Course Reflection

I’ve made it and I can definitely say I’ll be a better teacher for taking this course. Thank you Jerrie!

In many ways the real work starts now. There won’t be anyone to make sure I incorporate these tools. Most of my colleagues, sadly, aren’t using most of the web 2.0 applications. I’m hoping I can share them. On a larger scale, how is the public school system going to keep up with our students’ use of technology? I did hear Obama make mention of more technology in schools recently?!

I’m overwhelmed by everything out there. I get mad at myself for not realizing the potential of these resources. Little by little though… I have to incorporate them organically in my course.

I’m going to put my blog on steriods next semester. I’m also starting a class wiki for my economics class. It’s happening!

Ning (Thing # 22)

Ning and Classroom 2.0 are really neat. I would be more apt to go back to classroom 2.0 as I found more relevant information there. There’s an infinite amount regarding cool teaching strategies. It’s great to know there’s an easily accessible community of educators out there willing to collaborate. There are times when my creativity has hit the wall and I need fresh ideas or help with a particular problem.

I teach IB classes and often collaborate with IB teachers around the world. It’s so darn difficult to get onto their Online Curriculum Centre (OCC) that I’ve all but given up. It requires these particular passcodes that are gobbly gook and can’t be changed to something I’d remember. Maybe I’ll start a Ning group with the people from the OCC. Reason being, I need more content specific help. Most of these sites are geared towards teaching strategies. I need to discuss content and resources as I’m taking on a new course (economics) starting in January. Nevertheless, it’s great to know all of my options for help. Now that I’ve taken this course I can say I know where to start!

Reflections on Google Reader (Thing #7c)

Today a U.S. History blog sent me to a great site with interactive historical maps. I definitely could incorporate these into my teaching. My pitiful drawing of the U.S. might be funny but not too instructive!

I also read an interesting article on Infinite Thinking about a new service called Brightstorm. It’s a paid service but it basically enhances high school curriculum for students in video format. They’ve found good teachers and provided video of their lectures. The lectures aren’t too long because they’re designed for the short attention span of this generation. This would be very useful for remediation. It would also be great for curious students who want to learn about something that’s not offered at their school.  

Pageflakes (Thing #21)

Pageflakes is just one of those sites. It could become a terrible time swallower if you’re not careful! There’s just too much to choose from.

I already use iGoogle (and waste a lot of time there) but really liked the K12 Learning 2.0 template. It gave me some great ideas to customize my own page. I may change up my iGoogle based on what I learned today  but make my pageflakes more student centered.  I like the idea of using stickies to communicate with your class etc. but isn’t that the purpose of a blog too? It took me some time to drill the idea ofchecking the blog into my students’ heads. Student ”I didn’t know the assignment”  Me “Did you check my blog”? student “oh yeah”. So, I would hate to ask them to switch over to a new site for communicating. Maybe next year.

The advantage to pageflakes could be to entice your students to read articles you’ve chosen etc. You could make a cool history or economics centered pageflakes where they could go for their assignments and just a click away would be great resources for them. It’d be like one stop shopping! The Walmart of history class so to speak.

Google Docs (Thing #20)

My first reaction to Google docs was-why?

Why would I bother when I’m so comfortable with Microsoft Office? I can e-mail myself a document so it’s available anywhere I have an Internet connection. Well, once I started playing around with it I realized its utility.

First, students will have a much easier time collaborating on projects/presentations with Google docs. They can share the finished work online and I can look at the revision history to see who did most of the work.

Peer edits can now be assigned for homework. Previously, I had to do this in class so they could mark-up each other’s paper.

I also like the idea of assigning a particular topic for the students to research. The students can report their findings to a single doc which I could save and use as a resource folder later.

For example, let’s say I’m teaching comparative advantage in economics. I can have students go out and find a real-world article demonstrating the concept, a video clip, a political cartoon, an explanation of the concept and so forth. If they all save it to the same document we’ll all have a great resource. The best thing is that it’ll be there when it comes time to study for the test!

I like it.

Google Reader Reflection (#the one I’m missing!)

I recently read an article by David Warlick  about a teacher selling advertising space on his quizzes and tests. He uses the profits to buy school supplies for his class. My first reaction was what a cool concept! He’s teaching students a valuable lesson in economics as well. Then I started thinking about how pathetic it is that teachers have to resort to such measures to buy what’s necessary to educate our youth. Wow, it never ceases to amaze me how out of whack our society’s values are. Have we seen the bottom yet?

