K12 Learning

I watched a short clip by Anne Davis called
Download from the 2007 K12 Online Conference. Before I viewed the clip I had to make sure I knew what the word pedagogy meant. The definition I found on dictionary.com is ‘the art or science of teaching; education; instructional methods’. That is pretty much what I thought it meant but I wanted to make sure before viewing the clip. Basically the video clip mentioned many ways that using web 2.0 technology in your classroom can help your students learn. Some of the things she mentioned that technology could do for students is grab their attention, inspire creativity, give them a way to explore the world, and always remember to laugh while learning. These were just a few of things she mentioned. The one ‘laugh while learning’ made me think of the 7 1/2 Habits…and the last habit of ‘play’ and have fun. So it all comes down to not taking on too much but realizing that using technology in your classroom will make a much more knowledgeable student for the future and you should always have fun trying to figure it all out.

This ‘thing’ was really cool. Like I keep blogging about, I know these tools and technology are out there but have never really taken the time to investigate. One of my favorites was Mixbook. As you can tell by my Wiki and some other things that we have completed in this class, I am obsessed with my 6 month old, Henry. I am also the world’s worst at scrapbooking (notice the word ‘crap’ is in the word scrapbooking which is what I say every time I think about trying to do it) So, many ideas came to me on how I could use this site. It would be great for special occasions. When you have a baby there are so many ‘firsts’. You really have to pick the ones that mean the most to you because it will drive you crazy making sure you document and then make a scrapbook for the occasion. Since making copies of your photos is now an extra step with digital cameras you can just upload the photos to Mixbook, pick your theme, and in a few days you get a bounded scrapbook. One cool feature is you can work on the scrapbook with friends. How many times do a bunch of people have pictures from the same occasion? You can submit your pictures and together make a scrapbook and order as many copies as you want. Of course there is a fee but have you ever gone to a scrapbook store and tried to get all the supplies you need? It could cost you a FORTUNE. And these days my time is limited so it would be totally worth it. I am planning on using it to make a scrapbook of our trip to Costa Rica at the end of April.

My family has always loved doing jigsaw puzzles and so I really thought JigZone was cool. My mom loves doing puzzles and sometimes she does not play well with others when working on puzzles. So it would be cool for her to make puzzles out of photos of the grandkids. Also you can test your time and compete to see with others to see who can complete a puzzle the fastest. I also like the idea that you can go from 6 piece puzzles to 247 pieces. You can also send them to people. What a cute way to send a photo! I will have to try it.

I also liked LetterPop. You could use it to make all kinds of invitations, like to Henry’s 1st b’day party (told you I am obsessed). Also it would be a good web tool to use if you are one of those people that likes to write the long ‘what the family has been doing for the past year’ letter to put in your Christmas card. I use to not be one of those people but now that we have Henry… When you create a project you can either keep it public or make it private. You can collaborate with others on your creation. And you can also make comments on other people’s projects.

I look forward to trying these tools out and checking out some other ones that classmates have checked out. My to-do list is getting quite long for this summer.

I was a little scared when I read Thing 11 but it was really easy to make my Beach Babes In the Sun slide show. The most time consuming thing was finding the photos and getting the attribrution information. Once that was all taken care of, using animoto.com was easy. Very easy!!! So I can definitely see a fun personal use for it that would not be as time consuming since I wouldn’t have to put the attribution information if I was making it using my own photos. Also some of the other slide shows would be fun to try; especially putting in text could be fun for some type of class project that needed text.

So I am pretty much obsessed with Costa Rica and found this picture of one of my favorite spots. It is of the Arenal Volcano. I found the photo on flickr taken by Ardyiii. When my husband and I were there for our honeymoon is 2005 we also got some pretty good photos and had a fairly clear day. The best part of the volcano are the hot springs. I also found this photo on flickr taken by iheartpandas. It is nature’s hot tub and it is HOT! There were some that were too hot for me. I can’t wait to go back! Maybe this April for a family wedding??

Using flickr was fun and a little time consuming. Just like any new site you have to get use to navigating it. I did not have any problem finding the photo of the Arenal volcano since I could just type in the key work Arenal and lots of photos came up. It was a little more tricky figuring out what to type for the key word to find the photo of the hot springs in Costa Rica. I found the best way was to type hot_springs and go through the photos and make sure that it was of the hot springs in Costa Rica. It was in no way difficult but  a took a little more time.

I have been trying to think of ways I could flickr in the classroom?? If anyone has any suggestions on how I would use it teaching middle school physical science please let me know. I think in my subject Google images would be a better source since my students would be looking for photos of mostly ‘things’ not people or places. But I do see how it could be used in a History lesson or as an introduction to a unit or story in English or Reading.

Honestly, I really have not thought much about what the CC meant on some of the web material that I have viewed in the past but now I know. I think that it is amazing that there is so much material available to share and use for educational purposes. I had a difficult time navigating the site at first but I keep going back and finding more cool things. I think to get to the point that I would use Creative Commons I am going to have to revamp my curriculum. I do use PowerPoint with photos and videos that I find from from the web but there is so much more out there at our disposal.  I do lots of Internet activities with my students which means I find the websites and make up the worksheets that ask questions about the information on the website. There is just so much more I can do that would be more student center. I have never really shared content on the web probably because I didn’t think I had anything worth sharing. But after listening to Will Richardson’s presentation I realize that there are so many people on web that would like to know about how and what I am teaching.

Like most of this web 2.0 technology it can be overwhelming and you will go crazy if you bite off more than you can chew.

