Sunday, August 3, 2008

Thing #23

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
I guess it would be creating the avatar.

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
It may help me with personal research.

3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
I now know what tools I'm not interested in using.

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
Some of the videos I couldn't view - and the videos were really helpful, so I would make sure the videos work and that there are more videos explaining really how to do things.

5. If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?
Yes, if it wasn't so much work.

6. How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote 23 Things learning activities?
technology

Thing #22

Go to Nings or something else and look at the different features and options then write a blog post about what you think a Ning would be good for and how you might use it.

I went to Teacherlingo because it pertained to my current employment and viewed the lessons, searching for "Biology" and there were no results under that search term. I then searched with the same term under latest blogs but it was a set of random blogs. I saw that one could post lessons and browse lessons, the latest blogs, teacher blogs sorted according to academic level, read messages on certain message boards sorted by name (you must become a member to post a message on a message board) and a user could give feedback on teacherlingo.

I think a Ning would be a good place for students and teachers to come together for "salon" study, about, for instance, a book. I much prefer online learning and this could be a way that students could give feedback online and not be shy about it. Salon discussions could be used for everything from bible study to classroom book study, or just pick a book and invite anyone to read and message board about it.

If I had a classroom with a lot of students I could use this for book discussions.

Thing #21

Use either Photostory or Audacity to create a podcast (you will need to link the podcast) or vidcast and post it in your blog along with your thoughts about using this kind of technology.

I do not at all feel comfortable posting my voice on the internet, even for something such as this, so I chose to record a music stream instead. I am hopeful this will be acceptable.

My thoughts about using this type of technology? I think it's fine if someone wants to broadcast something all over the internet, or use it as a way to get information to their students, but I personally don't feel comfortable putting my voice on the internet.

Here is the link to the podcast I put on Switchpod. I hope it works:

http://www.switchpod.com/users/today100/feed.xml

The Best is Yet to Come - Michael Buble
The Best is yet to come sung by Michael Buble off his cd "Call me irresponsible".

I wasn't sure if I was going to be penalized for doing the above, so I went ahead and created a photo story with the audio file in the background to show that I did indeed do as much as possible with the assignment without using my own voice.

I have tried and tried to embed a link to my photo story here but it won't go through. Sorry about that, guys!

Thing #20

1. Go to YouTube, find a video using the search box. Search for something like Libraries, librarians, learning, teaching, etc.

I searched for teaching and it brought up some very broad topics with "teaching " in the title.

2. Go to TeacherTube, locate a video for a subject that might be useful for students/teachers in your sphere of influence.

I searched for biology high school and it turned up 0 results. I then had to search biology and it came up with 112 results but none of them were rated by age. This was not helpful.

3. Write a post for Thing #20 about your video finds and the value of having access to so many video resources. Embed at least one of the videos you selected into your post.

The value of having access so many video resources? The pool of videos to use is larger.

However, the search results were not at all helpful if a teacher wants to search for a particular topic and then use that video to teach their students.

However, I did find other videos where teachers either used it as a tool for communication with their students or otherwise.

Here's a link to a teacher who wanted to introduce a new textbook to her students prior to the beginning of school:

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=2638a0497bf
or Biology Book

Here's another link to a video that gives an introduction to Biology for a certain teacher's class:
Biology Welcome Video or
http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=b689a1eea23db5b29f

Here are the embedded videos:

Here's the Biology Welcome video:



Here's the Biology Book video:

Thing #19

I explored the site from the Web 2.0 awards list. I found it difficult to navigate and I didn't really know what to do with it. I would have much preferred to search the worst of web 2.0 awards, and did so when this got dull. I really needed a pick me up.

What is special about the tool?

That a company chose to provide a service to optimize search engines??? I'm not sure. It "ranks" websites so that the viewer can see the "best" available according to award categories.

What are its useful parts, especially with regards to Libraries and school?
The tags "Education" and "Books" are useful categories for both teachers and students. It gives the user feedback before the user is to visit the website, and that can be helpful if the user wants to research the legitimacy of the website and the information on that site.

How might you use this tool in your own setting?

It would be a good place to let your students know about so they could do more informed searches. It would be a good place to use in order for research so you would know what you were "in for" when you went to a website. Also, just venturing to the website brought me to another website about languages, something that I haven't had time to research but now I know where to go and that that website is a tool for total language immersion.

Thing #18

Explore one or both of the free options (Google Docs) and post a blog with your opinion of the advantages and/or disadvantages of using a free online tool instead of Microsoft Office.

The advantages of using a tool such as Google docs is that it is a centrally located place to work on all different types of documents, as well as working with photos or using your mail or calendars. It posts your work so you get an "at a glance" account of when you worked on a document. You can easily share your work with others as well.

The disadvantages of using Google docs is that you have to deal with all of those pop up windows. Also, people are more unfamiliar with this so the learning curve might prevent them from utilizing this.

Thing #17

Create your own customize search and write about it in your blog and post a link to it.

http://rollyo.com/search.html?q=Halloween+costumes+female+women&sid=435377.

If you search Halloween costumes female women under "today100" you will get my search sites.

I like this tool because I do a lot of searches for a multitude of things and this will condense my searches. It was really easy to do as well.