Easy enough to sign into Twitter. I can see how this could get addictive - reading losts of different posts. It was interesting to look at some of my favorites - Astros, President Obama, etc. But, I think that it would also be fun to follow other friends and colleagues. So, school use? Not sure how that would work exactly. Although, there could be uses for this - current events, etc. As I was wondering about this, I went back to the SBISD webpage describing the assignment and noticed
Nine great reasons why teachers should use Twitter. I find that I can agree with many of the ideas presented there. So, it can be a great way to expand your knowledge base and keep up with friends.
I experienced using back-channeling using Today's Meet at a GT workshop in early June. It was an awesome way to communicate without disrupting the session. I can see many ways that this would be helpful for students to post questions without fearing that they would be embarassed by expressing their ignorance about a topic.
Next, I'll look at Facebook. I've wanted to join, now I have a reason!
Added to this post: 7/31/09
I've been able to setup my Facebook account and requested quite a few friends. This was fairly easy because my husband is friends with sooooo many people, so I just looked over his friends list. Plus, I do have other friends as well and they were easy to locate and add. I'm looking forward to being part of this. Looks fun! The idea about using the book club app with older students for reading groups sounds interesting. I'll need to investigate more, but I'm doubtful that this will appropriate for elementary, mainly because of the age requirements.
Ta, Ta for now!
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Thing #4 Video Hosting (YouTube)
I am currently working on my laptop at a public library in a small town in Oklahoma and YouTube is blocked. So, on to #5 - if possible.
Latest update July 9, 2009:
I have signed up for YouTube and am attempting to upload a video of my daughter and her friends performing a VBS program at church.
OH DRATS! "This video has been removed because it is too long. Regular YouTube videos must be 10 minutes or less. " [Details, details, details.....]
So, since uploading to YouTube isn't working... I'll try to post it here!
Well... That didn't work either. So, I tried editing the length in Windows MovieMaker, and I can't seem to get that to work to split the video and create just a clip of the entire movie, so, I'm really bummed that it isn't working. I know that my husband works on videos sometimes, so, I may see if he has any great ideas...
Latest update July 9, 2009:
I have signed up for YouTube and am attempting to upload a video of my daughter and her friends performing a VBS program at church.
OH DRATS! "This video has been removed because it is too long. Regular YouTube videos must be 10 minutes or less. " [Details, details, details.....]
So, since uploading to YouTube isn't working... I'll try to post it here!
Well... That didn't work either. So, I tried editing the length in Windows MovieMaker, and I can't seem to get that to work to split the video and create just a clip of the entire movie, so, I'm really bummed that it isn't working. I know that my husband works on videos sometimes, so, I may see if he has any great ideas...
Thing #3 Like Skype
I read quite a few of the articles about conferencing. I liked Kathy Schrock's post: Tools for Schools: Live Online Conferencing Dim.Dim sounded very interesting - much like the video conferencing that I did eons ago when I worked on my Master's degree.
I tried working with Skype some, but didn't have a lot of success. However, I think that if I played with it more extensively, it could be very useful. I have a friend who uses Skype 3-4 times per day to communicate with her husband as he travels extensively.
So, the question is, how could Skype be used in the classroom or library? I saw many suggestions about being able to communicate with other classrooms from all over the world, I liked the many suggestions at the Teaching Degree.Org Blog: 50 Awesome Ways to use Skype in the Classroom:
For my school The MIXXER: A language exchange community for everyone seems like it would be a new way to get English Language Learners to work on their language skills.
Setting up conferencing with authors when classes are studying particular writers could also be a lot of fun.
There are many ways to do use this technology, the key is to find an opportunity and do it.
I tried working with Skype some, but didn't have a lot of success. However, I think that if I played with it more extensively, it could be very useful. I have a friend who uses Skype 3-4 times per day to communicate with her husband as he travels extensively.
So, the question is, how could Skype be used in the classroom or library? I saw many suggestions about being able to communicate with other classrooms from all over the world, I liked the many suggestions at the Teaching Degree.Org Blog: 50 Awesome Ways to use Skype in the Classroom:
For my school The MIXXER: A language exchange community for everyone seems like it would be a new way to get English Language Learners to work on their language skills.
Setting up conferencing with authors when classes are studying particular writers could also be a lot of fun.
There are many ways to do use this technology, the key is to find an opportunity and do it.
11.5 Things - Thing 2: Image Generators 2 - Update
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
11.5 Things - Thing 2: Image Generators 2
GLOGSTER - Wow! This is pretty darn cool! I can think of many ways to incorporate this into student learning.
