Sandbox Wiki
I like having the option of editing a site. When I added an entry under photos and images, I noticed how there were two voicethread comments that were seperated by other texts so then I cut and pasted it to be right after another. I like things organized on websites! I also cut out extra space between paragraphs and put a headline here and there above other people's comments. This all stems from my journalism editing background! :-P
I think wikis might be fun way to track my family history and work on it with my relatives. We could all contribute and also add family stories on the site as well. This sounds like a great project to take on next summer (new school year is approaching, no time!)! We can also share family photos and keep in touch with one another, know family news, updates, etc.
OTHERS I ADDED (again, I am anal and have to organize the page by placing all the comments about one topic together, LOL!):
Downloadable Audio
Downloadable audio books are great for multitaskers like myself who cannot sit and read a long book unless they are in a restricted environment (like an airplane). I enjoy listening to books on tape/cd from the library, but this is even more convienent, just download the book online! I can listen to a story while cleaning the house. I can also see how this would benefit students who have a difficult time reading. They can use the audio and follow along in their novel and make a connection between the written word and the audio sound. Mandy Y. 2008
Blogs
Last year I used my classroom blog to display my students Voicethread projects since SiteBuilder is so old and a hassle to use. I do not need a district connection to edit or post items which is really nice. I will be using my classroom blog this year to keep parents up-to-date about what is going on in the classroom. I would like my students to take pictures in our class and post it on our blog for parents to see. Mandy Y. 2008
Links
eHub
"She writes about web and user experience design, technology, and next generation web" like Web 2.0. At her site, she makes posts about new tools that you can use, ie., Kwik Surveys, if you want to create free and easy surveys. I found this listed on her site - a TO DO LIST at http://www.nowdothis.com/ Check it out. You have to list the items in order of what you want done first. Emily Chang's tags her blogs so they are categorized. Under Education and then Kids, I came across something useful for parents, zefty.com. Emily says Zefty is "a money expense tracker that allows you to track and manage your child's allowance & spending online. Your kids can easily learn about money management while parents gain quality time with their kids." AND IT'S FREE!! Mandy Y. 2008
Photos
Photo Editing
Gimp.org is used for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It can also be used as a simple paint program. Some of the options it has is: photo enhancing, digital retouching, you can save your image in different formats. I think it is almost like Photoshop but easier!
Online Application & Tools
http://dotlrn.org
".LRN is a global community of educators, designers, and software developers who partner together to drive educational innovation." It offers these tools:
Assessment Forums
E-Mail/Bulk mail LORS Central (Learning Object Repository)
Calendar LORS Management
Curriculum News
.LRN Photo Album
.LRN Ecommerce Project Manager
Homework Dropbox Staff List
Edit this page Survey
Gradebook/Evaluation Syllabus
Expenses Tracking User Tracking
FAQs Weblogger
File Storage Slide presentations
There are no license fees for using the software!
Mandy Y. 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Week 7, Thing 16
The first I heard of wikis was when I was invited to join and "tagged" by my co-ed service fraternity when they created a wiki of our chapter/organization. http://www.apogb.org/wiki/index.php?title=Alpha_Phi_Omega_Gamma_Beta
The wiki lists our history, records, members, and cardinal principles of our organization. I viewed it but I never participated in editing any of the content because I wasn't familiar with editing and so forth.
Then this past spring I attended ASTE conference and encountered this thing called Wikis but used by a school, Bering Strait School District. On the mainpage is their curriculm, standards, vision, etc. But then there are links to the different grade levels where you can see different units posted by teachers for parents. Wikis seems like a great way to communicate with parents and the rest of the community. During this ASTE class, I also heard about wikis also can be used between two different schools to collaberate on one project.
Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki
I found this one to be great for librarians - it was very informative. Like the wiki said, they intended it to be a "one-stop shop" for information for librarians.
teacherlibrarianwiki
This wiki space is for librarians to share knowledge about teaching, presentations, lessons, units, etc.
What I like about wikis is that it gives you a list of contents for you to instantly jump to that section/content information. It breaks information down for you so you can find what you are looking for quickly.
