Thing 23

Take a few moments to reflect on your journey. You've covered a lot of material over the past ten weeks. What does it all mean? How has your thinking changed between Thing 1 and Thing 23? Do you see the trends that Hargadon writes about in a different light than when you read about them in Thing 1? Has this program changed how you view the Internet or how you view education in the digital world? What plans have you made for using these tools in and out of the classroom? How will you continue to learn about Web 2.0 tools? What are your big "take aways" from this experience? The biggest "take aways" for me after covering all of the material has been that we are not mere one-way recipients of information. For real learning to occur then we must look at concepts in a variety of different ways, we must collaborate with others, share with others, and practice muliple ways to access and give information. It's not enough to simply teach our students facts. They must learn to access information themselves and they should have they opportunity to learn with others. When I began on Thing 1 I never dreamed of the many different ways there were available to impart information and learning experiences to my students. Allowing them time to collaborate and share their ideas with their peers is very important and often overlooked in a classroom setting. I am realizing now how highly social humans are and how important it is to communicate our thoughts and feelings to others. There is no one way to receive information and it shouldn't take multiple steps and lots of time to receive information. There are also multiple ways to allow our students to prove their understanding of concepts on a higher level. These 23 things should be utilized to challenge our students. I can't believe how many tools there are to utilize in the classroom and I feel as though my learning has just scratched the surface. I definitely feel motivated to use many of these tools I have learned about and wish I had more time to get started. I enjoyed this journey!

Thing 22

In your blog post be sure to include the link to your wiki. Then discuss your feelings about using a wiki. How does a wiki differ from a blog? When is one more appropriate to use than the other? The link to my wiki is http://elaplus.wikispaces.com/ I think I need to learn more about wikis before I could use them well in the classroom. I tried to set up a project within my wiki, but I'm not sure how that works exactly. I set up my home page with the beginnings of an assignment, but I wasn't sure where the students could begin to add their work and edit. Can you add a page to the home page or do you create a project as I did? It seems as though the primary difference between a blog and a wiki is that students can contribute work toward a blog, but cannot change the design of the blog itself. Students can be more involved in the actual design of a wiki. It seems as though if you just wanted students to prove their understanding of something, then a blog would be most suitable. If students created the project from scratch, then maybe a wiki would be more suitable. I have always used a blog and so I am most comfortable with it. I think you would have to monitor a wiki much more carefully, but it would give students more creative license.

Thing 21

Describe a wiki you found that inspires you to create one of your own. What hurdles might stand in the way of your using a wiki? What would it take to remove the hurdles? Is it worth the fight? I loved the idea of a school having its own Wiki page. I looked at the Arbor Heights Elementary School Wiki. It would really be nice to have a school website Wiki page that many people had access to. I noticed that it had a calendar on its page that everyone could update as needed. There were even classroom supply lists posted that teachers would be able to set up and change as needed. I guess that the good thing about having a school Wiki page like this one is that the information would more than likely be current and accurate. It would also make less work for any one person. Collaboration is a great thing. I also enjoyed looking at the classroom Wiki pages, such as the Cool Cat Teacher Blog on the Westwood Schools Wiki page. This teacher has a wonderful blog set up that contains many different pages. She has projects set up on her blog that students can edit and contribute to. I was really inspired by this. I can see that one hurdle that might stand in my way is that it would simply take a lot of monitoring once the Wiki page is set up. I would have to look to make sure that any student contribution is accurate and appropriate. Just as Wikipedia is not always a trusted resource, my Wiki page might not always contain accurate student work. If the quality of the Wiki page isn't great, it could adversely affect the learning of other students who might receive someone's false information. It would take a really organized teacher to maintain an accurage, focused Wiki page. I believe if I were to start out with just a small project, I could really learn a lot about how to manage a Wiki page and I know it would be enjoyable for my students. I would just have to make sure that students were really learning from the experience!

