Week 4

Hello all!

I must admit it feels a bit odd as this class is wrapping up and the school year is about to start!  My daughter is starting kindergarten in about two weeks so we are quite excited about that new adventure.

Great job finding quite a few interesting resources were highlighted this week - nice work! I thought the Speaking Image site was really interesting and would make a great assignment for almost any class.

This week is the final week of our "regular" assignments - and in two weeks your final paper or project will be due by Saturday, September 3.  Please do your weekly blog post by this Thursday and two blog post comments by this Saturday, August 27.

As far as the weekly paper we'll switch gears a bit this week.  Please do still review chapters 7 & 8 of your textbook but rather than discussion questions I'd like to finalize with each of you what you'd like to do for the final paper or project.  

If you decide to write a paper please plan on writing a 10 page research paper on a topic of your choosing with a minimum of 10 sources. Please email me what prompt you'd like to respond to - I'd suggest an area we've covered that was particularly interesting to you.  You can see some samples of final papers by clicking here.

If you decide to complete a project it should be the equivalent of a 10 page research paper. You can setup a class webpage, wiki, or blog, or create a webquest. You can see some samples of final projects by clicking here.

Whether you choose a paper or a project please make sure we are in agreement by the end of this week on the prompt and scope of the paper/project.

Update: I forgot to mention that I received feedback that quite a few people were having trouble joining Google+ - they received an error message saying that the site was not accepting new members.  As such, I scrapped the Google+ focus for this week. However, if you'd still like to blog about Google+ feel free!

How search savy are you?

I know that I get frustrated when I can't find what I am looking for on the Internet, so I decided to research the website 21st Century Information Finder. Of course being an English teacher, I am always on the look out for ways to teach students to find information on the Internet in an effective manner. This website has tutorials that does just that. I spent a couple of nights taking interactive quizzes that helps you refine your search so that you can pull up the exact information that you are looking for. This website takes the students through levels that builds upon their knowledge so they don't become overwhelmed and frustrated. I used the Digital Investigator Training (DIF) that specifically has modules for middle and high school language arts students.
In addition, there is Wizard Tools which helps with citations (for both MLA and APA), searches, and evaluations of web pages. To evaluate the web pages all you have to do is type in the web page and then you choose at least 3 things you want the students to evaluate the page on. Once you have chosen the criteria they are the evaluate on, you can print them out so the students can have them in front of them with the website at the top of the page. This tool give the students the opportunity to learn what to look for in a reliable web page when completing research for a paper.
Overall, I found this website to extremely helpful for teachers to use as a resource. I know that the Internet is the first resource our students go to when looking for research. However, many of them don't have a clue on how to decide if the information if reliable or not. This website gives them the tools they need to do that. I know that I will definitely use this with both my freshman and sophomore classes when they are completing their research papers.
Jayne Kreifels

H Net: Science, Medicine, and Technology

 
Being able to teach science today is very much a balancing act.  Science by nature is a hard subject to teach due to the content.  With the everything at your hands society, the traditional teachings methods just won't work today.  Students want to always be stimulated and entertained in the classrooms.  Science teachers need to have lessons be able to teach the material to the students while also keeping their attention throughout the lessons.  Melding the both styles helps the students learn the material and be able to use it on quizzes and tests.  Finding resources to help bring more interactive activities to the classrooms is the goal of all high school science teachers.


On the H-Net website for Science, Medicine, and Technology, there is a tool bar going down the left side of the page.  There are several different options that science teachers would be able to use in their classrooms.  Information about the site, messages, posts and blogs, reviews from posts, resources, jobs, and search engines all give teachers different information and options to use in their classroom.  There is alot of information can is available for science teachers here.  Its up to the teacher to be able to look through the different options and use what they find to give their students a better lesson.

           

On the other side of the web page lists different posts or blogs about different science topics.  This is an area for science teachers to look at what other science teachers have put down.  They can use that information in their classes or similar activities and lessons for their students.  There is also reviews of posts and blogs.  These reviews will give science teachers more information about how well certain lessons and activities worked in class and how they might be changed.  Finding new methods and how well they work in the classroom can go a long way to providing students with a current and relevant education.



The bottom of the page has alot of outside resources.  These outside resources can be invaluable to the science teacher.  By providing professional science societies, associations, and journals to science teachers, they can find different avenues to learn new teaching styles and methods to be used in the classroom.  Using scientific journals can help to teach primary resources to the students that they will use on future projects.  Academic programs are an additional way for science teachers to learn more interactive activities and technology to bring to the classroom. 

This website is a great way for science teachers to get resources to use in their classroom.  Finding newer and more interactive activities are good not just for the teacher but also for the students.  These resources will allow the teacher to provide a great education.

H Net: Science, Medicine, and Technology

21st Century Information Fluency: Yo no hablo technology-o

This website is dedicated to helping the 21^st century learner develop and hone 21^st century skills. Once you reach the page, there are many different avenues to take and they are all dedicated to teaching users skills to help them develop their information fluency (others call it information literacy). They have a search button right at the top of the page which is useful if you have a specific skill or area you are wanting to learn about or you can browse the first page which has some of the most popular and most widely used skills. Teachers and students should visit this website if they are unfamiliar with certain skills or hoping to increase existing skills.

Teachers can access tools that serve to assist students in locating, evaluating and citing information. There are also games for students that will teach students to be better at finding and evaluating large amounts of information. The feature that I find the most useful for teachers is the tutorials for middle and high school students. These are self-paced tutorials and there is an opportunity for teachers and schools to purchase more comprehensive packages.

