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/
Monday, August 10, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
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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Schwarzenegger: Printed texts are old school
Shared via AddThis
Thursday, June 11, 2009
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...?
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...?
Saturday, March 28, 2009
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.
(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.
Friday, March 27, 2009
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.
(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.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
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.
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.
Web 2.0 Week 6 - Podcasts, Video and Audio
What are podcasts/vodcasts?
Podcasts are syndicated audio clips, and vodcasts are the video version of those. You can subscribe to them via RSS. You subscribe to them and recieve them at regular intervals. These are the Web2.0 version of radio shows and in-house broadcasting. So, instead of doing my morning announcements via live broadcast, like when I was in Spring Branch ISD, I would create vodcasts and post them on the web for parents, students and teachers to access.
Podcasts are usually in MP3 format. The podcasts are able to be located by searching using podcast directories or search engines. These are specialized feed aggregators designed for audio and video files.
Uses in schools:
I think of these as pseudopodcasts. Until our school districts are able to support subscriptions to podcasts, we have to post our new ones on the web and our users must go and look for the new ones each time.
Things I'd use podcasts for would be: Morning announcements, problem of the day, Where in the World is..., prep for Geography or Spelling Bees, Math Bowl problems, character development, TAKS prep, summarization, steps in the scientific method, travel reports from Texas regions...combine that with chromakey, and you can project the children in front of various scenery as if they are really there. I could go on and on.
I started BUG, the Broadcast Users Group, when I worked in SBISD. I would do the same integration ideas with pod and vodcasting, except they wouldn't have to be live, and I wouldn't need the expensive, bulky video modulator. The advantage to podcasting and vodcasting is that they are easier to create and require less equipment.
When you subscribe to podcasts, you just need an application (podcatcher) to be able to read them. Apple's iTunes performs that function.
Creating podcasts:
EasyTech likens the process of creating podcasts to that of the process writers use. So, the podcasting process is analagous with the Writing Process. The podcasting process is (1) plan, (2) produce, (3) publish, and (4) promote. Planning means selecting your audience and selecting a format and timeframe. This is like the prewriting phase of the writing process. Producing it means you write it, practice it, and record it. This is the drafting, writing, and editing phase in the writing process. Publishing is just like the publishing phase of the writing process. The difference is at the end. In the traditional writing process, many people skip the sharing phase. However, this is extremely important in today's technological age. The podcasts won't get heard by anyone unless you promote them. To promote the podcast, you may submit it to a podcast directory, use an RSS Generator to add it to the podcast. You'll have a URL with "rss" on the end of it.
Video sharing:
Video sharing is basically like taking the books you own and bringing them to the staff lounge. Other teachers bring their books to the lounge. You can pick up someone else's book and read it. TeacherTube and YouTube are repositories where people can save their videos and share them with others.
E-books:
The digital media version of printed books. Many e-books have audio functionality to read aloud to viewers. E-books come in several formats. The PDF versions can be read on PDAs and PCs. There are other versions which are readable on proprietary hardware, like Amazon's Kindle.
Podcasts are syndicated audio clips, and vodcasts are the video version of those. You can subscribe to them via RSS. You subscribe to them and recieve them at regular intervals. These are the Web2.0 version of radio shows and in-house broadcasting. So, instead of doing my morning announcements via live broadcast, like when I was in Spring Branch ISD, I would create vodcasts and post them on the web for parents, students and teachers to access.
Podcasts are usually in MP3 format. The podcasts are able to be located by searching using podcast directories or search engines. These are specialized feed aggregators designed for audio and video files.
Uses in schools:
I think of these as pseudopodcasts. Until our school districts are able to support subscriptions to podcasts, we have to post our new ones on the web and our users must go and look for the new ones each time.
Things I'd use podcasts for would be: Morning announcements, problem of the day, Where in the World is..., prep for Geography or Spelling Bees, Math Bowl problems, character development, TAKS prep, summarization, steps in the scientific method, travel reports from Texas regions...combine that with chromakey, and you can project the children in front of various scenery as if they are really there. I could go on and on.
I started BUG, the Broadcast Users Group, when I worked in SBISD. I would do the same integration ideas with pod and vodcasting, except they wouldn't have to be live, and I wouldn't need the expensive, bulky video modulator. The advantage to podcasting and vodcasting is that they are easier to create and require less equipment.