I also decided to google about what could you do about wikis and found a great article from about.com.
http://personalweb.about.com/od/wikihostingandsoftware/a/511wiki.htm
It gave me other ideas I hadn't thought of to use wikis for - photo album and planning a special event (always used evite.com or facebook events). It led me to http://jimbbq.wikispaces.com/ called We-Write, a wiki site for people to write stories together! That is a way to incorporate it into the classrooms.
I also found how teachers can use wikis (http://writingwiki.org):
How can teachers use wikis to facilitate teaching, writing development, and learning?
-Provide a space for free writing
-Debate course topics, including assigned readings
-Share resources such as annotated bibliographies, websites, effective writing samples, conferences, calls for manuscripts
-Maintain a journal of work performed on group projects
-Require students to collaborate on documents, such as an essay written by the entire class
-Discuss curricular and instructional innovations
-Encourage students to revise Wikipedia pages or take on new wikipedia assignments
-Inspire students to write a Wikibook
-Support service learning projects (i.e. use wikis to build a website about a challenge in their city)
The wiki lists our history, records, members, and cardinal principles of our organization. I viewed it but I never participated in editing any of the content because I wasn't familiar with editing and so forth.
Then this past spring I attended ASTE conference and encountered this thing called Wikis but used by a school, Bering Strait School District. On the mainpage is their curriculm, standards, vision, etc. But then there are links to the different grade levels where you can see different units posted by teachers for parents. Wikis seems like a great way to communicate with parents and the rest of the community. During this ASTE class, I also heard about wikis also can be used between two different schools to collaberate on one project.
Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki
I found this one to be great for librarians - it was very informative. Like the wiki said, they intended it to be a "one-stop shop" for information for librarians.
teacherlibrarianwiki
This wiki space is for librarians to share knowledge about teaching, presentations, lessons, units, etc.
What I like about wikis is that it gives you a list of contents for you to instantly jump to that section/content information. It breaks information down for you so you can find what you are looking for quickly.
I also decided to google about what could you do about wikis and found a great article from about.com.
http://personalweb.about.com/od/wikihostingandsoftware/a/511wiki.htm
It gave me other ideas I hadn't thought of to use wikis for - photo album and planning a special event (always used evite.com or facebook events). It led me to http://jimbbq.wikispaces.com/ called We-Write, a wiki site for people to write stories together! That is a way to incorporate it into the classrooms.
I also found how teachers can use wikis (http://writingwiki.org):
How can teachers use wikis to facilitate teaching, writing development, and learning?
-Provide a space for free writing
-Debate course topics, including assigned readings
-Share resources such as annotated bibliographies, websites, effective writing samples, conferences, calls for manuscripts
-Maintain a journal of work performed on group projects
-Require students to collaborate on documents, such as an essay written by the entire class
-Discuss curricular and instructional innovations
-Encourage students to revise Wikipedia pages or take on new wikipedia assignments
-Inspire students to write a Wikibook
-Support service learning projects (i.e. use wikis to build a website about a challenge in their city)
Week 6, Thing 15
Library 2.0 Articles
One of the articles I read was the wikipedia post and it discussed what Library 2.0 was all about, how it was coined after Business 2.0 and Web 2.0, sharing some of the same philosophies. What I found interesting was the short section about the debate about Library 2.0. Some argue, as I read in some articles, that libraries have already been doing some of the things they listed Library 2.0 to be today. What some authors wanted to emphasize with the new Library 2.0 is that it goes beyond what libraries were before in a sense of having "users add value" (To More Powerful Ways to Cooperate). It is said that the focus has become more user-centered and users can participate "in the creation of content and community" (Wikipedia). It is more than a place that treasures books and librarians with an extensive knowledge about compiling and catologing.
I personally have seen a change in our public libraries. Long ago I use to sit in front of a tv screen with headphones and watch a video in the library or books on tape. Now libraries are beginning to have digital downloads of books! Although I find it amazing, I do hope digital books will never replace books physically; there is something nice about having a book you can read in your hands than sitting and reading it on a computer screen. I can see the library making efforts to become a Library 2.0. I might not have ever paid attention before, but it seemed like this is the first summer I remember the local library having a summer reading program for adults and have adults write reviews on books. I wonder if the library will be using this review for something.
