Linda’s Moonbeams

At the beginning of the course, I read that Web 2.0 will have a greater impact than the printing press–culturally, socially, intellectually and politically.  Now I am a believer!  This 2-way medium that allows us to contribute, create, and collaborate through blogs, wikis, podcasting, video/photo sharing and social networking will definitely have a big impact on the way I teach/mentor others.  I do plan to use technology to my advantage and play around with new ideas, participating in the public discussion about formal schooling and lifelong learning.  Now I know that it is possible to find information on any and all interests and passions, work with people from around the Globe to gather the best ideas, and present them to my students in the classroom in a way that engages and challenges them.  My hope is to motivate students to be passionate about learning and facilitate their success through electronic collaboration.  Thank you for the challenge – I will continue “learning to be.”

What a tremendous resource Classroom 2.0 is for teachers to share ideas and resources and discuss concerns.  I did visit and join and feel this will be a great tool to use.  I explored discussions about teaching keyboarding, looked at groups, and browsed videos shared by members.  From the list I found through the Ning networks related to education, I discovered a wonderful blog post from John Costilla http://necc2008.ning.com/profiles/blogs/1997968:BlogPost:35794 100 Best YouTube Videos for Teachers.  These resources are wonderful for classroom use and professional and personal training and learning.  What an amazing free resource!  Also from the NECC Ning, I found http://necc2008.ning.com/profiles/blogs/creative-web-tools-jeopardy Creative Web Tools Jeopardy PowerPoint posted by Jackie Gerstein, Ed.D., which presents some awesome fun resources. Can’t wait to experiment come September–with students!

From Successful Teaching, I found “Failures are Not All Bad” I was directed to http://clifmims.com/blog/archives/2697, Clif’s Notes on Education and Technology by Clif Mims and his post on Determination and Perseverance.  He shows a YouTube video about well-known individuals who endured failures and obstacles before reaching their goals.  Two other YouTube videos that might be motivational and inspirational for students were mentioned:  Secret to Success: Famous Failures – Interview with Harrison Ford, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta-Y76uwjgY and Michael Jordan “Failure” Nike Commercial,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mMioJ5szc.

What a great message:  if you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived.  Life=Risk.

Working in Pageflakes was great fun and I think it will definitely become my Home Page so that at a quick glance, I can see all the things that I am watching, check the weather, search, write lists, make notes, get the latest news, the quote of the day, and keep up with “the world” of technology and education.  Sharing it with students and parents is a great idea but I imagine I will begin using my own private page with the idea of gathering together all the resources I have learned about in this class and putting them in a place where I can easily scan and use them.  I liked that I can change the theme and easily edit, delete, and add “flakes” to the page.

I found Google Docs very user friendly because I am an avid Microsoft Office user.  I can see many uses for professional productivity and student learning productivity.  Sharing spreadsheets to enter grades is something our department already does in a different way but this just might work better.  I could also have my students update a spreadsheet for me as they finish projects to track their progress.  My BPA students were collaborating on economic research projects and presentation management projects this year for competition.  It could work very well to collaborate from home using the presentation tool.  I loved the form and that could be a great tool for surveying staff for a collective opinion.  It could also be a great tool to use with students in my classes and the members of Business Professionals of America.  Our department of five teachers often has to work together on a project.  What a great way for everyone to give their ideas and input via a shared document.

For my Podcast, I started out using Sound Recorder but switched to Vocaroo (since I couldn’t figure out how to do more than a minute on Sound Recorder).  I then used Zamzar to convert the file from a .wav to an mp3.  Next step was dowloading the e-mailed conversion to GCast.  I think it worked fine – I have to go back and give a listen.  I talked about two amazing YouTube videos that I’d encourage people to watch: JK Wedding Entrance Dance and Stand by Me – beautiful international version.  I would love to do a Podcast project with students at the beginning of the year – a sort of “meet and greet” where students are encouraged to share a little bit about themselves.  Instead of just PowerPoint presentations, maybe we will add podcasts and other things I’ve learned in this course to the list of projects for the year!!

This is an example of some of the amazing YouTube videos out there!  I searched and found some great videos for my classes – “What is a browser” in a couple of versions and “How NOT to use PowerPoint.”  From there I looked for “how to” videos and found “How to Get Hired” and also “How to Read Nutrition Facts on Labels” which led me to the “Top 10 Worst Foods” – YIKES – these are all things I love!  TeacherTube has great resources and I added one to my delicious account about “Classroom Rules” that I plan to show the first week of school!  It is fun but gets the message across.  I loved the categories Most Viewed, Top Rated, Most Discussed, Most Favorite and Featured List which I will refer to to help me find excellent videos to use.  I have been enjoying YouTube for family videos and will continue to use the “Two Tubes” in my classroom.

I liked the video podcast that I found on iTunes the best (I have an iTunes account but I must confess that I haven’t used podcasts but now I will!)  “The Coolest Stuff on the Planet” was very educational and interesting and the subject was places & travel from howstuffworks.com.  Beautiful pictures and facts about great places.  There are so many good new releases and “how to” podcasts from “how to cut, copy and paste” to “how to be a better coworker” on iTunes.  I also liked “Learn Out Loud” and subscribed to Career Advice and listened to “5 tough interview questions.”  I also subscribed to Nerd TV from PBS which had some interesting looking technology topics.  The Online Education database also had “100 ways to use your iPod to Learn and Study Better” which is something I think I’d like to challenge my students to do this year.  I plan to incorporate some of these into my “Discovering Computers” class this year!

LibraryThing was fun to explore since I love to read (but I’m not sure I could keep up with the 75 book challenge in a year)!  I enjoyed looking through “Zeitgeist”, the hot topics under “Talk” and “Groups.”  I searched for children’s books and found some good suggestions and reviews.  It seemed to be more useful for personal reading and organization and would allow you to keep track of books read, discuss with other readers, and receive recommendations.  I loved the “UnSuggester.”  I think in an English class this could be very useful to have students explore titles and discuss with other readers.  I think it would be a great way to encourage reading books and to challenge students to expand, explore, and promote book-related interest.

Discovering “social bookmarking” with Delicious opened up a whole new way to organize websites with tags (keywords) and to browse and search other collections.  The best part is that the bookmarks are online and accessible from any computer.  It is great to collect resources along with others and share.  Also available is a network to share and recommend sites or subscriptions to a specific tag and user.   This is definitely the way I will bookmark my favorites to share at home and at school. Here is my list so far:  http://delicious.com/lswasey