When you subscribe to podcasts, you just need an application (podcatcher) to be able to read them. Apple's iTunes performs that function.
Creating podcasts:
EasyTech likens the process of creating podcasts to that of the process writers use. So, the podcasting process is analagous with the Writing Process. The podcasting process is (1) plan, (2) produce, (3) publish, and (4) promote. Planning means selecting your audience and selecting a format and timeframe. This is like the prewriting phase of the writing process. Producing it means you write it, practice it, and record it. This is the drafting, writing, and editing phase in the writing process. Publishing is just like the publishing phase of the writing process. The difference is at the end. In the traditional writing process, many people skip the sharing phase. However, this is extremely important in today's technological age. The podcasts won't get heard by anyone unless you promote them. To promote the podcast, you may submit it to a podcast directory, use an RSS Generator to add it to the podcast. You'll have a URL with "rss" on the end of it.
Video sharing:
Video sharing is basically like taking the books you own and bringing them to the staff lounge. Other teachers bring their books to the lounge. You can pick up someone else's book and read it. TeacherTube and YouTube are repositories where people can save their videos and share them with others.
E-books:
The digital media version of printed books. Many e-books have audio functionality to read aloud to viewers. E-books come in several formats. The PDF versions can be read on PDAs and PCs. There are other versions which are readable on proprietary hardware, like Amazon's Kindle.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Web 2.0 Week 5 - Wikis and Online Productivity
Wikis
A wiki is just a collaborative website that allow many people to contribute to editing its contents. Wiki is named after the Hawaiian word for "quick." A single page is a wiki page, and the links and pages collectively make up the wiki. Some wikis allow for postings from the general public, and some require accounts and authentication. The latter type of wiki would be safer for public school children to use.
Wikis provide a means of verifying the validity of their content. They provide some means of error correction. A wiki is collective intelligence in which individual users create, correct, and change the content. Wikis are transactional, they are in a constant state of change as the collective knowledge grows.
Online productivity:
Basically, online productivity tools such as Google Docs are like having the MS Office suite online. I used to use MS Word's collaboration function when I had my fifth graders go through the drafting, revising and editing phases of Writer's Workshop. Word could track changes and you could insert comments for your partners to access. The great part about this was that kids could be paired up with kids in other classess, and they didn't have to meet in "real time."
With Google Docs, users can collaborate in real-time. With as tech-saavy as I am, I'm just not comfortable with that real-time part yet. I like turn-taking and letting someone finish writing their thoughts and then having time to process the information before responding. Nothing was quite as frustrating for me than participating in the "chat" portion of my Master's program. Someone would have a really great suggestion that sparked an idea for me, but someone else on the team would get their comment out there first and everything I was typing for the past minute or two was pretty much worthless.
It is a matter of retraining my brain to process information and to correspond/communicate with others more quickly. I am able to juggle many projects in a relatively short amount of time, such as teaching multiple levels of students during a lesson or planning lessons, printing out data, and analyzing student test scores within my 50-minute planning, but I am not truly multitasking. Kids today who can to real-time collaboration are actually multitasking. It boggles the mind.
I will be exploring Google Docs more. I had to get those personal biases and the negative presumptions out of the way first!
A wiki is just a collaborative website that allow many people to contribute to editing its contents. Wiki is named after the Hawaiian word for "quick." A single page is a wiki page, and the links and pages collectively make up the wiki. Some wikis allow for postings from the general public, and some require accounts and authentication. The latter type of wiki would be safer for public school children to use.
Wikis provide a means of verifying the validity of their content. They provide some means of error correction. A wiki is collective intelligence in which individual users create, correct, and change the content. Wikis are transactional, they are in a constant state of change as the collective knowledge grows.
Online productivity:
Basically, online productivity tools such as Google Docs are like having the MS Office suite online. I used to use MS Word's collaboration function when I had my fifth graders go through the drafting, revising and editing phases of Writer's Workshop. Word could track changes and you could insert comments for your partners to access. The great part about this was that kids could be paired up with kids in other classess, and they didn't have to meet in "real time."
With Google Docs, users can collaborate in real-time. With as tech-saavy as I am, I'm just not comfortable with that real-time part yet. I like turn-taking and letting someone finish writing their thoughts and then having time to process the information before responding. Nothing was quite as frustrating for me than participating in the "chat" portion of my Master's program. Someone would have a really great suggestion that sparked an idea for me, but someone else on the team would get their comment out there first and everything I was typing for the past minute or two was pretty much worthless.
