What do you like / dislike about leaving comments? How did you feel when you received your first comment? Why do you think commenting is so important in online communities? What might this mean for students who share their writing online?
I like having the opportunity to share my thoughts with someone experiencing a similar plight. I have always benefitted from reflective writing and commenting provides a forum to do just that. It forces me to organize my thoughts and write them down in a cohesive format. I enjoyed the comments left as they serve as encouragement to continue the journey. It also provides feedback on my thoughts as well as new ideas on how I might better use these new tools.
I believe students will benefit from the same things I listed above. It can be reflective writing or a forum to share their thoughts and ideas. It will "force" them to organize their writing if they want to be effective communicators.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Thing 9
Add comments to the video you embedded. Why did you select it? Were you also able to download a video?
I found a really useful video for my opening day staff meeting to set tone. I have used other similar types of videos in years past, but this is short and sweet and sends a strong message. I was able to use both freevid and zamzar to download a video. I have used zamzar in the past to bypass our district filtering system when i have found useful videos I want to share with staff.
I found a really useful video for my opening day staff meeting to set tone. I have used other similar types of videos in years past, but this is short and sweet and sends a strong message. I was able to use both freevid and zamzar to download a video. I have used zamzar in the past to bypass our district filtering system when i have found useful videos I want to share with staff.
Thing 8
What do you like or dislike about YouTube? Did you find videos that would be useful for teaching and learning? Should YouTube be restricted to students? to teachers?
I absolutely love YouTube. My experience has primarily been for personal use looking up old movie clips, music videos and concert footage. I have used "Shift Happens" and other videos when working with staff on Professional Development. I have also used inspirational type themes with staff during staff meetings. Unfortunately, we are completely blocked in our district. I have had to embed the videos to email to access them. This takes additional time and effort and has been a source of complaints for staff wanting to use video with the kids. That being said, I do believe that students should be restricted in their search efforts. We have the technology to block inappropriate searches. I would like to see the kids be able to create videos and post them as projects. I do not see any reason to restrict teachers at all. We entrust them with our kids every minute of every day. We can trust that they would use the site appropriately. I am not a bandwidth expert so I have no idea of how access to these sights would affect the network.
I absolutely love YouTube. My experience has primarily been for personal use looking up old movie clips, music videos and concert footage. I have used "Shift Happens" and other videos when working with staff on Professional Development. I have also used inspirational type themes with staff during staff meetings. Unfortunately, we are completely blocked in our district. I have had to embed the videos to email to access them. This takes additional time and effort and has been a source of complaints for staff wanting to use video with the kids. That being said, I do believe that students should be restricted in their search efforts. We have the technology to block inappropriate searches. I would like to see the kids be able to create videos and post them as projects. I do not see any reason to restrict teachers at all. We entrust them with our kids every minute of every day. We can trust that they would use the site appropriately. I am not a bandwidth expert so I have no idea of how access to these sights would affect the network.
Thing 7
Think of ways you or your staff may be able to use Flickr and share your ideas. What issues might you face? What policies need to be in place to ensure student safety and appropriate use of sites like Flickr?
Obviously a picture is worth a thousand words. Staff could create files of images that relate directly to the curriculum they are teaching. They could also encourage students to create accounts to search for their own images and reflect on them as it pertains to the topic being taught. The challenges will always lie in what needs to be filtered for appropriateness for a school setting. I would work closely with our tech people to ensure to the best of our ability that searches would not provide inappropriate images. We have many policies in place currently through our district technology plan. We have a very tight and rigid filter in place at this point. As a building leader, I often find myself advocating for some site access as we are often blocked from some truly amazing places.
Obviously a picture is worth a thousand words. Staff could create files of images that relate directly to the curriculum they are teaching. They could also encourage students to create accounts to search for their own images and reflect on them as it pertains to the topic being taught. The challenges will always lie in what needs to be filtered for appropriateness for a school setting. I would work closely with our tech people to ensure to the best of our ability that searches would not provide inappropriate images. We have many policies in place currently through our district technology plan. We have a very tight and rigid filter in place at this point. As a building leader, I often find myself advocating for some site access as we are often blocked from some truly amazing places.
