Week 3 Thing 9: Twitter

Honestly, I don't see myself as the type to make frequent updates on Twitter to let the world know what I'm doing. Time is precious and I perceived this to be just another thing to distract me from what's really important in life.
So I reluctantly signed up for a Twitter account recently for the sake of this activity. Then taking some advice I read I kept my twitter account strictly professional.
Well, it was easy to find others in the world of education to follow. I currently have 32 people I'm following. At first I felt totally disconnected to the people I was following and their post. I found some people to have many post that were very impersonal. But as the week went on I was able to learn which people I preferred to follow.
The real excitement came when I started communicating with one of my followers. I was then able to experience how Twitter provides an avenue of actual communication.
I think if I continue to use Twitter I'm going to start following people I know and care about. After all, if I'm not interested in the application then I'm not going to have a desire to find ways I could implement it into my classroom.
Obviously I'm not sold on Twitter, however, I'm going to keep an open mind.

Week 8 Thing 18: Slideshare

Slideshare provides a way to share presentations with the global community. In my previous post you will see a slideshare about the Revolutionary War. As I was searching through presentations I found many that were educational and could be used in my classroom. Since students in my class will be learning about the Revolutionary War I could use a Slideshare such as the one I've posted to either introduce or review content. I also found several slidshares with math related content. I think Slideshare is a great resource for teachers! Instead of reinventing the wheel...share the wheel! In addition, Slideshare provides a place for students to publish their presentations.

Week 7 Thing 17: Podcast

I have been listening to podcast that pertain to personal interest outside of education for quite a while now. Today, however, I did a search for educational podcasts. I was most interested in finding podcasts that have been created by teachers and students to help me brainstorm some ways my students could benefit from podcasts. I found several podcasts that were student created and suscribed to the RSS feed for the Cardinal Cast podcast from West Salem Elementary School in Virgina. I found this podcast to be interesting because it appeared to be a school wide effort. The podcasts have been created by students in different grade levels and are about a variety of subjects.

Week 7 Thing 16: YouTube

I signed up for YouTube today and posted my first video which can be viewed in my previous post. I already had a Google account so signing up for YouTube was really easy. The video I uploaded took about 15 minutes to get up and running on YouTube.

I found some very educational videos on YouTube, however, the site isn't totally kid friendly. I liked how related videos appear on the right hand side because it helped in my search for my intended topic. However, I realized that it dosen't take long for the related videos to lose their relevancy to my search.

I searched the videos related to the one I posted and made a comment. In the bottom right hand corner of the video click on YouTube so you can view it on YouTube and see my comment.

Week 6 Thing 15: Adding Fractions

Today I made my very own educational video titled Adding Fractions. Students in fifth grade learn a lot about fractions so I thought a video that they could view over and over would be very helpful. After filming I created my final product using Windows Movie Maker. I found the program to be fairly easy to use, however, I think it would take the students some time to be efficient at using the program. When I uploaded my 2 videos I was suprised that Movie Maker took each of my videos and divided it up into segments varing in length from 12 seconds to 1 minute. I'm not sure why the segments were random lengths, however, the short segments made it easier during the editing process. Students will have to be able to identify one video from the next and be careful when adding segments so that they stay in the desired order. I found it really easy to add titles, credits, effects, and transitions. The variety of options was fun to experiement with. Students may find enjoyment doing the same activity. However, I can imagine them spending an incredible amount deciding which options to use, nevertheless becoming more efficient with practice.

Week 6 Thing 14: VoiceThread

VoiceThread: An application that can be used for storytelling

VoiceThread provides a visual and interactive way to tell stories. I signed up for a free account and browsed through VoiceThreads posted by others. I found many threads that have been created by students doing book talks. My students have been sharing book talks since the beginning of the year in front of their peers. I think the students would really enjoy publishing their book talks on VoiceThread. I can see the novelty of this application motivating and challenging students to excel.

I think it may be helpful for students to view some book talks that have already been created. I commented on a couple in the blog posts just before this one and I've included a link to a great book talk where the option for me to post a comment has been removed. Check it out!

Week 5 Thing 13: Google Docs

Google Docs makes it super easy to share documents with other people. Instead of having to send out an e-mail to share a document you can use Google Docs as an online location for all the documents you want to share. Instead of e-mailing and creating multiple copies of one documents you can invite people to view and edit documents in one location. I found this YouTube video to be most helpful.

