Thing 10-Wiki's

I have some experience using wiki's in my school. When teachers were laid off at the end of last year I held a workshop and taught them how to make a website with a wiki. We loaded their past years work onto the wiki, some photos, etc. It was a tech tool to help them show their tech skills and hopefully find another job.

I use wiki's myself with teachers still in the building. I have 2 teachers that are podcasting and I've linked their audio files to a class wiki. Once the wiki is built, the students are able to listen to the audio files and share them with family members at home. The teachers also use them as an anticipatory set for the next 10 week core class. They create quite a bit of excitement in the new students. http://englishcore.wikispaces.com/ Check out this wiki to see how it works. We haven't opened these wiki's up for collaboration and the other wiki we use is password protected. Teachers are nervous about what is on the internet connected to their name and this was a good way to help them take that first step.

I was on a committee last month formulating a plagiarism policy for the school and tried to use a collaborative wiki with the group to make it easier for everyone to share their ideas but the rest of the group refused. They felt it was to much trouble to learn the technology. If they only understood, it's not hard....it's just new.

Thing 9

I found this to be a bit frustrating. Some of the sites didn't work and when I tried to follow the instructional video that the website gave, the buttons they said to push weren't on the page. It's all part of learning, though. It's not hard, it's just new! I just need to spend time playing with it. I think time is the biggest issue for teachers, though.

I really like this billboard one. I can see kids using this to make posters and billboards using curricular content. Why use construction paper and glue when it's all here on the intenet (and no huge mess to clean up afterwards!).

Thing 8

Who knew Flikr was so much fun? I could sit here and play with this all night long. Do my kids really need dinner tonight?
I can see this being a great tool to use with students. I've found when using technology with my classes that if you give them a writing assignment in the class blog and then a creative assignment to go with it (like creating an avatar) they become much more engaged in the whole process. I can only imagine the fabulous things they would create with spell Flikr.
The sad thing is, once again, we can't use Flikr in schools because of the content issue.

Thing 7-Uploading Pics

Flickr is simple to use. Having said that I still can't see my photos in the resa23 photostream. The help section says the problem should resolve itself in 24-48 hours. I guess I'll wait and see how that works out.

I can see putting together a stream that younger students could use for their powerpoint projects. It would also be a great way for students doing group work to share their photos. They could have access to each others photos while doing multimedia work. It's a great tool but I'm still worried about the content that can be accessed.

Thing 6-the perfect picture

I searched the librarian tag and found this awesome picture. I do spent a lot of time on technology but my head is also into books. It was the perfect picture!

I found better quality pictures by using the interesting tab instead of looking at the pictures according to the date they were uploaded.

As great a resource as this is, I can't see this ever being unblocked in schools until flickr finds a way to give educators some type of filter.

Thing 5

I struggled with this quite a bit. I'm wondering if the videos were done in XP. I have Vista on my machine and was having problems following along. The bloglines link never appeared in my toolbar (although I did find a way to access what I believe is a similar tool). I also couldn't choose a folder in bloglines to add my feed to. I had to add the feed and then modify the feed and put it in the folder. That worked in the end, just not as described in the video. The Warlick blog didn't show up with the html text either. So I just copied the URL anyway and did it that way. It appeared to work out.

I'm hoping this is going to be a good way to help me organize my information and manage my time.

Confessions of a yarn addict looks like a cool blog for anyone that might be into knitting!

Thing 4

I like the RSS feed because I do have favorite blogs that I like to read. In the past, I had them set up to my delicious account but then I would have to visit them frequently to see if anything was there. This is nice because it sends the new posts to me automatically. A huge timesaver. I can add more blogs to the list!

I do need to add all of this to my delicious account so I can easily access all of the web 2.0 technology I'm learning.

Thing 3

Well, I'm obviously having some issues with my blogging set up skills because my blog isn't listed on the main page of 23 Things. I'm still not sure why that is but hopefully my email tonight will straighten that out.

I think blogging would be a great way to work with other committee's in the school. It is often so difficult to meet and exchange ideas on projects. A committee blog would make it easy to collect and store information, exchange ideas and comments, and work together at inbetween committee meetings. The biggest hurdle is getting teachers to use the technology. I think if they invested some time learning some of the web 2.0 technology they could see how it can really help them effectively use their time.

I'm working with one of our 7th grade ELA teachers as her core class blogs. It's been a lot of fun and the students have responded very enthusiastically. They are blogging about reading. We started with blogging and then added avatars to the blogs. Then we added podcasting. The students enjoy the technology and after the 10 week class is over often comment on how much they miss the class.

The biggest concern at this age is posting inappropriately. For this reason, we use David Warlick's Classblogmeister. Students posts (even their avatars) have to be approved by a teacher before they are posted on the blog. I wouldn't use any other blogging site with students.

Thing 1 and Thing 2

I have to admit to being a David Warlick groupie so I had already read his article. Our students already learn the way he envisions; we are the ones that are behind!



This year I have been blogging and podcasting with different classes that come into my media center. I have seen some very cool things happen during these sessions. Students who normally have a difficult time staying on task are actually leading their peers in podcasting. Students who find writing boring are blogging and happy to do it because they don't have to do work! :-) That's one of the coolest things about technology; they have fun using the technology and don't even realize they are learning curricular content.

I am hoping that 23 things gives me more ideas to take back to my school and use with my students. I am also hoping to share ideas and strategies with this group of professionals!

Writing on the internet is a daunting prospect. Everything we post is available for the world to see. It definitely makes me realize I need to think carefully and edit my work before posting. However, I think students feel the same way. They are more careful with their work when they know it will be published for everyone to read so they do reread and edit their work.