Web 2.0 Adventure

Well, this has to be a first.  Classroom 2.0, Ning in Education and Ning:  all down for maintenance this evening.  Kind of made me reflect that the best (most reliable) social interactions may still be face to face; oh, what a digital immigrant I am, aren’t I?

Now, I have to admit that my children love their online social networks.  And I know that my daugher uses hers for more than just social interaction.  There has been a definite academic purpose as she has gotten older. 

I will definitely be back for more of a look later

LATER:  Took a good look around Classroom 2.0; did not particularly like the “look” of the site, but found it pretty easy to negotiate.  Ning in Education had some really interesting things.  This could be an invaluable networking source for teachers.  For example, an elementary school was making contacts for other teachers interested in collaborating on a wiki in which students would learn ”about the state they live in and compare it to Pennsylvania. This is the first run for this type of project” — Wow!

And I searched through the first 200+ social networks in Ning and was stunned at the variety of topics, even a large internationoal flavor.  Although I did not find any networks that I was tempted to join, I am sure that many will.

I am feeling a little more comfortable with the Reader, especially relative to my “overwhelmed” state of confusion when I first set it up.  I have tried to take Jerri’s advice and mark things as “read” even if I just read the subject line and dismiss it as “not interested.”  I found two articles this evening that caught my attention, one involving a new service, BrightStorm.  A very creative entepreneur, hoping to revolutionize the video learning world has recruited “stellar” educators with proven records and made the service available to parents for $49 a year.   The plan is to capitalize on kids’ learning styles, with short (10-20 minute) lessons created in a fashion to appearl to students’ “digital consumption habits.”  — could be brilliant!!

The other article that I keyed in on tonight was one from the Fischbowl that promotes abandoning our efforts in high school to Prepare Kids for College — what utter blasphemy!!  Is he suggesting that college is not to be encouraged?  Of course not!  After making a strong case for college graduates earning much more money than their high school counterparts, Fisch retaliates with his own research which shows that very few employers feel that the content covered in college really prepares individuals for what the employers are seeking in employees.   But then he acknowledged that college degrees are still essential. 

The best quote in his article was:  “Let’s make their high school experience meaningful and relevant, so that they rarely feel the need to ask the question, ‘When are we ever going to use this?’ because the answer will be so darn obvious.”

He made a great case for moving away from the Preparing Students for College to a posture of making their learning relevant, which would in essence prepare them for college, life, work, etc. 

I have used iGoogle in the past, although I admit that I have used it more since I started taking this class, setting it as my home page just recently and making a sincere effort to update it and use the RSS  feeds I have included.  However, I also liked this “mash-up” as well and had fun exploring it.  I found it easy to use and having the template to start from made it even easier.  I especially liked the “share” feature of this for the classroom, although I am completely satisfied with iGoogle for my personal use and probably would not switch. 

Classroom teachers could use this as a serious collaboration-type project with students contributing on a particular topic, not unlike a wiki.  It could also be a wonderful communication tool with parents, in the right setting.

Very cool — with way, way too many options for new flakes!!!!

I have heard of Google Docs from my children for some time, so I really enjoyed some time to explore it on my own.  I love the collaborative nature of Google Docs, although CCSD’s new SharePoint will afford us many of these same benefits.  I brought in one of my PowerPoints that I created for training next week on OAS Reports, and it transitioned to Google Docs very well.  And I think that the classroom teacher could incorporate the collaboration feature into so many academic lesson plans, not unlike having students add to a wiki, that it just blows my mind.  Google Docs is definitely cool!

If you have the Internet, you have your docs! 

I think that our school system’s move to SharePoint will allow us to share and work collaboratively in a similar fashion.  And I did find myself frustrated by some of the limitations of the documents; I could not download my pictures because they were “too big” for the restrictions in place with the service.  Which, of course, is smart for them.  And I wanted to use pretty basic Word features, like text wrap, and could not make that work in my word processing document.  But these were minor inconveniences, as compared to the great features in the program.