What I would love to see in school libraries is for it to be similar to Amazon.com where users can review and rate a book. How great would it be to have students write reviews? Document their thoughts and opinions about books? See what books are popular or recommended by their peers? As a teacher, I think it would be great to know what kids thought about books they've read or have listened to. Kindergartners are capable of rating books by stars based on whether they liked the book.
One of the articles I read was the wikipedia post and it discussed what Library 2.0 was all about, how it was coined after Business 2.0 and Web 2.0, sharing some of the same philosophies. What I found interesting was the short section about the debate about Library 2.0. Some argue, as I read in some articles, that libraries have already been doing some of the things they listed Library 2.0 to be today. What some authors wanted to emphasize with the new Library 2.0 is that it goes beyond what libraries were before in a sense of having "users add value" (To More Powerful Ways to Cooperate). It is said that the focus has become more user-centered and users can participate "in the creation of content and community" (Wikipedia). It is more than a place that treasures books and librarians with an extensive knowledge about compiling and catologing.
I personally have seen a change in our public libraries. Long ago I use to sit in front of a tv screen with headphones and watch a video in the library or books on tape. Now libraries are beginning to have digital downloads of books! Although I find it amazing, I do hope digital books will never replace books physically; there is something nice about having a book you can read in your hands than sitting and reading it on a computer screen. I can see the library making efforts to become a Library 2.0. I might not have ever paid attention before, but it seemed like this is the first summer I remember the local library having a summer reading program for adults and have adults write reviews on books. I wonder if the library will be using this review for something.
What I would love to see in school libraries is for it to be similar to Amazon.com where users can review and rate a book. How great would it be to have students write reviews? Document their thoughts and opinions about books? See what books are popular or recommended by their peers? As a teacher, I think it would be great to know what kids thought about books they've read or have listened to. Kindergartners are capable of rating books by stars based on whether they liked the book.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Chapter 9: New Schools
In this chapter, it was mentioned how we should be using the same tools in the classroom as at home. In an ideal world, that would be wonderful but in reality, there are parts of the country, or even the world, that may not have the same level of technology the school may have that they have at home, like in low-income schools. I do, however, feel that it is a great goal, for schools to "use new tools to create new models of technology-infused teaching and learning." This is the direction we are moving towards; it only seems logical to move with this "technology movement."
In the future, it would be amazing to have a electronic personal education assistant. In fact, I wouldn't mind having it now! How great would it be to have one that pretty much functions how I shop on Amazon.com. I look at a product, and based on that, it suggests other products I may be interested or products that other people viewed as well after looking at that product. Imagine all the time that has been saved between teacher and student of discovering what the best way for this student to learn. The teacher then is able to focus more on guiding the student and enhance his or her learning even more! Some day, some day....
David Warlick's vision of what a Web 2.0 school should look like would be ideal. The tough part is getting all teachers and staff on board. It does scare me how that if we do not continue to push forward, we will be left behind. This gap of "what is" and "what should be" is holding us back. Teachers are still assigning students to present their work on a display board when they should be presenting their work with technology! How are we preparing our 6th graders into middle school without learning how to make a powerpoint presentation? It's time to move on! I hope that college education programs are now adding this to the curriculum. I know that in my program, we were not taught many tech programs, just the basics with excel, word, powerpoint - pretty much Microsoft office. How nice would it be if we had incoming teachers already equipped with Web 2.0 knowledge?
Again, coming back to reality - time. Time, time, time - teachers and staff members want to know where they can get more of this "time." Yes, it takes time to learn new things, but using these tools personally will not only excite us more to teach it, but we will become more comfortable in using and hopefully more comfortable in embracing new technological changes. I hear many times how "great" teachers have it because they have the summer off. Yes, we have the summer's off from teaching, but guess how I spend my summer, and many other teachers spend their summer? Learning, taking classes, doing what they can to better their ways of teaching. This is where I find my "time" to learn new things....