On the website there are also links for online learning classes, scholarly articles and blogs. A lot of the articles I browsed cover current issues that many people in our school systems are facing and things we may face as we enter the teaching profession. This is a nice way to connect teachers. I stumbled onto this feature by just “playing” with the website. I am sure that there is lots more to see and with more time I am sure I could learn more than enough about 21^st century information than I hope I will ever need to use.

It was hard to find out how others are benefiting from this website because I could not find reviews on it. I did stumble across one review that gave a good background of the website and how it was started and funded. This review also mentioned that the website was developed using the National Education Technology Standards, the American Association of School Libraries Information Power Standards, and the Illinois Learning Standards. This is a really awesome website and I hope that as teachers if you need help understanding a technological concept this is your first stop.

Interactive Photos and Maps? Yes, please!

Review of SpeakingImage.org

For my week 3 blog, I choose to review SpeakingImage. SpeakingImage is a great online interactive resource to use for your classroom. The registration is easy and takes only minutes simply go to http://www.speakingimage.org/ and sign up with a user name and password.

SpeakingImage is an easy to navigate website and allows you to upload images and make them totally interactive for you students. Teaching about the various countries in Africa? Simply find the photo of the countries you wish to use and upload it to the website. Once that’s done, you can add a speaking image, layer the image, add points of interest, and all sorts of other tools to make the image interactive and informative for you and the students.

If you want to see what other people and educators have uploaded, just click on the images tab on the top of the website. Here you’ll find pictures of famous paintings, historic events, countries, and city skylines all of which have been made to be interactive and informative for use in your classroom!

For example: http://www.speakingimage.org/images/daley-plaza shows an interactive map and picture of the Kennedy assassination and how that part of downtown Dallas looked in 1963. The picture also allows you to zoom in, follow the route of the motorcade, the location of the sniper, and the directional path of the bullets. The picture also allows you to click on various parts to view actual photos from the day of the assassination such as people running on to the plaza and Jackie turning to her husband. http://www.speakingimage.org/images/kate-middleton-and-prince-william-official-wedding-portrait allows you to click on various points of the royal family taken minutes after the Prince Williams wedding and allows you to view the titles of the various royal family members.

SpeakingImage also allows you to join various groups to share images with and chat with users and discussion common interests or to create your own group. You can follow SpeakingImage on Twitter or share information to Facebook. Were I still teaching, I would most defiantly use SpeakingImage.org as an interactive technology resource in my classroom!

WEB 2 Tools for Mobile Devices!

by Kathy McLaughlin

I used a site about Web 2.0 tools from Barbs delicious account lists and decided to focus on mobile tools since I think that is something that would benefit the most teachers and students at this time and possibly for a while into the future.

I was only able to get to one of the links out of four. One link was "retired" this year do to lack of need for it since the tools are available in most phones now.

Classroom Response System (CRS) are sometimes referred to as "clickers".

We have clickers in our district. One teacher has been using them for several years, she teaches math courses. I have not had the chance to see them in action.

"Know what your students are thinking and learning right now.Bringing interactive social assessment to every classroom is now possible and affordable. Using Poll Everywhere in your school or university, you can increase teaching effectiveness without breaking the bank."

The following list has some very good reasons to use this type of tool.

Increase classroom participation and attentiveness

• Encourage risk-taking with anonymous student responses
• Elicit diverse opinions when there isn't a correct answer
• Expose social misconceptions
• Gauge student comprehension of material immediately
• Grab students with thought-provoking opening questions
• Allow students to provide instructor feedback
• Automate taking attendance
• Assess last night's reading with a quick quiz
• Strengthen retention
• Utilize its capabilities outside the classroom for professional development, student-run presentations, talent shows, battle of the bands, company presentations, student government, or community forums.

Poll Everywhere is free for classes with up to 32 students per section. To find out more go to their website." It is fairly inexpensive way to involve your students.


This site http://www.go2web20.net/app/?a=voice_on_the_go  is one that could save lives. “Listen to email and compose email and SMS by voice…” The “eyes free” access to these programs sounds great. According to our text on page 79 “non linear” learning that is available as a result of the internet and our access to more indepth information on a specific topic, exactly what we are doing here.

To see a video go to this site.

Google voice utube can be found at this site.



I tried to get google voice on my phone last night but I am not quite there yet.
Hopefully I will get it figured out by tonight.

Free Apps for the iPad!

My husband and I just purchased an iPad2. We have not been able to use it much because when our granddaughter sees it she thinks it is for her. She is 22 months old and is learning how to use it. Hopefully she will get tired of it so we can play with it too.

Easy books sounds like a good site for business classes but so do most of these sites. I look forward to really checking them out.

Audioboo...I Hear You!

I found a couple cool links on podcasts from Barb's delicious site. Adding podcasts to classroom learning activities can be a fun and effective tool. I like the ability to record podcasts from a mobile phone and have the ability to share them with anyone. Sharing podcasts with students will allow them to review content and vocabulary anytime they choose.

Making the effort to incorporate technology into the classroom shows students that learning can be fun. But it also allows students to access the teacher outside of the classroom. A student can listen to a podcast at home and hear the teacher's voice and review the content covered in class. Teachers can also use podcasts for students that are absent. The opportunity to listen to a podcast is just another way to learn, and can be a great substitute for those that struggle focusing on reading.

Using podcasts in the classroom has other benefits that include teaching technical skills of producing a podcast, brainstorming and creating content for podcasts, guided self expression, and even project management skills. Students can use podcasts for presentations, assignments, and discussions. The podcasts can even replace or enhance student newspapers.

A great site for podcasting is Audioboo. For an introduction, watch the video:

Audioboo has many great channels that teachers and students can access to find podcasts that relate to what is being taught in class. Similar to twitter, you can follow accounts that you like and listen to the podcasts that are created.