It is a matter of retraining my brain to process information and to correspond/communicate with others more quickly. I am able to juggle many projects in a relatively short amount of time, such as teaching multiple levels of students during a lesson or planning lessons, printing out data, and analyzing student test scores within my 50-minute planning, but I am not truly multitasking. Kids today who can to real-time collaboration are actually multitasking. It boggles the mind.
I will be exploring Google Docs more. I had to get those personal biases and the negative presumptions out of the way first!
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Jumping In
I'm jumping in to Facebook. I'm not terribly social by nature. In fact, my favorite T-shirt reads, "You read my shirt. That's enough social interaction for one day." But, I really need to get on board and keep on learning.
I'm going to give it a try. Maybe since it isn't face-to-face it will be easier. I'll blog about it next week.
I'm going to give it a try. Maybe since it isn't face-to-face it will be easier. I'll blog about it next week.
Web 2.0 Week 4 - Flickr and Mashups
Flickr
Flickr is a web service that allows users to store photos and videos and share them with other users. If you aren't into PhotoShop and advanced photo editing, it is a nice way to keep your personal photos organized and off your hard drive. It is a way of easily sharing them with others.
I see the educational value of Flickr because it is a repository for all sorts of photos and videos. Students would be able to use Flickr to search for graphics that enhance their multimedia projects. I worry about appropriateness and quality, however.
I would want students to find only things that they need. For example, if I have a student designing a multimedia project on Mexico, he needs photos that relate to the country, its customs, etc. and not tacky photos of half-drunken gringos from New Jersey who happened to visit Cancún last summer. ¿Verdad?
For elementary students, I would suggest that the teacher locates and downloads a bank of images from which the students may select images for their projects. It is more time-consuming for the teacher, but it can help avoid unpleasant situations where students find inappropriate, but not necessarily explicit images.
Mashups
A mashup is a hybrid web application. One web application utilizes data from another source and creates a new application or service from combining the two. To really understand mashups, you have to know what an API is.
APIs are "application programming interfaces." Webopedia has a good definition for lay people, “a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. A good API makes it easier to develop a program by providing all the building blocks. A programmer then puts the blocks together.”
So, a mashup uses APIs and data from other places to make something new. It doesn't require the user to do a bunch of fancy programming in order to take the data and make something new out of it.
Flickr is a web service that allows users to store photos and videos and share them with other users. If you aren't into PhotoShop and advanced photo editing, it is a nice way to keep your personal photos organized and off your hard drive. It is a way of easily sharing them with others.
I see the educational value of Flickr because it is a repository for all sorts of photos and videos. Students would be able to use Flickr to search for graphics that enhance their multimedia projects. I worry about appropriateness and quality, however.
I would want students to find only things that they need. For example, if I have a student designing a multimedia project on Mexico, he needs photos that relate to the country, its customs, etc. and not tacky photos of half-drunken gringos from New Jersey who happened to visit Cancún last summer. ¿Verdad?
For elementary students, I would suggest that the teacher locates and downloads a bank of images from which the students may select images for their projects. It is more time-consuming for the teacher, but it can help avoid unpleasant situations where students find inappropriate, but not necessarily explicit images.
Mashups
A mashup is a hybrid web application. One web application utilizes data from another source and creates a new application or service from combining the two. To really understand mashups, you have to know what an API is.
APIs are "application programming interfaces." Webopedia has a good definition for lay people, “a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. A good API makes it easier to develop a program by providing all the building blocks. A programmer then puts the blocks together.”
So, a mashup uses APIs and data from other places to make something new. It doesn't require the user to do a bunch of fancy programming in order to take the data and make something new out of it.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Web 2.0 Week 3 - RSS and Newsreaders
What is RSS?
Really simple syndication (a.k.a. rich site summary) is an XML-based web application used for sharing web content. This format is used on a website and then compiled and viewed with a feed reader (a.k.a feed aggregator). Instead of the end-user going out and viewing individual websites for any recent updates, the end-user subsribes to feeds from the various sites. The sites with feeds will then send updated information to the user's feed reader. This is a valuable time saver!
I would like to learn how to write code for use on my websites so that viewers can subscribe to my site and get updates in a timely fashion. I'm used to using WYSIWYGs for creating and updating my websites. I'm getting better at locating HTML that I can plug into those sites. So, my next step is to locate information on how to easily add the proper code and quickly update it.