I noticed a lot of "what if's" in this chapter...what if we could stop buying textbooks? How great would that be! In college, I spend hundreds of dollars each semester and when I went to sell it back at the end, guess what, the company came out with a new edition. How many times has this happened to you? This could also be a way of saving the Earth! No more expensive and heavy textbooks! I vote for this!
That was an interesting article, "Creators in the Classroom" by Jeff Utecht. He stated that students are in a social web - kids want a wider audience than their teacher and their peers. Going back to the basics of teaching, we learned that students do a lot better and try harder in activities and in their work when it is going to be presented to an audience. Nobody wants to be a fool; they want to have pride in their work. Nothing has changed in that concept; it is still the same. Social sites turn our students into creators, Utecht says. Myspace, for example, you can check out the wide variety of options available to "decorate" your "space." Even young teens have figured out where to get these html codes, where to insert them in their profile to create intricuite and dazzling themed pages. They've learned to add songs or even create a playlist on their "space." Young teens have learned how to create slideshows using Rockon, etc. and post them on their "space." This is the world we live in today; why not play upon the knowledge and interests these students? Like Utecht continues to state, "If we want to motivate students to create something, something that will last beyond the classroom and the school year, then we must find ways to use these social-networking tools in the classroom."
David Warlick's article, "Learning From Games," was another one I found interesting. His points on the benefits of games was quite convincing to me! When we examine kids playing games, we really need to "study the experience," pay attention to what they learn from it, not it's graphics of sound. He talks about how the responsiviness of games are to kids - it's what they are in to today. The rewards of games are great - kids want to get to the next level. Not only is it for bragging purposes, but they want to see the new challenges that they are faced with in the next level.
I just wanted to note that Chapter 10 offers tutorials that may be good for people for more tools they can use!
In the future, it would be amazing to have a electronic personal education assistant. In fact, I wouldn't mind having it now! How great would it be to have one that pretty much functions how I shop on Amazon.com. I look at a product, and based on that, it suggests other products I may be interested or products that other people viewed as well after looking at that product. Imagine all the time that has been saved between teacher and student of discovering what the best way for this student to learn. The teacher then is able to focus more on guiding the student and enhance his or her learning even more! Some day, some day....
David Warlick's vision of what a Web 2.0 school should look like would be ideal. The tough part is getting all teachers and staff on board. It does scare me how that if we do not continue to push forward, we will be left behind. This gap of "what is" and "what should be" is holding us back. Teachers are still assigning students to present their work on a display board when they should be presenting their work with technology! How are we preparing our 6th graders into middle school without learning how to make a powerpoint presentation? It's time to move on! I hope that college education programs are now adding this to the curriculum. I know that in my program, we were not taught many tech programs, just the basics with excel, word, powerpoint - pretty much Microsoft office. How nice would it be if we had incoming teachers already equipped with Web 2.0 knowledge?
Again, coming back to reality - time. Time, time, time - teachers and staff members want to know where they can get more of this "time." Yes, it takes time to learn new things, but using these tools personally will not only excite us more to teach it, but we will become more comfortable in using and hopefully more comfortable in embracing new technological changes. I hear many times how "great" teachers have it because they have the summer off. Yes, we have the summer's off from teaching, but guess how I spend my summer, and many other teachers spend their summer? Learning, taking classes, doing what they can to better their ways of teaching. This is where I find my "time" to learn new things....
I noticed a lot of "what if's" in this chapter...what if we could stop buying textbooks? How great would that be! In college, I spend hundreds of dollars each semester and when I went to sell it back at the end, guess what, the company came out with a new edition. How many times has this happened to you? This could also be a way of saving the Earth! No more expensive and heavy textbooks! I vote for this!
That was an interesting article, "Creators in the Classroom" by Jeff Utecht. He stated that students are in a social web - kids want a wider audience than their teacher and their peers. Going back to the basics of teaching, we learned that students do a lot better and try harder in activities and in their work when it is going to be presented to an audience. Nobody wants to be a fool; they want to have pride in their work. Nothing has changed in that concept; it is still the same. Social sites turn our students into creators, Utecht says. Myspace, for example, you can check out the wide variety of options available to "decorate" your "space." Even young teens have figured out where to get these html codes, where to insert them in their profile to create intricuite and dazzling themed pages. They've learned to add songs or even create a playlist on their "space." Young teens have learned how to create slideshows using Rockon, etc. and post them on their "space." This is the world we live in today; why not play upon the knowledge and interests these students? Like Utecht continues to state, "If we want to motivate students to create something, something that will last beyond the classroom and the school year, then we must find ways to use these social-networking tools in the classroom."
