Overall, I felt this class was useful baby-steps showing the different types of new technology that can be utilized and incorporated into the 21st century classroom, or more importantly my classroom. The idea to help narrow down the many different tools the web offers to focus on a few to start using, incorporate in the classroom, once comfortable you can expand out and use different tools. But you must get your feet wet first, and I think this class does that. And couple that with the social networking aspect, showing what works and what doesn’t, discussing what technology is better and how to use it effectively is invaluable. Now, in the future for this class I would have the teachers from the schools do more collaborative work using these tools. Especially with all the on-line group resources that was demonstrated in this class. For an introductory course on what technology is out there for us to use, this class was useful. However, I would like to see a how to use this technology in the classroom class, more examples of how to make this useful and not just technology for technology’s sake. Overall, I learned a lot of useful ideas that I will start incorporating in my classroom this year.
I think social networking is one of the most important and useful asset that the internet can provide teachers. The sharing of ideas of what worked what went well, do you do this in your class. I get so many ideas, many good, some not so much but in the end you get a wide variety of options that you can try in the classroom. I jumped into the Ning web page and looked up social studies, and someone had posted what do you do the first day. It made me reflect on what I do, and I was thinking I have not liked how I do my first day activities. A few people posted and I got a few good ideas to try this year. One thing I did notice is not a lot of people have left many blogs, or responses. Or many of the responses were old. But I am sure there are many other forums similar that might be more updated or have more activity. I feel forums are a great resource. You need to know which cell phone to buy, look up on forums to get real people’s reviews and experiences with that phone. You can ask specific questions and someone out there will have gone through the same thing or owned it and can help you. One thing about us is we are not shy to share our opinions on the internet. You also need to go to multiple forums, sometimes one is biased or has a few people dominate it’s thinking. When I was researching for a HDTV Plasma, one forum was all pro-plasma and anti-LCD. I go to another forum and the opposite was true, because of the people that post on those forums (there are many postaholics out there-like there job is to sit around and post on forums). But I have gotten many great ideas that have helped me in the classroom with forums and social networking. It reminds us that we are not alone and that others share in our failures and successes and are willing to post their opinions and experiences about it in an effort to create better classrooms.
I found this blog of particular interest, “Search Like an Expert: New Google Search Lessons Unveiled at NECC 2009″ because it is one of the greatest challenges our students have using this new technology. I think this is a skill that is often overlooked. I learned the hard way a few years ago when I gave a project out told them get busy, I gave them a week to produce the work. Well, 3 days into it, I had a couple tell me, “I can’t find anything”, I was like what?? And at first I would jump on them for not trying, or shake my head thinking you can’t be this clueless? Then it came to me, after I watched a student search for info, I realized they don’t have a clue (they are that clueless) how to search using the internet. So now when I hear I can’t find anything, my first step is I tell them show me how you are searching. Then from there I can show them how to better search, clues, tips, and all of a sudden tons of info that can help them floods through, now they have the other problem, how to filter through tons of good info. This web site has the useful teaching outline for better searching, presentation tool, links to video aids. I think a search class like this should be taught in middle schools, again in high schools to both teachers and the students, make it part of a study skills class for students and a professional development for teachers for the 21st century classroom.
Pageflakes is pretty interesting but google is either copying them or has something very similar with google chrome internet browser that you can do all the same stuff on their homepage. The concept is great, to customize your homepage to items you like for quick and easy navigating. As teachers we could create these homepages as class assignment pages with quick links, places for the students to search, customize an assignment page to make the process easier for students to complete the task and have fun at the same time (by putting a comics /jokes widget in them). I can see myself using this in combo with google docs for assignments in the near future. This is customizable education using new technology to help guide students and build upon their education using the real tools that will help them navigate the internet and be more productive with their time both in class and at home.
I have already used google docs before, for myself to upload files so I could make them up at home and open them up at school without having to use a flash drive. But in addition I can access that file from anywhere I can get an Internet signal. I like the idea of people having access to change and sometimes make the working product better. Students can use this to work on a project, PowerPoint, in fact there is an assignment where I have students work in groups of 3 to produce a Industrialism PowerPoint, and they would share computers, brake up the sections to work on, problems would be they would have to take turns on the computer and have trouble putting the finished PPT together. With google docs, that would solve a both problems, they could all create the entire ppt instead of each working on just sections, wouldn’t have to worry about e-mailing sections. Also, another problem we have is sometimes the computer saves work sometimes not, I tell them to e-mail there work to themselves, with google docs, that step will be already done. Also the problem of not enough computers is a big issue at our school, now I can send a group to the library and they can still work with team members in the computer lab using google docs. The idea of working together on a project and can do so from school, home, anywhere is a great idea that I will use next year in my class.
