of course, you all probably already know about it, it just wasn’t part of any of our tutorials.
http://theedublogger.edublogs.org/2008/05/16/embedding-jing-screencasts-into-blog-posts/
I know that for any teacher who is teaching students about new software programs, such as photoshop or powerpoint, it would be a very useful tool for students to go back to after the initial lesson.
I want to create my own wikispace. I chose this tool because I’d like to set up a place that I can maintain throughout the year and will hopefully be helpful to teachers that I work with and across the district. The purpose might change, but I’m going to start it as a space to share info about recent math trainings and about the new math textbook. I want to include a Question and Answer section, a place that houses helpful links and an area to capture some of the thinking generated during staff developments.
I tried Facebook for this assignment.
I made a blog for my Algebra 1 PLC since I am the lead teacher for Algebra 1 and I post the things that we need to discuss for the week and the other Algebra 1 teachers comment on each post through out the week in their own time and also comment on others comments. If by the end of the week (since we usually have our PLC meeting Friday mornings) all topics have been discussed to a satisfactual level then we can cancel the PLC meeting for that week and use that time instead for tutoring our students or other preperations. So far this has proved to be a very useful tool and I hope that my colleagues continue to comment regularly so that it can me successful.
I have created a classroom blog to keep my parents informed of what is going on in class. I know that many of them check it for homework assignments. I’m using WordPress, so I’m having to relearn how to add various things to the blog.
I finally got my You Tube video to embed and then I went on to create a Playlist of Eagles’ music … with really clear instructions from Nicole. I ended with a ScrapBlog of Chris … my youngest son who is serving in Iraq. I really wanted to try the flash tool Mark K. put up …. there are just so many! Wow!
I plan to start 2 wiki pages with my respective Tech Teams from each elementary campus this fall … what a great course with lots of encouragement to continue to explore and learn more of Web 2.0 tools.