New Blog...

I have a new blog at Edublogs that I'd like everyone to know about. I am going to be using it a lot this year. I will be having an online book study for TAKS Specialists starting up very soon on Crucial Conversations. I will probably open up another one on the same book for Reading Specialists, Librarians and Technology Teachers if there is enough interest.

I will be using Edublogs in September and October for the Mittelstadt Science Fair. I will be experimenting with three different forms of student blogs: a class blog, a class blog with separate pages for each student...still technically just one blog, and individual student blogs.

I will also be implementing some sort of creative writing activity within Edublogs as well. I am going to hold off and work on that one in the spring, though because I have some other non-blog-related projects that will be taking up a lot of my time. (Like robotics...how exciting!!!!)

Here's the link to the new blog http://bcrouch3.edublogs.org/

WebQuests 2.0

I helped out during a WebQuest training last week. I am totally psyched about WebQuests again. I remember what I used to love about them. Not only are they structured just enough to keep the kids on task, but they are open-ended enough to give the kids some flexibility and choice. Kids are more motivated to learn when given some choice. WebQuests allow a teacher to build in differentiation and higher-order thinking into the tasks and products as well.

My mind rapidly started spinning about how to incorporate Web2.0 technologies into WebQuests. I think that they could be used to acquire the information, through social technologies, wikis, etc. They are also a great means of disseminating information at the end of the project. I'm going to keep brainstorming as I work this summer on designing a couple of WebQuests for my district website.

Specifically, I'd like to have one for my Mutant Frog unit and create some sort of Measurement one for math.

Schwarzenegger: Printed texts are old school

This is slow in coming, but faster than other states! It's about time. Come on, Texas!!

Schwarzenegger: Printed texts are old school

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Vodcasting, podcasting, noncasting, hmmm....

Great intentions: I started out trying to make life easier for myself by getting out of a non-contract day "obligation". I was asked to attend a Learning Fair by my principal, but it coincided with my 15th wedding anniversary. I offered to create a vodcast which we could show as a video presentation at the learning fair and then upload to our school website for promotional purposes afterward. She thought it was a great idea.

If you don't use it, you lose it: As a technology coach and a tech specialist in two other school districts, I ran in-house broadcasting studios. I didn't get to do that for a year when I went into the IT (technical) department. I spent this past year coaching teachers for the state math and science state-mandated student assessments. So, I ran into some video difficulties. I was able to capture the video and edit it with MovieMaker, but sometimes it imported at the wrong speed...and I didn't know how to fix it. Chipmunk problems.

Podcasting: I was able to edit the audio using Audacity...I taught myself as I went along. Maybe I could just create a podcast. Wait a minute. These are all principals who will be in the audience. How many of them are going to want to sit there and just listen to some audio with not pictures? That will not go over well.

I ended up having to mix still photos will the audio clips and inserting them into PowerPoint.

Self reflection:
What did I have to go through to get this done? What did I end up with? What did I learn? What impact did it have? I tell you what...I sure did learn a thing or two about empathy. If I were a teacher at an elementary school, and I didn't have a local expert available (just-in-time support), I would have given up on day 2. That was the day I had a problem finding the right cable to upload the video from the camcorder to the computer. (And I didn't even mention that in the above anecdote.) I wouldn't have completed my vodcasting or podcasting objectives. However, I may have still completed my overall objective of creating a presentation utilizing technology.

Implications for the teacher: What are you trying to accomplish? There may be more than one way of getting there? If you want to get there by way of X next time, then what steps can be taken to make it more successful? Preparation, materials, training, assistance, expertise...?

New Goals...

(1) Utilize blogging for professional development. I'm pitching my idea of studying the integration of math and reading to fellow TAKS specialists and reading specialists. Hopefully I'll get a little group together and we can do a book study blog over the summer. I'd like to continue communicating with them throughout the next school year, implementing ideas and reflecting on them, I guess I'll call it electronic synergy.

(2) I'd like to have my little scientists blogging their process during the school's fall Science Fair. Scientists write. Scientists communicate. This would be a great real-life experience for them. I'm not sure how time-consuming this is going to be. I can hopefully subscribe to them via RSS so I can more easily keep track of the postings. I'm nervous about this, but I'll have the whole summer to plan it out.

End of Course Reflections

Let's revisit my personal goals for the course:

(1) Utilizing Web 2.0 technologies for personal productivity so that I become comfortable enough to then use them with my students/teachers.
(2) Re-train my brain to be electronically social in addition to being electronically savvy.

Goal 1:
I began using Web 2.0 apps solely for this course. Throughout the seven weeks since being introduce to Web 2.0, I have begun seeing real-life applications for them, especially for blogging. I believe that I will choose blogs to be my tech integration focus for next school year. I am initiating an electronic collaborative among TAKS specialists and reading specialists this summer. We will be studying and communicating about integrating math and literacy. I'm very excited!

I plan on introducing blogging to my staff in the fall. We have a school-wide science fair coming up in the fall, and blogs would be such a superb way of showing students how part of the scientific process involves communicating with others. We'll probably use Gaggle's message boards, but we may be able to use an educational blogging site. I'll research it.

In addition to professional uses, I have begun a second blog of a personal nature. This will be used by myself and perhaps by my doctor as we go through the weight loss process. I've been with this doctor for a few years, back when I lived in Richmond, and it is always a real pain finding a new one. We still have phone appointments a couple times a year, and this would be a great way for her to see how things are going.

Goal 2:
I am not very social by nature. But, I did sign up on Facebook. I have started visiting my Facebook site every couple of days as a way of keeping track of old friends and colleagues. The stupid quizes bother me, as do the ads. But, it is nice to see how everyone is doing and what they're up to. I'm going to try to keep it up. I don't think there's any danger of overuse.

I'm not interested in living in an virtual world like Second Life. I may visit occasionally so that I'm familiar with it. I have too much to do in the "real world." I do subscribe to a blog of a mother who goes undercover in Club Penguin, which is like Second Life for kids. I am keeping up with the psychosocial implications of CP on kids' development. Interesting stuff.

I think that my blogging will be a way of reaching goal 2 because it involves communicating with others, just not in realtime.

Critical Listening

The EasyTech lesson on Podcasting referred to Aristotle's three components of critical listening:
Ethos (credibility), Logos (logic), and Pathos (intentions)

It made a point of having listeners determine which of these three components were being used in each statement of the podcast to better understand the podcast.