I actually struggled with the use of Ning. I found the site to be difficult to navigate and to find relevant materials or appropriate information. While social networking is clearly important, I’m still trying to find a meaningful way to use it in my classroom. With different state and local requirements for what schools require of the students, social networking can generate ideas that then are not able to be implemented due to restrictions of time, money, or curriculum.
I have been using my Google reader to help keep me up to date on the Olympics. As they rapidly approach it has been fascinating to see what has come into the reader. There has been everything from who made (and didn’t make) teams from around the world, to who might miss the games entirely due to injury. Speculation abounds about potential drug use at the games, and one of the biggest worries is the air quality in China and how that will affect the athletes. The political issues all seem to have taken a back seat now that the games are closer, and it will be interesting to see if they come back into the forefront once the games are here.
I started out intrigued by the idea of Pageflakes, although not exactly sure how I would use it as a regular tool. After signing up and adding the K12Learning template I quickly became overwhlemed by trying to figure out what to add to the page. Adding “stuff” seems to be relatively easy, although cumbersome initially, however as I looked at what to add I began to wonder. How useful would this actually be in a classroom? With the RSS feeds, depending on the topic, I would think it needs to be reviewed before allowing students to look at it as not everything might be student appropriate.
I like the idea of having a place where homework can be listed, as on a sticky note; however, I think the page would need to be so limited if students were to have access that it would limit the functionality too much of the website. For personal use this seems a great way to organize everything and have it all in one place.
Having tried to use You Tube for videos to show students, I am very excited about Teacher Tube. One of the worst things about You Tube is the unpredictability of what you find. There are some great videos there, however even things that sound like they would be good could contain foul language, or something not truly realted to the subject line. Teacher Tube seems to have a lot more control, and makes finding educationally sound videos much easier. I also liked the tutorial type videos on Teacher Tube for everything from Word to effective PowerPoint presentations.
I do feel that both You Tube and Teacher Tube allow for concepts to be shown to students in different ways. It also exposes them to different teaching styles on the same topic that might help them to understand the concept better. Continuing with my Flat Stanley topic from a post earlier, here is a great video that kids helped create, after completing the same unit. There is nothing but music after the credits, so don’t wait for more!
While Evoca was easy to use, I was frustrated in the fact that when a mistake was made you had to rerecord the entire podcast, and could not go back and just edit pieces of it. In many ways it reminded me of an old fashioned tape recorder, but even with that you are able to rewind and record over parts. Maybe I missed something?
So, I have previously discovered podcasts. My third grade class did one last year – you can see it on my wiki. It was a great experience both for the students and the teachers. It allowed the students hands on experience with researching information and then creating something with it that could be used to teach others, rather than just turning in a report.
The portability of a podcast is great too. It allows people to listen to them whenever, or wherever, the are. While I don’t have an mp3 player myself, two of my daughters do, and it’s great for listening to both music and podcasts as they run around with their busy lives. Having the ability to listen to radio programs at my convenience – even if on my computer at home – rather than making sure I am home at a specific time has been wonderful. NPR has loads of stuff available, and using Google Reader I have been able to keep them organized to listen to at my pleasure.
Using podcasts in educaiton is a way for students to learn valuable things. First, they must learn how to organize what they researched in a way that is orderly and makes sense. They also learn presentation skills, because even if it is an audio only podcast, the speaking must be slow, well rehearsed and easy to understand. They can then share everything easily by posting the podcast so family and friends can see at any point. Education at it’s finest!
Love the LibraryThing. What a great way to share your favorite books. I have a feelingthat it will take time to set up, and wonder when it will truly happen. However, I can see posting book lists for parents and students to use both for school related readings, as well as age appropriate resources that they can look at. With the choices you have. I wonder if school libraries would be able to use it in some fashion for students to know what was available in the library.
Also, with the recommendations feature, students could see what other books are similar to what they are already reading. Using this feature could also help a teacher or librarian to expand classroom/school collections. I can’t wait to explore more!
Social bookmarking fascinated me. It will take some time to get everything in there, but I look forward to having a set of bookmarks that follow me around. There are many times where I will try to find a site that I had previously bookmarked, but being at home it is not there. This will eliminate Google searches and lots of time wasted trying to find the best sites. I also like the networking feature where they can be shared easily with anyone around the world.
As I skimmed through my reader, I found this link about “Geek of the Week”, which actually lead me to Hotchalk, I site I have used before. However, this time I discovered they had added something called “My Desk” which contained the Geek of the Week segment. This week was a post on online sticky notes. The sites sound great, and look easy to use. I especially liked the one where I could make notes for months in advance as reminders when they would actually be relevant.
I did get sucked in to the Reader, listening to old podcasts and such from NPR, but as I now keep up with it a little more often (not quite daily yet) I hope to spend less time each day.
The tool I chose to try out was ToonDoodle. I created the following
It was fun, but a bit tedious. I had hoped to use it with my students for some of our work, however I fear that the choices are limited as to what students can do. I’m not sure what I expected, and will look at it further to see the editing capabilities. In addition, if it is possible to add things from other sites, etc it would be helpful. One thing that would make it doable is that you can set the cartoon to public, private or let friends only see it (by specifying emails).
I do feel that an upper elementary, or middle school art class might find some really cool uses for it.