I've actually worked with Google Docs during a collaboration project at my school. The nice thing about Google Docs was that it allowed multiple people to work on planning the same project and it kept all our ideas in one place.

Today I created a document of my own and I shared my document with a couple of people I invited through e-mail. As I was pondering how this application could be used at my school it dawned on me that the group that creates our school's morning news show could benefit from the easy access and organization Google Docs provides. Students would type their daily scripts just like usual and save them on Google Docs. This would make it super easy for the teacher to view progress and to locate the script if one of the students on the shows is absent. How convenient!

Registar for a free Google Account if you don't have one.

Week 5 Thing 12: Wikis

Over the past few months I've learned a bit about Wikis and even started to create my own. While looking at the Wikis created by other educators I was inspired and I found the versatility of Wikis to be quite interesting.

I really appreciated viewing the wikis designed for elementary students. I can see now that the educational possibilities are only limited by the mind of the creator. I think my students would really enjoy using a wiki for collaboration purposes as well as a means to publish their work. It puts a different spin on being able to hold students accountable for their learning.

Week 4 Thing 11: Clouds of Words

TagCrowd and Wordle allow me to create clouds of words. Just enter some text and watch what happens. Both TagCrowd and Wordle identify the words used most frequently by pulling out those words from the text and varying the size What an interesting idea! People never cease to amaze me.

As I was excercising my creative juices I began to see how Wordle could be used in my classroom. Below is a link to my Wordle on Ferdinand Magellan, one of the world's most famous explorers. I thought students could take a Wordle of this and other explorers to make predictions about the explorers life prior to research or as an aid during research. How do the words Spain, world, voyage, first, and islands relate to Magellan. A student researching this famous explorer might want to find out!

title="Wordle: Ferdinand Magellan"> src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/1490868/Ferdinand_Magellan"
alt="Wordle: Ferdinand Magellan"
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Week 4 Thing 10: Sign-up

I just signed up for my own Del.icio.us account. I figured if I didn't do it now I might not get around to it for a while. Noting the benefits I decided I just couldn't wait. So far I have 3 bookmarks.

Week 4 Thing 10: Simply Delicious!

Del.icio.us: A social bookmarking tool; http://delicious.com/

For years I've used the Favorites star to bookmark sites I planed on revisiting. Now I see that using this method is old fashioned. Del.icio.us allows me to bookmark my favorite sites with the option of sharing them and accessing them anywhere I have Internet access. How convenient!

As I was browsing through the sites bookmarked on the academy2020thing's page I came across some familiar sites and some that are potentially useful. However, in order to maximize the effectiveness of del.icio.us I will have to sign up for my own account. That way I will have my personal sites available for super easy access.

I can see the potential of this tool in the classroom. I imagine marking the sites that I plan on using for my own professional development and even more so to mark the sites I want kids to use.

Week 3 Thing 8 Blog Post

As I was reading through some blogs created by other teachers I discovered this post by Bud titled "Whats "Print?"" Bud goes on to explain how it's becoming increasingly irrelevant to describe a source as print and suggest that identifying sources as primary and secondary may be more appropriate. His post presented a question that I've come across in my own teaching so I replied. Check out Bud's blog and my post by clicking on the link below.

http://budtheteacher.com/blog/2009/11/24/whats-print/comment-page-1/#comment-3057

Week 2 Thing 4

Well, I wasn't so sure I wanted to sign up for a flickr account, but I did it anyway. I have a feeling this is going to be common place and eventually I will end up signing up anyway...or maybe it already is common place and I'm just behind. Ahhh...technology. I also have to say I loved the Poster Maker. I've already got ideas spinning through my head:)

Thing 3

Wow! I feel so informed and somehow so overwhelmed. Well, my general opinion is that people need to be informed and need to make an effort to abide by "fair use" regulations. I think it is important to teach students that they have to have permission to use copyrighted material. Even if there isn't time to teach all the regulations I don't think it would take long to address the general idea of "fair use". Sure, ignorance is bliss, but only until you're caught and have to pay the price for being uninformed.

Thing 2

Thing 2 was so easy it has me wondering if I did it right? I love the ideas for implementation in the classroom. I'll have to ponder how and when to introduce blogging to my 5th graders.

Thinking of "Things" I have to do

I'm stressed out about this whole "Thing" thing. I've been super busy...out of town, planning for subs, trying to keep my head above the water....you get the point. Well, I'm going to try and an accomplish some"Thing" now. Wish me luck!