David Warlick's article, "Learning From Games," was another one I found interesting. His points on the benefits of games was quite convincing to me! When we examine kids playing games, we really need to "study the experience," pay attention to what they learn from it, not it's graphics of sound. He talks about how the responsiviness of games are to kids - it's what they are in to today. The rewards of games are great - kids want to get to the next level. Not only is it for bragging purposes, but they want to see the new challenges that they are faced with in the next level.
I just wanted to note that Chapter 10 offers tutorials that may be good for people for more tools they can use!
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Comments on other people's blogs
Booklover - yankiddos said...
Hi - Facebook originally started off for college students only, then they started opening it up to HS students and then to everyone else...it was a little weird going from seeing my college friends and then seeing their parents on facebook!
July 17, 2008 4:39 PM
Staci's Web 2.0 - "Week 5/Thing 12: Voice Thread" - yankiddos said...
Very cute voicethread! I love how you used your son to narrate! On your next one, you can continue to use him but have him also comment on several photos, ie. pics from your garagae sale or a family outing! It would be so fun for your relatives to be "taken along" a family trip! I am sure they would love hearing your son's cute voice!
July 28, 2008 12:35 PM
AK Sunshine - "Week 5: Thing #11 ... Ning"
HI! I think that is a great idea to use a ning to keep in touch with the family and use it to organize a family reunion. Many of these tools that we learned in the class, I try to think about how I can use it in my personal life as well. If I feel comfortable using these tools personally, I think that using them for teaching and in the classroom would be much easier!
Posts Katie Found:
Sonic Shade #7; Polar bear musings wk 2 #3/4
Hi - Facebook originally started off for college students only, then they started opening it up to HS students and then to everyone else...it was a little weird going from seeing my college friends and then seeing their parents on facebook!
July 17, 2008 4:39 PM
Staci's Web 2.0 - "Week 5/Thing 12: Voice Thread" - yankiddos said...
Very cute voicethread! I love how you used your son to narrate! On your next one, you can continue to use him but have him also comment on several photos, ie. pics from your garagae sale or a family outing! It would be so fun for your relatives to be "taken along" a family trip! I am sure they would love hearing your son's cute voice!
July 28, 2008 12:35 PM
AK Sunshine - "Week 5: Thing #11 ... Ning"
HI! I think that is a great idea to use a ning to keep in touch with the family and use it to organize a family reunion. Many of these tools that we learned in the class, I try to think about how I can use it in my personal life as well. If I feel comfortable using these tools personally, I think that using them for teaching and in the classroom would be much easier!
Posts Katie Found:
Sonic Shade #7; Polar bear musings wk 2 #3/4
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Week 6, Thing 14
Discovery Exercise:
1. Take a look at Technorati and try doing a keyword search for “School Library Learning 2.0” in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory. Are the results different?
Results
Posts - 3
Blogs - 19
When I searched in advanced in searched in tags, I came across the same three post, same blogs listed as well. I came across no results when I searched in quotes.
2. Explore popular blog, searches and tags. Is anything interesting or surprising in your results?
It was interesting to see "Education" as one of the top searches. When I checked out some of the blogs, for example, "ShoeMoney," I didn't even see "Education" listed in its tags. ShoeMoney is a blog/diary from a person who makes a living online. It contains thoughts and opinions based on real live experiences....it seems like a stretch, but maybe it's educating the people about how to make a living online???
Many of the top blogs were related to technology. For example, Boing Boing is a weblog of cultural curiosities and interesting technologies. It's the most popular blog in the world, as ranked by Technorati.com, and won the Lifetime Achievement and Best Group Blog awards at the 2006 Bloggies ceremony. The next top blog was one about making money off of your blog.