Thing 20

Include in your post the name of at least one podcast to which you subscribed. Describe your experience using the various search tools. Which do you prefer and why? I just subscribed to the Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips, which is a writing/grammar podcast that has apparently won awards. I listened to the description of it during Thing 19 and it piqued my interest. I subscribed to this podcast for free in I Tunes. I am really used to using I Tunes already, so it was really easy. I also enjoyed browsing the Podcast Alley site, but I agree that you would have to be careful if your students were on this site. I saw lots of explicit podcasts that I wouldn't want my students to have access to. Any of the sites that I just learned about seem easy enough to use. I look forward to having more time to browse these sites and subscribe to more podcasts!

Thing 19

Which podcasts did you find interesting? Identify one or two podcasts and describe how you would use them in your work. (Be sure to include links in your blog entry to the podcasts mentioned.) I loved browsing and learning about the different types of podcasts available. Now that I have learned what they are, I am very motivated to use them and maybe even create my own with students. I loved the podcasts created by students, for students. I was really impressed with the RadioWillowWeb site. I will include the link for this site. Radio WillowWeb This site included many different subjects that students have researched and reported on. What a great way to celebrate learning! It is obvious that students have taken ownership for their learning topics and feel confident about what they have learned. I can see myself having students create podcasts at the culmination of a unit of study. I read a novel with my students this year and wish I could have assigned chapters to students and had them create a podcast for their chapter. I also enjoyed the professional development podcasts that I browsed. Our principal often gives us informatin about Mike Flanagan's podcasts. These podcasts are helpful in allowing us to stay current in our knowledge of education in the state of Michigan. Here is Mike Flanagan's link. MI State Superintendent of Education, Mike Flanagan Although I am not a science teacher, I know that our district currently is struggling with low science MEAP scores. I'll bet that science teachers could really benefit from the K-12 Science in Michigan site by Dave Bydlowski. He really does a great job of breaking down the standards by grade level. This could be a real help to science teachers. Here is that link. K12 Science in Michigan

Thing 18

What did you like about the presentation you embedded? How might Slideshare be useful in the classroom? out of the classroom? Here is a Slideshare presentation that I might be interested in showing my students. This presentation focused on using non-fiction reading strategies effectively. I really liked this presentation because it listed many familiar strategies used in tackling the reading of non-fiction. The presentation is simplistic, yet full of information. It is colorful and appealing. I could create my own presentation, but why reinvent the wheel? I think it would be so helpful to be able to search for presentations to use with my students without having to do all of the difficult work of creating them myself. I noticed that some of the more popular presentations were simple how-to presentations that could be placed on a blog or site to help students. These presentations would be very helpful tools. I noticed that they even had a travel section of presentations. I love to travel when out of the classroom. I can see myself watching a presentation before taking a trip somewhere. You could receive lots of helpful travel tips.

Reading Strategies

View more PowerPoint from Barbara Yardley

Thing 17

Give a review of the tool you explored - what worked, what didn't work, how might it be used in your personal or professional life?

I set up an account for Remember the Milk.  I have struggled to find the best way to stay organized.  Like most people, I have commitments at work and at home.  Many people use their Google calendar, but I haven't used mine yet.  The Remember the Milk site allows people to set up an account and then to set up tasks that they must complete or appointments to remember.  The tasks/appointments can be tagged and given priority level.  These tasks are also sent as reminders to your e-mail account.  I had a lot of fun playing around on this site and could see myself using it for sure.  It really helps me to receive an e-mail reminder.  I check my e-mail often throughout the day.  Sometimes I forget to check my paper calendar, so an e-mail reminder would work really well for me.

Everything seemed to work well for me on this site.  There are shortcut letters on this site that stand for certain things.  It would probably take a while to learn the shortcuts and what they stand for if you were to attach those to your appointments/tasks.  Maybe I wouldn't even necessarily need to use them.

I would use this site both in my personal and professional life.  I could keep track of my work deadlines and obligations as well as my social calendar and daughter's activities.