Now here is a tool I think is very powerful and useful for teachers and students. I started using youtube a lot last year, I found clips that I would of never had or seen that students liked, peeked their interest. I gave a project at the end of the year and part of their powerpoints were they had to embed a video about their subject- I seen so many of them watching the videos out of interest not because I was making them. I just wish youtube was unblocked (but I understand why it is, I can just imagine what videos they would of been watching then) But I find youtube easy to search find what I want then often find stuff that interest me that I would not of seen unless I was surfing youtube. The videos I looked up for this class was a 13 days trailer for the Cuban Missile Crisis which I used in class last year to introduce the subject.
and I found this, which is what I wanted to include in my podcast review of Babylon 5 about the great series Babylon 5, but didn’t because of copyright, this series was about so much and like someone posted earlier said you never felt like you were watching aliens because the show was so human and realistic, tragic yet hopeful, choices and the real consequences of those choices, “what do you want?” “who are you?”, love, despair, hate, friends etc..this show had it all, and holds up well 10 years later-great story arc, music, costume design, special effects, ship designs, acting (other then the human acting-some of that was not great-but got better as the series progressed).
overall, youtube is a very useful tool we have, much more important and valuable to reaching students today.
I found creating the podcast pretty easy, except for a few bumps with audacity, once I did I could move parts around, add music (but had to delete it because of greedy people-aka copyright) and if people really restrict the use of movie, sound picture clips then this medium will be dead and useless to students because there is no way to compete unless we use what they watch and listen to. I will use this to create parts to add to my class, or have my students create podcast recreating a newscast of the Cuban Missile Crisis, or this week in history and have the kids create a podcast reviewing what they learned that week. But I think adding music, would help make them more appealing and interesting.
Well, I am not a huge fan of podcasting. While the idea is interesting, I still don’t see students going YES, we get to listen to our lesson in a podcast. Most students don’t love lectures, and podcasting is really an audio lecture. I like the idea of if a kid misses a class they can catch up(if they actually did listen to the podcast-I suspect most would skip it). Podcasting is one of those ideas that teachers love, kids not so much. I listened and joined 2 pod-casting, Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History-I think he is really good, but I love history so I am a bit biased. Some of my students that hate history, I think they would still be bored after listening to this. I also subscribed to Stuff you missed in history class (neat idea but I hate there voices) and 60 second civics. The flip, is a podcast about Chemistry would bore me to death, so it goes to what you like, so again I don’t see this as a revolutionary tool to help students but nothing more then a add-on that is teaching the same stuff using new technology. Now, maybe I need to find some “revolutionary” podcast with something new, but I have not found it yet.
Well, I hate books, just kidding, I thought the site LibraryThing was interesting, but I don’t see myself using this site. It has all the books, similar books to read if you like certain types of books (kind of like TiVo for books). The Zeitgeist gives you an idea of who is reading what type, author, etc lots of stats abou the book. The groups is nice because it is a forum for discussions about all the books. And again they use tags as a method to navigate thought the tons of books. The idea of connecting people with like reading habits is interesting but I am sure there are many forums that exist already that serve this function. But this is a well put together site, just one I don’t see my self ever using. Now if they had all the books in full on file, that would be something I would use. But there are too many greedy people right now to promote something like that yet. Someday.
delicious is a pretty cool application or tool. Like flickr, used tags to refine searches. This tells me I need to teach the use of tags when I am teaching and using the internet for searches, resources. While the idea is interesting, it is really nothing more then Google searches, maybe a bit more targeted. But like my own bookmarks, I bookmark everything, but my folder gets so large that if I don’t have them placed in the right folder I will never find them and seems like just googling the question is quicker then searching through tons of bookmarks. But the idea that I could share all my Vietnam bookmarks, Civil Rights, etc. with other teachers is a good concept if I had time to filter through what they have. Here are a few bookmarks I found: http://delicious.com/doom__1