It's a little interesting to see what is "popular" right now on the web in videos, books, news, games, etc. I came across "Bert & Ernie tries Gangsta-Rap"....I had to check it out since I grew up with Sesame Street. What I found amazing what how this person edited old episodes of Bert and Ernie to a rap song and it matches nicely with the movement of the puppets! Sometimes the things people can do with technology amazes me!
3. Create a blog post about your discoveries on this site.
Done!!
4. Now that we’ve worked with tags in Flickr, Del.icio.us, and Technorati, what are your thoughts about tagging? What are its advantages? What are its disadvantages?
Tagging has its benefits - you can find related items on the web to what you are looking for. However, it is sometimes up to the person to choose how to tag an item, which may or may not be relevant in your opinion. In my own blog, I could make up tags if I wanted that might now have anything to do with what you are looking for. Tagging reminds me of how I do google image searches - not all the photos are related to what I am looking for so I have to spend time to "weed" through the material to find what I am looking for...that is what I feel about how tagging works. In facebook, they offer tagging as well...in photos! In a way it keeps track of where your photos are in other people's albums, or your own.
1. Take a look at Technorati and try doing a keyword search for “School Library Learning 2.0” in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory. Are the results different?
Results
Posts - 3
Blogs - 19
When I searched in advanced in searched in tags, I came across the same three post, same blogs listed as well. I came across no results when I searched in quotes.
2. Explore popular blog, searches and tags. Is anything interesting or surprising in your results?
It was interesting to see "Education" as one of the top searches. When I checked out some of the blogs, for example, "ShoeMoney," I didn't even see "Education" listed in its tags. ShoeMoney is a blog/diary from a person who makes a living online. It contains thoughts and opinions based on real live experiences....it seems like a stretch, but maybe it's educating the people about how to make a living online???
Many of the top blogs were related to technology. For example, Boing Boing is a weblog of cultural curiosities and interesting technologies. It's the most popular blog in the world, as ranked by Technorati.com, and won the Lifetime Achievement and Best Group Blog awards at the 2006 Bloggies ceremony. The next top blog was one about making money off of your blog.
It's a little interesting to see what is "popular" right now on the web in videos, books, news, games, etc. I came across "Bert & Ernie tries Gangsta-Rap"....I had to check it out since I grew up with Sesame Street. What I found amazing what how this person edited old episodes of Bert and Ernie to a rap song and it matches nicely with the movement of the puppets! Sometimes the things people can do with technology amazes me!
3. Create a blog post about your discoveries on this site.
Done!!
4. Now that we’ve worked with tags in Flickr, Del.icio.us, and Technorati, what are your thoughts about tagging? What are its advantages? What are its disadvantages?
Tagging has its benefits - you can find related items on the web to what you are looking for. However, it is sometimes up to the person to choose how to tag an item, which may or may not be relevant in your opinion. In my own blog, I could make up tags if I wanted that might now have anything to do with what you are looking for. Tagging reminds me of how I do google image searches - not all the photos are related to what I am looking for so I have to spend time to "weed" through the material to find what I am looking for...that is what I feel about how tagging works. In facebook, they offer tagging as well...in photos! In a way it keeps track of where your photos are in other people's albums, or your own.
Week 6, Thing 13
I found this through the Del.icio.us bookmark on a site that listed 17 ways you could use photos! How fun!
I was really facinate diwth scrapblog.com - I love scrapbook and here is another way to do it! I will have to test out the site - it seems like a great way to share pages but the downside right now is that there is no way to print them. It seems to me like an enhanced way to show pictures in a slideshow (pictures with backgrounds!).
Kindernet is another bookmarked site that I visited...I will also bookmark this to my own Del.icio.us account!
I would definately make a Del.icio.us account for myself. I can see how beneficial this can be for my own students and parents. Right now, I just use Sitebuilder to list my links for my students and clear all their bookmarks on their computers and only have one link - to my LINKS page on my sitebuilder and they go from there. I think this is even better; I don't have to have a district connection to edit my links and I can add more wherever I am at! I love that it is accessable anywhere, anytime...I no longer have to remember sites when I want to show them to friends!
Befunky.com
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