When reading Vicki Davis’ blog post on Wiki Wiki Teaching it made me think of one of my comments in a previous post, Thing 4 Blogging, on changing my views on assessment. Is it more important to get your students excited and talking about a subject than to have a traditional test and grading? I do agree that some subjects are more conducive to this type of open discussion format. I hate to bring up the negative, but I have been burned before when I get more excited about new ideas for my kids than they do. And honestly, so many of my students want to be ’spoon fed’. So the idea of setting up a wiki page for my students to collaborate on a project might mean a few doing the work and the rest riding their coat tails. Unfortunately, there are kids that don’t like to do any of the work. I guess the thought is that if they get excited about it they will do their part, but I do think you will always have the kids that want to take the easy way out; especially in middle school.

Going through some of the available wiki projects you can understand how educators would get excited about all the possibilities on using wiki sites as a learning tool in their classroom. As far as the wikis I looked at, 1001 Flat World Tales was a little difficult to navigate. The idea is really cute and would be great for an English, Reading, or World History class. The difficulties getting around on the site could just be that I am not use to looking at wikis? But I don’t have a problem with the wiki from the K12 Learning 2.0 course.

I think Code Blue is a great resource for my 7th grade Human Biology class. It is a great way to keep up with all the Internet sites that you use during the course. If during the students’ research they find a useful website they can just add to the wiki.  They might think of it like a competition and therefore get excited about what they are studying.

 Also looking at Kindergarten Counting Book I see that any age group could use a wiki and could have fun adding to it. On this particular wiki  I am assuming that the kids are the ones that take the photos and pick the items that they want to take pictures of because some of them are a little off center and blurry. But very good photos if they were taken by a 5 year old. And I think it is a very cute idea. At that level you could do one of animals, colors, foods etc…never ending possibilities.

I think that the Google Reader can be very overwhelming and I can see how people might stop being productive at their jobs, unless their job is to read blogs all day, since there are so many blogs to read. But over the last week I have been able to get a system going on checking my reader and it is not as overwhelming. Now it is just addicting I find that I have some favorites that I check more often than some of the other blogs. I keep going back to CoolCatTeacher and wonder how in the world she finds the time to do all that she does? But I saw on her blog a post on Being a Human Being… and it has a great list on how to handle all the web technology that is available to us today. The one that I find fascinating is #5) Automate. I had NO idea that all those ‘magic’ things existed. But it seems like you would have to use them in order to facilitate all the technology. I also like the idea of filtering your gmail account and plan on setting up folders for my emails to go to directly. Of course, my favorite step is #6) that you can’t forget to relax and enjoy life and your family. #6) is more my speed and hope to find a nice balance between the two.

I have also subscribed to a Physical Science blog. It is basically an online classroom. The teacher posts his assignments, extra credit assignments, upcoming projects etc…It is similar to Edline but I like the idea of possibly making some of the assignments incorporate the students making comments and being part of the blog. Also it is great to check out what other physical science teachers are assigning to ‘borrow’ ideas for your classroom.  I plan on searching for other physical science blogs. It is a great way to stay updated and see new ways teachers are presenting old information.

Plagiarism

Looking through Students 2.0 I really enjoyed reading the insightful blog posting by Stacy on Plagiarism. (Did I cite her blog well enough? I was just having a discussion with another 7th grade science teacher about plagiarism regarding the science project lab reports that we were grading. And like Stacy and others that commented on her blog, it is such a gray area. And even as teachers we are not sure how to go about dealing with the problem. It is so important to acknowledge it and have consequences for doing it, but what?? And is one type of plagiarism not as bad as another? But we are doing our 7th grade students a disservice if we don’t, every chance we get, pound in their litte heads that plagiarism is unacceptable and if you think for 1 second that maybe I should cite that work then you should. At this level I also look at it more as a life lesson. You never want to take credit for work that is not yours. It is cheating. Keep it simple. And even if a teacher has not mentioned plagiarism or discussed how points will be deducted etc… assume if you get information that is not yours you better cite where you got the information from, no matter what. Better cite than sorry

I guess the first thing that comes to mind about blogging is that you can blog about anything and there are people out there that are going to want to comment about it. The world is full of people that want to tell people what they are thinking and what a great place to do it. I am personally not one of those people but can already see that I could start really getting into blogging.

The one thing that works for me as far as blogging is that I am not a very good speller and my grammar isn’t great either. (which you have probably already noticed  So in more formal writing situations I tend to feel anxiety and I am more worried about using fancy words then I am about the content. Blogging being less formal gives me the opportunity to voice my opinion without worrying too much about my spelling and grammatical errors.

I do think that blogging can facilitate learning but I will have to let go of my traditional thoughts on assessment. That maybe getting kids interested in topics and open discussions is just as good, if not better, than a matching and short answer test that the students forget the material the minute the test is over.  Blogging gets the creative juices flowing and the comments can make the discussion go in a totally new direction that the person posting probably did not even think about.

When reading some of the blog post the one that I thought was really interesting was CoolCatTeacher’s Spies Like Us. I think that if you are going to use blogs and other technology that you have to be willing to ‘police’ what is being put out there by your students. And make sure there are clear consequences when the rules are broken.

It is kind of funny how excited I am about this course. I just think that there are so many amazing things out there for us to use and I have just been putting off learning about them. Maybe thinking that it would go away??? But it is not going away so I have had to change my thought process and jump on the technology bandwagon. It is a little scary but with my buddies and coach I know that I am going to be ok.

The kids I teach all have laptops and I have been wanting to do more than just the notes on word or occasional powerpoint presentation. I need to take it up a level or two. I would also like to take so much paper out of my system. I do that a little with Edline but the blogging and pod casts I think could be really cool to do. Maybe even use it for kids to study together and help each other work out problems that they don’t understand??? I hope to soon get some other ideas on how to use Web 2.0 in my class.