Well, I wish I was here on the final day of class, because this was definitely one of my favorite classes in this program. I'm a Web 2.0 fanatic, and I often was depressed at the lack of innovative tools used in this program. Or, if they were used, they were used as novelty, as if the instructor had just discovered it, and the class never fully got to dive very deep into the tool. Excel was always favored over Google Spreadsheets, if you get my drift.
The last year was much improved as the program started to finally catch up. I hope that the hiring of some new, innovative adjunct staff is a beacon for more innovative instruction.
As for the class, well Tuesday, it was really nice to hear from Meg Ormiston and Charlene Entman. They both had a handful of links and tools. I thought it was Meg who wrote a book I read a couple years ago, but alas, it was someone else. Lately, everyone is saying they are writing a book, and I looked up Meg's books, and they look helpful for young educators.
About CIPA/COPPA - it was nice to see the lightbulb go off in some of our classmate's eyes, as they learned about some myths surrounding those Acts. I didn't realize that schools that didn't receive funds didn't actually have to adhere to them, and furthermore, it's to be noted how loose the interpretation can be on those laws. I have seen some schools create their own curriculum for adhering to them (which I admire very much, as the cracker-jack curricula are terrible).
We shared many tools and videos regarding the law tonight, and I bookmarked all of them. In my absence on Thursday, I spent some time over the past few days collecting some more tools and sharing them to the group.
http://groups.diigo.com/group/tie-542-summer-2010
Overall, I was really hoping some more folks would get into Diigo, but it only seemed to be a few of us adding to the group. Maybe others were just "observing," as that is something I see a lot of newbies do. Which is fine. I hope that after six weeks, that enough time as passed for some of the students in this class to actually buy-in to some of these tools, like Twitter or the PLN so that we can continue to connect or share. I hope they keep trying to reach out in this way.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Reflection #4
What a great week this was. Seems like this class is finally finding it's groove. Although I think that some of the folks in class can be awfully talky, I like how many of the students in the class are inquiring about the tools being offered. What I further enjoy is that the interest in Twitter is growing and growing and growing. The interesting part of that fact is that it has taken, what, six weeks to get everyone opening their eyes to the whole thing.
It makes me think back to the one-off Twitter presentations that I have given and that I've gone to that may inspired teachers to start using Twitter, only to have to have their use of the tool die off after a while. Some of our fellow students have asked me to show them my Twitter account and how I use it, so I'm glad I can be a resource for them. That's what I want to be.
As for the rest of the week, I was interested to hear and help Todd with his project about cyberbullying, which looks like it is coming along. I absolutely love Jon Orech, I enjoy talking to him- he's so down to earth. He also has this childlike curiosity about him, which, as an educator at his age, I'm delighted to see. How often do you see adults (and older adults) excited about technology and sharing websites and their favorite tools. What I also like is that he talks about storytelling, when you'd think he'd want to talk about football or sports.
I also enjoy the talk about creating a PLN. I recently wrote a post about the term PLN, which attempts to go against the grain with that term. It's a term which I feel is very "markety" and I don't think it does innovative educators justice. I don't know that the term has hit it's tipping point, and I've love it if it was changed. Even my fellow students in this class didn't like it, and thought that the term was confusing to new teachers. So, I'm not the only one who doesn't like this.
As for Voicethread, I'm glad everyone had a chance to play with the tool. It's still not my favorite tool, mostly because I don't like the choppyness of the playback. I wonder if that's why my students lose interest on the playback. However, it's great to show parents, which I'm sure that they'd love.
Overall, a great week. Picking up a lot of steam.
It makes me think back to the one-off Twitter presentations that I have given and that I've gone to that may inspired teachers to start using Twitter, only to have to have their use of the tool die off after a while. Some of our fellow students have asked me to show them my Twitter account and how I use it, so I'm glad I can be a resource for them. That's what I want to be.
As for the rest of the week, I was interested to hear and help Todd with his project about cyberbullying, which looks like it is coming along. I absolutely love Jon Orech, I enjoy talking to him- he's so down to earth. He also has this childlike curiosity about him, which, as an educator at his age, I'm delighted to see. How often do you see adults (and older adults) excited about technology and sharing websites and their favorite tools. What I also like is that he talks about storytelling, when you'd think he'd want to talk about football or sports.
I also enjoy the talk about creating a PLN. I recently wrote a post about the term PLN, which attempts to go against the grain with that term. It's a term which I feel is very "markety" and I don't think it does innovative educators justice. I don't know that the term has hit it's tipping point, and I've love it if it was changed. Even my fellow students in this class didn't like it, and thought that the term was confusing to new teachers. So, I'm not the only one who doesn't like this.
As for Voicethread, I'm glad everyone had a chance to play with the tool. It's still not my favorite tool, mostly because I don't like the choppyness of the playback. I wonder if that's why my students lose interest on the playback. However, it's great to show parents, which I'm sure that they'd love.
Overall, a great week. Picking up a lot of steam.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Learning- Live!
This week brought us many new tools. For our Thursday class, my group used a Skype group chat, which, interestingly enough, many of us had never done. It worked out fairly well, though we lost Alison a few times. But it was easy to just call her back and add her in. I was Skyping from my netbook, which I never tried before, and, again, the Skype in Linux worked fine.
I thought Deb our guest speaker was a fine proponent of creating Personal Learning Networks (though she's got to get on gaining more followers). In the beginning, though, I'm finding that many newbies to Twitter are not adding their own resources, but they are still following folks. Even the classroom discussion, our class mentioned that some of them didn't feel they had a lot to share or offer to a network or on a blog. I hope that's not true of education as a whole, or we have a lot of work to do.