I also read an article on campus health. I’m interested in this because we (even in the high school level) seem to pass germs around daily. The article is pushing for college students to get vaccinated against the flu. Instead of advertising about the misery of the flu, health advocates are advertising in terms of cost-benefit. How many classes will you miss while sick? Those missed classes equal tutition down the drain and at worst, a failed class. The # of vaccinations went up after the strategy changed.

Speaking of vaccinations, make sure your children have the whooping cough vaccination. The bacteria is on the rise again in the U.S. and can be quite serious.  I had a friend spend all of Saturday afternoon in the ER getting breathing treatments. Yuck.

Video Sharing (Thing # 19)

I chose to embed a movie trailer called Two Million Minutes. The film is a wake-up call to American educators and students. I find it to be frightening and accurate.

I love YouTube! I’ve been watching it for quite some time now. During the elections it was a great way to stay updated on the latest gaffs of the candidates without having to watch the entire interview. I also watch friends performing music or silly videos my husband finds while procrastinating.

Professionally, I haven’t been able to use Youtube. Now that I know about Zamzar I can!

I have used Teachertube a few times in class. It could be a good discovery/inspirational exercise for students.  However, for instruction you have to spend some quality time searching. I much prefer www.unitedstreaming.com as their videos are guaranteed to be age appropriate and professional. Sorry, I know that’s not very creative of me but when you’re in a time crunch, it matters.

I should mention that unitedstreaming is a paid service. My guess is most large school districts have a subscription.

Podcasting (Thing # 17)

I thought this assignment was going to be a piece of cake! I already stream NPR & PBS podcasts for my students.  I’ve found these to be very useful for historical analysis. I’ve also lucked into a great series of video podcasts from Annenberg Media. Try www.learner.org/resources Great stuff.

Anyway, after my previous experiences I thought “how hard could everything else be”? Ha!

This assignment has been a comedy of errors and frustrations thus far. Grazr ended up being a disaster for me. I created a playlist and attached it to my iGoogle page. Well, I simply couldn’t get it to play on my home computer. I even had two computer wizards try to help. Nothing.

I’ve now moved to my school computer. Many of the links from Podcast Alley are blocked by Cobb County (NO they weren’t the inappropriate ones!) and my connection keeps timing out.  Then, I had to deal with trying to get certain plug-ins. Well, I don’t have “administrative rights” on my computer which allows me to allow plug-ins or download/install software. Sigh.

Finally I had some success with a few sites. I did find some interesting pieces on Learn out Loud and Education Podcast Network.  One feed was entirely of famous historical speeches. I played one to my class from Daniel Webster as we’re currently studying the Civil War. Unfortunately, the mechanized voice can make even the most exciting topic a drag to listen to.

I’m hoping once our connection speed has improved I’ll have more luck on Skip the Tutition.

Stay tuned……

Library Thing (#16)

Let me start by saying I’m an avid reader. I love talking about books as the women in my bookclub can attest. I use iRead (Facebook application) and have gotten some great book suggestions that way. Maybe it’s because the people I interact with on iRead I know personally? I’m not sure.

So, I was excited to try Library Thing. I signed on and began entering the books I’ve read recently. I added tags to most. Sidenote- I’ve enjoyed learning about folksonomy during this course-

Anyway, after diligently entering books I expectantly clicked “recommendations” and was disappointed to see the compiled list. It didn’t seem like much thought had been put into it. It seems they just scanned the authors I listed and recommended their other work. Blah!

I know there are other fancy tools with Library Thing. I could join groups, have discussions etc. For now, I’ll get my online fix with iRead and discuss books the old fashioned way- with friends and a glass of wine.

Delicious (Thing #15)

I’m glad to find this site. I’ve had trouble in the past with my bookmarks being everywhere-at home, school etc. so I can’t find what I need! Delicious is brilliant!

I did some school related searching and tagging. I ended up finding GREAT podcasts of history lectures from Univ of Oxford, England. I also found a great site for students struggling to write history papers.

I started tagging new sites as something generic like “history”. However, I quickly realized that wouldn’t do. I changed my system to “civil war” etc.

Personally, I searched food and cooking. I tagged lots of sites and have some ideas on Thanksgiving side dishes as well!