SheltonWeb2.0

Perfect timing, with graduation happening all around – I am graduating from the Web 2.0 class!  What a ride!  I learned so much and found it fascinating what can be done with technology in education.  This class was fun…it was challenging…but it was well worth the ride.  Thanks to Stacey for all her support and for not letting us quit.  According to Stacey, we WILL have access to this course information even when we are done…thank goodness I don’t have to spend this next week printing off a copy of all the directions.  I know I’ll need to go back and review some things – okay, lots of thing will need review after a much needed summer break.

Maybe I’m not getting it – but is there a big difference between Ning and Classroom 2.0?  They seem to be alike yet different.  This is a great way to network with other educators.  Finally – something I’ve learned in this course that my daughter didn’t know about!  Of course, she will probably master it much faster than me – ah, youth!  As a “sometime user” of Facebook, I’m not sure how much I’ll get around to being a “ninger” – but I think I’ll like it a lot.

One of my favorite feeds is Mister Teacher. Recently I learned about Promethean Planet, which is a large interactive whiteboard community. This is one more resource we as teachers can use to help make the most effective use of our interactive whiteboards. I plan to explore this site when planning whiteboard activities and/or lessons for the extended day program at West Side.

Pageflakes appears to be somewhat similar to the webpages MCS teachers have – the difference being that the MCS webpages follow a prescribed format and Pageflakes would allow one to customize more freely. This would be appropriate for use in creating classroom webpages or webpages on a specific topic, and would be helpful especially to teachers whose school system might not provide formatted webpage assistance.

Again…my daughter knows way more about this than I do…uses it in graduate school all the time…

This seems like a useful tool – especially for collaborative work. My ideas for use professionally include:
-team members collaborate writing student achievement & professional growth goals, setting up measurement plans and desired outcomes
-lesson plan writing / sharing / revising
-student partners working on written report

I loved doing this task!  It’s true – you could get lost in YouTube or TeacherTube.  For “fun” and “how to”, I searched for container herb gardening and found some wonderful videos.  On a professional level, I searched for elementary extended day programs and found lots of good information.  I really enjoyed the slide show of the Osceola Extended Day program.  What a great idea – for our extended day students to create something like this to share with parents, friends, etc. 

I searched for the same topic in YouTube and TeacherTube – elementary math word problem solving.  There were lots of very good ideas out there. Real World Math Games was a cool site using math problem solving in real world situations. Problem Solving on an Equabeam was also very informative. 

Both YouTube and TeacherTube are good educational resources.  However, due to the fact that YouTube is basically unfiltered, if using with students, TeacherTube would be a much better choice.

I used the Apple Podcasting in Education search tool and previewed a set of podcasts produced by Mabry Middle School students, teachers and administrators.  This one interested me because Mabry is a Cobb County school, close to home and this directory was easy to navigate.  It was interesting to see P.E. teachers, language teachers, and all other teachers posting podcasts.  There were also some from a Jekyll Island expedition and several band festival podcasts.  I think that for something like this to work, all staff members would need to be trained in producing, etc…but I bet the parents and students love having this type of information so available.  I do not have an ipod or an MP3 player…again, my daughter knew more about podcasting than I did!

Now this I liked – after a bit of exploration. The tips in our directions were most helpful. I see potential for classroom, professional, and personal learning. It was neat to put in any zipcode and find local favorite bookstores, etc…under the “local” tab.  I loved clicking on the author clouds and scrolling through to see how popular various one are – some were a bit of a surprise, and I found one of my favorite authors I had completely forgotten about.  It was neat to click on an author and be taken to a page all about that person and his/her works.  I can see myself using this tool!  Loved it!  I’ll be checking this out before I make my next library run and definitely before I head to the cabin or the beach.

I tried signing up for a Delicious account following the directions on the Web 2.0 list, but it looked nothing like the directions…it required me to open a yahoo account – yet one more account with my name, etc..”out there”…so I skipped this step. I already have legal pad full of usernames and passwords associated with this class. I’m waiting to see if it can be done as per the directions on the class info page…if so, I’ll be back later to change this blog. Until then, it’s not very delicious here!

One of my favorite classroom bloggers is James Tubbs.  Mr. Teacher always has useful information and links.  This week I enjoyed seeing several math mini-movies suitable for the interactive whiteboard.  I am finding the RSS reader to be a quick way to scan through topics.