Listening to some of the classroom talk, they are starting to make efforts to building their PLN, and that's encouraging to hear, although I can still hear some hesitation in their voices. What's the big deal? It makes me think about a conversation I had with a co-worker. I was trying to get her to present with me at a conference, because we had, together, made some discoveries about using Web 2.0 tools with the ESL students. She was scared straight. She said that she had no problem talking to students, but was very nervous talking to peers. Are there other teachers that are making breakthroughs with students, but aren't sharing those because they are afraid of being judged by their peers?
I think that it might be interesting to know that there's this whole class of teachers who do amazing things with their students, but are too scared to tell others. Just doing their job- then going home.
Share it!
I thought Deb our guest speaker was a fine proponent of creating Personal Learning Networks (though she's got to get on gaining more followers). In the beginning, though, I'm finding that many newbies to Twitter are not adding their own resources, but they are still following folks. Even the classroom discussion, our class mentioned that some of them didn't feel they had a lot to share or offer to a network or on a blog. I hope that's not true of education as a whole, or we have a lot of work to do.
Listening to some of the classroom talk, they are starting to make efforts to building their PLN, and that's encouraging to hear, although I can still hear some hesitation in their voices. What's the big deal? It makes me think about a conversation I had with a co-worker. I was trying to get her to present with me at a conference, because we had, together, made some discoveries about using Web 2.0 tools with the ESL students. She was scared straight. She said that she had no problem talking to students, but was very nervous talking to peers. Are there other teachers that are making breakthroughs with students, but aren't sharing those because they are afraid of being judged by their peers?
I think that it might be interesting to know that there's this whole class of teachers who do amazing things with their students, but are too scared to tell others. Just doing their job- then going home.
Share it!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Reflection for Week 2
This week we took at look at a lot of new Web 2.0 tools. We also started a Diigo group to share all of our links. I thought Thursday's class really started to hit a groove, and I'm liking all of the sharing of tools.
Edmodo: It seems that our Skype connection is getting just a little better, as it was nice to see Jeff O'Hara share his screen with us. I have to say, I have used Edmodo a little, but I was a little surprised to hear Mr. O'hara almost have trouble describing what Edmodo is. "It's like a content management, sharing, communication tool," is what Mr. O'hara described Edmodo as. I too have had trouble describing it, and that may be its greatest flaw at the moment.
Edmodo tries to do a lot of things, and like other tools like it that I've used, I'd like to see it do one thing really super well, as opposed to doing many things kind of sub-par. Right now I think sharing links and videos is its best attribute. I've used the RSS function, and it's just not robust enough for me. Plus it clogs up the stream.
Wikispaces: I'm pretty familiar with Wikispaces, so this was nothing new, although I now know why the "create users" function doesn't come up sometimes. I spent a day trying to help a fellow teacher with that one, and came up dry.
Although I've seen many of these tools before, I'm finding new ways to find tools like using http://www.go2web20.net/#tag:search That's a new one for me. Plus, I'm I'm enjoying that many of my classmates are first discovering these tools, and I like to hear their fresh take on them. Like their ideas about Twitter, or whether using technology is necessary to be an effective teacher. That's a great question that will stay with me for a long time.
DR
Edmodo: It seems that our Skype connection is getting just a little better, as it was nice to see Jeff O'Hara share his screen with us. I have to say, I have used Edmodo a little, but I was a little surprised to hear Mr. O'hara almost have trouble describing what Edmodo is. "It's like a content management, sharing, communication tool," is what Mr. O'hara described Edmodo as. I too have had trouble describing it, and that may be its greatest flaw at the moment.
Edmodo tries to do a lot of things, and like other tools like it that I've used, I'd like to see it do one thing really super well, as opposed to doing many things kind of sub-par. Right now I think sharing links and videos is its best attribute. I've used the RSS function, and it's just not robust enough for me. Plus it clogs up the stream.
Wikispaces: I'm pretty familiar with Wikispaces, so this was nothing new, although I now know why the "create users" function doesn't come up sometimes. I spent a day trying to help a fellow teacher with that one, and came up dry.
Although I've seen many of these tools before, I'm finding new ways to find tools like using http://www.go2web20.net/#tag:search That's a new one for me. Plus, I'm I'm enjoying that many of my classmates are first discovering these tools, and I like to hear their fresh take on them. Like their ideas about Twitter, or whether using technology is necessary to be an effective teacher. That's a great question that will stay with me for a long time.
DR
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Star Chart Results
These are my results of the Star Chart:
1. Hardware: Target Tech
2. Connectivity: Mid Tech
3. Content: Mid Tech
4. Professional Development: Mid Tech
5. Integration and Use: High Tech
Based on an average of your responses, your school is at the High Tech level.
Based on these results there are three ISTE Essential Conditions that this school should look at to improve.
1. Skilled personnel. While many of the personnel are first rate, they are still working on catching them up on Web 2.0 technologies. There is definitely money in professional development, and technology is a big goal for this school, so they're on their way.
2. Support policies: There are possibly inadequate policies in place to deal with many of the online learning that takes place.
3. Student Centered Learning: Until last year much of the tech integration was teacher centered. It's a process that's growing.
1. Hardware: Target Tech
2. Connectivity: Mid Tech
3. Content: Mid Tech
4. Professional Development: Mid Tech
5. Integration and Use: High Tech
Based on an average of your responses, your school is at the High Tech level.
Based on these results there are three ISTE Essential Conditions that this school should look at to improve.
1. Skilled personnel. While many of the personnel are first rate, they are still working on catching them up on Web 2.0 technologies. There is definitely money in professional development, and technology is a big goal for this school, so they're on their way.
2. Support policies: There are possibly inadequate policies in place to deal with many of the online learning that takes place.
3. Student Centered Learning: Until last year much of the tech integration was teacher centered. It's a process that's growing.
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