It has taken quite a while to finish my glog, but here it is:
http://soelibrarian.glogster.com/Saturn-Glog/
I wanted to work on one so that I had an idea of how long it would take to put one together. I can see quite a few uses for glogster, especially in upper elementary, and up. I think that students would enjoy working on this project. In order to do a good job, they would need to think about content, perhaps a bit more - rather than just searching for the first picture that they find (either in print or online). With the ability to embed video and audio, it certainly adds a whole new level of information to the "poster project."
I am fairly familiar with wordle and my daughter (who will be in 2nd grade) did an animoto for father's day, that is TOOOOO cute.
Wordsift is cool. I like the ability to pull words into the visual thesaurus. I think that could be very helpful for some of our bilingual students. (Although it could be somewhat confusing also.....Hmmmm.)
Bookr : I wasn't sure quite what to do with Bookr when I opened it. But after a few minutes, it seemed fairly intuitive and simple. I love that you can pull images from Flickr. Being able to add text and more pages is really a cool feature to this simple website. I can see nearly all ages of computer users being able to do this, even kinder and first graders, and they would be sooo proud of themselves! This is also a cool way to present information. I looked a a few of the other bookr projects. I'm guessing that one of the people who did a project that I looked at was another person doing an 11.5 things type of project, because it was about the boy with the talking tooth. It was a cute presentation, but a little fiction story. So, students could write and illustrate their stories on here as well. Fun, fun, and more fun!
[When I did the bookr project on Butterflys I was not aware that you could adjust the picture up or down a little. Knowing this would have resulted in a better positioning of the text over the picture. Live & learn!]
On to more fun!
It has taken quite a while to finish my glog, but here it is:
http://soelibrarian.glogster.com/Saturn-Glog/
I wanted to work on one so that I had an idea of how long it would take to put one together. I can see quite a few uses for glogster, especially in upper elementary, and up. I think that students would enjoy working on this project. In order to do a good job, they would need to think about content, perhaps a bit more - rather than just searching for the first picture that they find (either in print or online). With the ability to embed video and audio, it certainly adds a whole new level of information to the "poster project."
I am fairly familiar with wordle and my daughter (who will be in 2nd grade) did an animoto for father's day, that is TOOOOO cute.
Wordsift is cool. I like the ability to pull words into the visual thesaurus. I think that could be very helpful for some of our bilingual students. (Although it could be somewhat confusing also.....Hmmmm.)
Bookr : I wasn't sure quite what to do with Bookr when I opened it. But after a few minutes, it seemed fairly intuitive and simple. I love that you can pull images from Flickr. Being able to add text and more pages is really a cool feature to this simple website. I can see nearly all ages of computer users being able to do this, even kinder and first graders, and they would be sooo proud of themselves! This is also a cool way to present information. I looked a a few of the other bookr projects. I'm guessing that one of the people who did a project that I looked at was another person doing an 11.5 things type of project, because it was about the boy with the talking tooth. It was a cute presentation, but a little fiction story. So, students could write and illustrate their stories on here as well. Fun, fun, and more fun!
[When I did the bookr project on Butterflys I was not aware that you could adjust the picture up or down a little. Knowing this would have resulted in a better positioning of the text over the picture. Live & learn!]
On to more fun!
11.5 Things - Thing 1: Registration & Video Reflection
Wow, more web 2.0 things to learn about!
I've really enjoyed watching the The Networked Student - The Movie video on You-Tube. I've watched it a couple of times so that I could think about and ponder what was being introduced.
I think that librarians can definitely be in the role of the "teacher", or can assist and help the student with their project. I LOVE the tags near the end about the teacher being the LEARNING ARCHITECT and the LEARNING CONCIERGE. They sound soooo much more interesting than teacher.
I looked at a couple of other sbl postings. I posted a comment on L'l Bit of This & That's blog.
Mainly I agreed that her that students would love this, but teachers would need a lot of training, and for this to work full time and replace text books, students would need their own laptop, which would cost $$$$$. I have my doubts about the feasability of this working for elementary - especially primary grades. But, I do think that it might work when limited projects are given for elementary students.
Well, I'm off to learn more new cool things!
I've really enjoyed watching the The Networked Student - The Movie video on You-Tube. I've watched it a couple of times so that I could think about and ponder what was being introduced.
I think that librarians can definitely be in the role of the "teacher", or can assist and help the student with their project. I LOVE the tags near the end about the teacher being the LEARNING ARCHITECT and the LEARNING CONCIERGE. They sound soooo much more interesting than teacher.
I looked at a couple of other sbl postings. I posted a comment on L'l Bit of This & That's blog.
Mainly I agreed that her that students would love this, but teachers would need a lot of training, and for this to work full time and replace text books, students would need their own laptop, which would cost $$$$$. I have my doubts about the feasability of this working for elementary - especially primary grades. But, I do think that it might work when limited projects are given for elementary students.
Well, I'm off to learn more new cool things!
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