Web 2.0 tools

I now have a blog started for my class and would like to use this for an emerging technology lesson.  My students will explore the essential questions of "How can I thrive in a media-saturated world?" and "What will the future look like?" through explorations in digital photography, collaborative learning experiences with other students in other schools, explorations of emerging technologies, and a variety of multi-media presentations.

In my Broadcast Media class, I will be having each student sign on and make a blog page of their own. Before making their page, I will be trying to find a class, preferably outside the United States, to have my students correspond and collaborate with for their project. All of their blog pages will be linked to my main page for easy access for myself to check on their comments. The students will be corresponding with their partner from the other school.

The next step will be using a wiki. With their group members the students will focus on areas of business, entertainment, and communication as they explore the world in 2020.  

Literate in the 21st Century

I believe the major challenges in any technology are money and staff development. You need to have a fast Internet connection for using any Web 2.0 technology. A lot of the programs that the students can use are free, which is great on the budget, but if you do not have the computers and fast Internet to do what you want, the students will become frustrated, impatient and inattentive. As I have read, businesses and even the President of the United States uses these tools to communicate. The students need to be aware of the technology that is out there and how to properly use the tools. For the teachers to understand how to use the technology tools, and correlate it with their curriculum, there needs to be plenty of staff development. The teachers have to feel comfortable using these tools in order to educate the students. Staff development takes time and money.

In order for the teachers to complete their curriculum in a year they can only spend so much time on each section.  The teachers have some major thinking about bringing in technology tools to enhance their curriculum. This will take time and they need to remember to do it in strides. Being able to collaborate with educators that are already using the web tools in the teacher’s subject area is a plus. This way they can share ideas on how to use them, what works well, and have some type of a timeline. The more often the teachers use the technology tools the easier it will get and this will allow the students to become more literate in the 21^st Century.

Podcast - Illustration Tech Open House

I could not believe how many different types of podcasts there are out there. Some just talk about nothing in particular and others are very well informative. You can spend hours listening to the many different podcasts. I was reading this one article called "Campus tours 2.0". It was talking about how colleges and universities were turning to the interactivity of Web 2.0 technologies in trying to lure new students. You can do a virtual campus tour without leaving your home!

One of the ideas of podcasting was to do an introduction for Open House, so I briefly summarized one of my 3 classes into a podcast.  I am planning on doing my other two classes shortly so that I can give my students my web address and they can have their parents listen to it from my web page.  I have always had a hard time when I take a class hour to demonstrate some concepts in a new program, and there are students absent. When they come back I have to teach a mini version of what I spent the class hour on. If I recorded my lesson with some pictures even and saved it as a podcast, it would be much easier to have the absent students following a tutorial of what they had missed. I would also like to get an after school group together and put together a podcast on what is going on in the school. Depending on how quick they can get it together and what is going on at the Jr. High, we can do a monthly podcast. I think the students will really enjoy putting it together and then we will have to get the word out to the students and staff to listen in.

The students will definitely be using quite a few of the NETS when working on a podcast of school news. Creativity and Innovation would be a must. How they are going to present it and what are they going to be talking about. They have to keep the interest of their audience. Another standard would be the Communication and Collaboration. The students would be working in groups, gathering information and then communicating it to their peers and teachers.  

The podcast I recorded is at my webpage because I could not get it inserted. Click on the webpage below and look under Classroom projects, Open House Podcast.

http://www.nlsd.will.k12.il.us/~kglavan/glavan.html

Using Flickr

This is a picture of the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia. We were there in April of this year and had a marvelous time.

I found the basic things that you were able to do in Flickr easy enough. It was when I go to add a note that it was quite hard. There was not a drop down link for "Add Note". Finally I went to the help forum and received help right away. There seems to be someone out there that is willing to help someone in need all the time, which is great. Adding photos is very easy as long as I have mine scaled to web size. All of my photos in iphoto are quite big. 

In my iMovie class we discuss and look at information about the types of photos shots that they can take. Such as: long shot, medium shot, close-ups, the value of threes, etc. Flickr would be great for this lesson.  After discussing the different shots and look at some examples, I can have the students, for homework, take pictures of the different shots and upload them to their Flickr account. (We would of already made an account at school) Then, with my RSS I can check out each students interpretation of the shots to make sure they understand each one.  If someone does not have a camera at home, they can either sign one out from me or stay after school, take pictures and then upload them to the computer.

The students would be using the Technology Operations and Concepts under the NETS. They would be learning how to use a camera correctly, using the application with their pictures effectively and understanding the new knowledge of the types of shots in photography.

Social Bookmarks

Once you understand how to use Social Bookmarking and the many ways it can be used in the classroom, it is amazing how I worked without it. Many times I had searched for information on the Internet, found it, saved the link, then amongst my many links, lost it. The categorizing and sharing with other colleagues is fabulous. I especially like the sharing and finding what other web sites people are finding on the same subject.

Del.icio.us was very easy to use and manage. I like the concept of tagging your links. This makes it easy for my students and myself to find the links that were saved under a specific tag.

Furl is just as easy and if I were saving content would work great.  I love the idea of saving a snapshot of the entire page. I know how I have gone back to a site and found out it has disappeared. This way I at least have the content of the page saved.

 

I have my students putting together a website about the Rainforest. They research the location, climate, food, plants and animals, layers, people, language and housing of the Rainforest. I have many different sites that they can go to and it would be great to have them all on my del.ico.us site under Rainforest project. Working with their partner they could also share their websites if new ones are found.  One of the NETS-S that the students would be performing is the Research and Information Fluency. The students are taking the information that they are finding and putting it together to make a presentable and understandable website.

My delicious websites are on the right under "Great Links".

RSS

RSS feed is so cool. Bloglines was very user friendly and I was able to set up my site in no time at all. I love going to one place and having the sites send you information. The RSS feed will be perfect when I have the students writing in each of their blogs and then I can have their blogs sent to me when they update it. This will be so much easier and faster for me to go through comment on each of the student's blogs and also check to make sure they are using it correctly. I would like to have them corresponding and working with another Jr. High class, preferably in another country,  on a technology in the future project. Creativity and Innovation, Communication and Collaboration, Research and Information Fluency, and Critical Thinking are the NETS Standards that they would be using for the project. 

You should check out this one product that will be coming out shortly. It is called siftables -

http://siftables.com/

Watch the video.

Wikis

Using the pbWiki site was very easy. I did not do much to the front page, but added some of the technology links that others had mentioned on my sidebar. This site would be easy for even the nontech users in my building.

In our district, we just started a committee for Internet Safety, which we need to put a curriculum plan together. We will be having a total of 5 people from our building working on an Internet Safety Curriculum for grades 7 & 8. A wiki would be great to use because the other teachers, that are on the committee, can write in what they found, attach files and links to be put in a document for the school.

I would personally like to collaborate with other schools, hopefully globally, with my class on a technology project. The students would be signed in from both schools and be able to work on their project and see what the other has completed.

The NETS that the students would be using of course would be Communication and Collaboration with the other students, Creativity and Innovation with the way they put their project together, Research and Information Fluency and Digital Citizenship.

My url for the wiki is:    http://ljhkglavan.pbworks.com