Really simple syndication (a.k.a. rich site summary) is an XML-based web application used for sharing web content. This format is used on a website and then compiled and viewed with a feed reader (a.k.a feed aggregator). Instead of the end-user going out and viewing individual websites for any recent updates, the end-user subsribes to feeds from the various sites. The sites with feeds will then send updated information to the user's feed reader. This is a valuable time saver!
I would like to learn how to write code for use on my websites so that viewers can subscribe to my site and get updates in a timely fashion. I'm used to using WYSIWYGs for creating and updating my websites. I'm getting better at locating HTML that I can plug into those sites. So, my next step is to locate information on how to easily add the proper code and quickly update it.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Web 2.0 Week 2 - Tagging, Folksonomies, and Technorati
Tagging and word clouds:
Tagging is just like labeling. We had to do this for our business' website so that any time someone searched for certain words, their search engine would pull up our site. For example, we tagged: karate, Chun Kuk Do, Chuck Norris, fitness, Yoga, Wholy Fit, exercise, The Woodlands, Magnolia, Spring, etc.
Wikipedia writes, "Tags are a "bottom-up" type of classification, compared to hierarchies, which are 'top-down'." I don't like word clouds very much. The relative size of the words in relation to how frequently they're searched is good, but I like things that are heirarchal, I like there to be more order and structure. It is a preference based on convergent thinking rather than divergent thinking.
Folksonomies:
A folksonomy is a system of collaboratively creating tags. This is the true bottom-up classification system created from social tagging. I see it as an anti-directory. I picture folksonomies as trees limbs branching out and directories as tree roots branching out downward.
Delicious is a folksonomy because it will collect and create a combined view of everyone's bookmarks or tags, the ones that have been made public. Here's a link to my Del.icio.us account. Click here.
Technorati:
Technorati is a search engine for blogs. It directly competes with Google and Yahoo, but it narrows itself to just blogs. I can't think of why I would need it since Google gets those results too.
Tagging is just like labeling. We had to do this for our business' website so that any time someone searched for certain words, their search engine would pull up our site. For example, we tagged: karate, Chun Kuk Do, Chuck Norris, fitness, Yoga, Wholy Fit, exercise, The Woodlands, Magnolia, Spring, etc.
Wikipedia writes, "Tags are a "bottom-up" type of classification, compared to hierarchies, which are 'top-down'." I don't like word clouds very much. The relative size of the words in relation to how frequently they're searched is good, but I like things that are heirarchal, I like there to be more order and structure. It is a preference based on convergent thinking rather than divergent thinking.
Folksonomies:
A folksonomy is a system of collaboratively creating tags. This is the true bottom-up classification system created from social tagging. I see it as an anti-directory. I picture folksonomies as trees limbs branching out and directories as tree roots branching out downward.
Delicious is a folksonomy because it will collect and create a combined view of everyone's bookmarks or tags, the ones that have been made public. Here's a link to my Del.icio.us account. Click here.
Technorati:
Technorati is a search engine for blogs. It directly competes with Google and Yahoo, but it narrows itself to just blogs. I can't think of why I would need it since Google gets those results too.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Blogs in the Classroom
I will be introducing my staff to Blogs in May. We will be focusing on integrating science and writing next school year. So, I will implement them as a part of our Fall Science Fair. Part of being a scientist is being able to * communicate effectively. Throughout the students' work on their projects, they will be documenting their work through a blog. The primary classes usually do a whole-group science fair project. It would be the perfect opportunity for the teacher to use guided writing. The older kids will be able to do individual projects and document their progress.
* Yes, I originally misspelled my own blog's name! How embarrassing!
* Yes, I originally misspelled my own blog's name! How embarrassing!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Goals for the Course
Utilizing Web 2.0 technologies for personal productivity so that I become comfortable enough to then use them with my students/teachers.
Re-train my brain to be electronically social in addition to being electronically savvy.
Web 2.0 Week 1 - Blogs
This is my very first attempt at blogging. I know how valuable people believe it to be. I just don't know how to integrate it into the learning environment.
I have done message boards as a form of "virtual" Literature Circles. I wonder how blogging would compare. Is it the same as my old message board?
I have done message boards as a form of "virtual" Literature Circles. I wonder how blogging would compare. Is it the same as my old message board?
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