I would really use the feature for forms; an easy way and free way to gather a group’s opinions in a convenient way.  All in all, a very cool session

These Google people just continue to amaze and impress!

As the mother of two young adults, who are definitely addicted to youtube, I have seen my share of “humorous” youtube offerings, so it was fun to take a more serious look at the sites.  I explored two different youtube videos, both of which sought to show me how to download Microsoft Office 2007 Pro “totally free!”  While the ethics bothered me a lot, I know that my students are watching these all of the time, so I wanted to see something that most of my high school students would consider quite tame, and I consider “quite illegal.”

The videos were completely different, except for the common theme — one more of a Jing Project type of video and one clearly done in MovieMaker.   Neither was especially well done.  I also watched a How To video on baking bread, since I am currently addicted to baking bread, and decided that creating videos on youtube is not going to be my strength.  I just felt sorry for the lady, but knew I would be just as awkward and clumsy, if not worse!  And for fun, I looked at some of the Greek Week activities posted by the Georgia Tech fraternities and sororities and was relieved that it was really quite tame!

On Teacher Tube, I enjoyed two high school students making a commercial to sell software, or something . . .not really sure.  The title said they were selling software, at least.  I watched a surprisingly well-done video on an otherwise boring topic:  business education simulations for the classroom.  And I was quite taken by a young man’s effort to combine accomplishing a task in Word with a Creative Commons type video that included some of his own personal touches with music and graphics:

Now I just have too(two) much sound effects for one blog!!!!
 

As a part of the Cherokee County Teach21 program, I took a class on podcasting last year (with our very own Sandi Adams!) and so I have used iTunes to create a short podcast.  I also enjoyed the videos on Common Craft and PodGrunt included with this assignment and thought that both of these did a really good job of explaining podcasting in simple, easy-to-understand terms.  I loved some of the educational podcasts available in the assignment, and thought what a powerful tool this could be for a Social Studies teacher during an election year — there were some powerful options on the political process!   Not only could the students benefit from the podcasts available to them, but making their own original podcasts that reflect their thoughts on the election year politics would be a tremendous learning tool.

What an incredible resource for our English teachers – just getting students to take a look at their own personal libraries.  On a personal level, I would love to get all of these books in our house organized with this Web 2.0 tool.  Just to get started with the kids’ books really appeals to me — maybe over the Holidays!!  I also especially enjoyed looking at the reviews — my husband is reading Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven and I was able to access a quick review and find out more about it while he is sitting here reading it. 

I guess that the biggest attraction of delicious.com for me is the (1) portability and the (2) organization of the site.  I really like that my bookmarks will follow me anywhere, regardless of what computer I am using.  The benefits to our students are similar; while few high school students are consumed with organization, the ability to work on different computers at school and then have your bookmarks follow you home is just enormous, especially for students conducting research.

The Fischbowl continues to catch my attention, and this time it was back to another Google-phenomenon.  Earlier this week, Karl Fisch reported on Google’s uncanny ability to help preduct flu outbreaks across the country, based on the Google searches for “flu” on the Internet.  Earlier looks have shown a close correlation between people with the flu and people who search for “flu” on Google — although Google acknowledges that the CDC’s data is more accurate, Google’s is faster and a quicker predictor of flu outbreaks.  So Google may play an important role in helping fight flu outbreaks this winter.  Pretty nifty!!

picnik.com:  I totally played and had fun with this assignment, starting with some family pictures and adding lots of special effects.  Then, I took a picture of my sister’s house (that I want to sketch for a Christmas present) and worked to lighten the shadows so I can see more details.  I was really pleased with some of the details I ended up “discovering” with the new effects, but found the web site awkward to use on my laptop working wirelessly in the den with my family.  I think that the web site has lots of potential, both for fun and for the classroom, but probably not on my laptop.  I thought it was really exciting that all of this photo editing software was so readily available and all for free, though, and will probably “play” with it again!