Thing 6
Create a post on your blog about one of the photos you downloaded. Why did you choose a particular photo? What is it about the photo that you found interesting? Be sure to include the image in your post.
I chose this photo as it made me think about how lonely an education can be for some kids. It made me think of the many kids who are not engaged in their education and how if we better utilized the technology available , we might be able to better reach these kids. The photo makes me reflect on my responsibility as the building leader to do everything in power to make sure our classrooms look nothing like the one in this photo for any kid.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Thing 5
RSS can be a difficult concept for some to grasp right away - what questions do you have? What didn't work or doesn't make sense? How might you use RSS in your personal or professional life? Find anything in your searching that you'd recommend to others?
I have a lot of experience using RSS so I really don't have any questions. I use RSS in both my personal and professional life to keep me updated on current events of interest. I am in the process of researching some of the educational gurus across the country that are blogging. I would like to keep up with the Dufours and Wormeli's of the world. Some good friends of mine locally are blogging through www.middleschoolmatters.com
for all you middle school educators. They recommend using NetNewsWriter as an aggregator/reader. I also believe www.nmsa.com is well worth while for all middle school educators.
I have a lot of experience using RSS so I really don't have any questions. I use RSS in both my personal and professional life to keep me updated on current events of interest. I am in the process of researching some of the educational gurus across the country that are blogging. I would like to keep up with the Dufours and Wormeli's of the world. Some good friends of mine locally are blogging through www.middleschoolmatters.com
for all you middle school educators. They recommend using NetNewsWriter as an aggregator/reader. I also believe www.nmsa.com is well worth while for all middle school educators.
Thing 4
It's easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of blogs out there - how do you handle information overload and how do you think RSS might help with that?
I love RSS. It is probably one of the few things I have figured out in Web 2.0. I have a My Yahoo account that organizes all my feeds for me. I rely on it heavily to me keep me up to date on current events on many various topics. In addition, the Mail carrier on my Mac has an RSS link as well. It is really convenient to receive updates through my email. I have them organized in different folders so I can skip through fairly quickly. I did not know about sites like Bloglines. I can see where they would be useful, but I really like my set up a little a better between My Yahoo and my email options.
I love RSS. It is probably one of the few things I have figured out in Web 2.0. I have a My Yahoo account that organizes all my feeds for me. I rely on it heavily to me keep me up to date on current events on many various topics. In addition, the Mail carrier on my Mac has an RSS link as well. It is really convenient to receive updates through my email. I have them organized in different folders so I can skip through fairly quickly. I did not know about sites like Bloglines. I can see where they would be useful, but I really like my set up a little a better between My Yahoo and my email options.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Thing 3
How might a blog support the work you do? How might blogs be used in and out of the classroom? What concerns do you have about educational blogging?
The blog that is swirling in my head would provide the information I send out to staff in my weekly bulletin as well as interesting links, videos, podcasts, etc. I would also like to use my blog as forum to showcase all the great things going on in our classrooms. Could I also use it to survey my parents on various issues and/or ideas for changes to our school? It feels more like a website creation with various links to the the different stakeholders??? Again, one stop shopping for me is very appealing while providing some tech leadership to my staff. I guess I just need to start something and craft it along the way. There are some great examples out there. It is not like I need to reinvent the wheel.
I really don't have any concerns about educational blogging. There is obviously a ton of information out there. It becomes an exercise in finding the material you want to learn from and sharing it with staff. I am excited to start researching....
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Thing 1 and Thing 2
Why are you participating in 23 Things? What do you hope to learn? What new insights did you have during Thing 1? How does writing on the Internet, knowing anyone could read it, challenge or motivate you, or change how you write?
I registered for 23 Things to further my technology education. I am hoping to gain insight into potential curriculum changes for my middle school computer/technology classes. I am hoping to move from a keyboarding focus to a Web 2.0 focus.
After reading the article "A Day in the Life of Web 2.0" and watching "Pay Attention", it was eye opening to see how far I have to go to lead these necessary changes. These tools/skills are necessary in today's education to keep our students interested in the education they receive. I know that neither I nor my staff are currently equipped to bring these necessary skills to our students. It is time to start the process of change.....
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