Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Reflections

While I am a board-and-marker type, I have learned many things in 23things that will be useful to me.  Some of my favorite tools are Flickr, Animoto, teacher chat boards, and Facebook (more for personal use).  I struggled with several of these tools,but I was pleasantly surprised at how easy Animoto was.  What a great way to put together pictures from a field trip or other schoolactivitiy.  As for improving the format or concept, I really have no suggestions.  I think 23things works well as is.  This experience will definitely influence my practice as a teacher.  For one thing, I will not be afraid to try new technology. (The computer has always sort of scared me.)  I will use what I have learned to make classes more interesting for my students.  I think I might even use a blog like 23things in my class (giving attribution, of course!).  I will try to keep up with new developments in technology that will help me in the classroom.  I think a good way to do this is to join an educational chat board.  I resolve to use new tools and keep up.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Thing # 23

The video was great!  I found the button that shows that the original work from which 23things was created is licensed by Creative Commons.  You are free to share and remix under these conditions: give attribution to original author, use only noncommercially, and share alike which means if you alter or build upon the work, you may distribute resulting work only under the same or similar licensure.  Under the Creative Commons button is a blurb that says 23things is licensed by Creative Commons.

In my classroom , I will try to find Creative Commons works that I can use and/or revise for use by my students.  It is much better than worrying that you have broken copyright law.  I realize that I will have to get Creative Commons licensure myself if I decide to distribute my work, even to students.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Thing #22

http://www.bigcontact.com/shakespodospheare

I couldn't get the blogline link to work, so I just included the URL for the site I chose.  I looked in Education Podcast Network and found a reallly good directory.  I checked out Shakespodosphere  which has podcasts of major British literature, especially Shakespeare.  There were readings of Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, and Julius Caesar.  There were a  couple of lectures on there as well.  I listened to Shakespeare's Sonnets: Selected Readings.  What beautiful language.  I can definitely see using these in the classroom.

Christmas 2009

Christmas 2009

Thing #21

I had so much fun making this mini-video!  I decided to use my own pictures instead of Flickr to make it more personal.  I've already posted it on Facebook for my family to see.  I think it would be neat to make one with pictures from this year and email it as a greeting to all my friends.  And it was so easy to do. Animoto does all the work for you.  I could see paying for it if I had lots of time to play.

The video link is above the title "Thing #21."  I'm not sure how it got there.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Thing #20



I like YouTube because it is a good source for informational and how-to videos.  I like some of the music videos as well.  It is also a good search database.  I chose this video because it teaches teens about ethnic diversity.  I'm not sure what features I would want on my library website.  I have to give it some more thought.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Thing #19

Besides Facebook and TeacherPop, I do not belong to any online communities.  There are so many social networks to choose from but I particularly like 43 Things.  It is a goal-setting community and includes lots of suggestions for goals.  These include reading more books, learning sign language, and running a marathon.  I chose learning Spanish.  There are 16,974 people signed up who want to learn Spanish.  The site shows some of the photos of these people, at the start and next to blog posts.  There were a lot of posts that reported on progress, some that gave tips, and I found one that listed the most common Spanish phrases along with the English translation.  At this site there are links to Learn Spanish in 10 Days, Official Rosetta Stone, and Spanish Translation.  I think that when I finish my college work, I will begin to learn Spanish and probably join 43 Things.  I think it would be a great motivator. 



Thing #18

Honestly, I chose Faceboook because more of my family and friends use it.  However, after looking at both Facebook and MySpace, I liked Facebook the most anyway.  I think it is important for teachers to be familiar with these sites because they are so popular with young people. If we want to stay in touch with our students we should learn about their interests.  I didn't really get any new insights because my daughters all use social networking and talk about it, so I had had a good preview. I like the idea alright if you have spare time to kill.  It seems to be another form of entertainment, and there are other ways I would like to spend my time.  One thing I didn't know is that Facebook can act as a match-making service - your profile tells your relationship status and asks if you are interested in men or women.

I thought Facebook had the most useful features, like a blog that keeps up with new products, announcements and stories.  It also displays feature stories on its homepage.  On the sidebar you canfind games, applications, and links.  The best feature is that people have to request to view your page, unlike MySpace where anyone can contact you.  As far as classroom or school applications go, I'm undecided about the usefulness of social networking.  It is, after all, social.  It might be difficult to get students interested in sharing educational information during their social time.  And it would not be a good idea  for students and teachers to network.  I think it's more of a personal nature.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Thing #17

Social bookmarking is awesome!  You can find an enormous amount of information in a relatively small space AND the sites that are bookmarked and tagged are just what you are looking for.  You can save a lot of time that you would have to spend doing a regular web search.  De.ico.us even shows you the most popular bookmarks.  Saving your bookmarks on line, sharing them with others, and viewing others' bookmarks can also stimulate discussion in the form of comments.  I saw an example of this on the APSU23 bookmarking  site.  There was discussion about the need for Edublogs to be international instead of just American. 

Teachers could use bookmarking to keep their favorite sites together (tags have replaced folders) and social bookmarking to share with other teachers by tagging  bookmarks by subject and grade level.  They could also exchange comments about teaching applications or modifications they have used.  Again, what a time saver!

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thing #16

The start page I chose was iGoogle.  I liked it because it was easy and useful.  I liked the topics you could choose from for display.  I chose news, music, art, and humor.  The news includes top stories from the New York Times and CNN.  Under music, you can see what musical events are coming up in your area.  I also like the way you can change the background at the top.  I selected a beach scene - beautiful and relaxing.  I would not use this as my homepage because I use someone else's computer. 

The online calendar is useful in many ways, but just like the calendar on the wall, you have to remember to look at it.  Especially useful is the way you can put in recurring events and they are posted to the right days.  The to-do lists could be useful if you remeber to look at them.  If you spend a lot of time at the computer, both the calendar and the to-do list makes sense.  However, concerning the to-do list, I'm a little old-fashioned.  I like to write out my lists on a pretty notepad.  I'm strange that way.

Google Desktop would be useful at home or at school because there are so many features.  You can download different calendars, get to Gmail, and peruse Google Reader, to name a few.  So you could check your calendar, read your e-mail and find topics you want to read about - all in one spot.  I would recommend it to anyone who is trying to get organized on the computer.

Thing #15

Wikis are fun!  I loved looking over my fellow students' entries and I had fun creating mine.  For use in my classroom, I think it would be neat to have a wiki for my students.  I might have them collaborate to write a short story with pictures .  One student could start with a paragraph and others could add their paragraphs.  They could also post suggestions for changes or write out an idea to see what the others think about it.  I might use another page to have students work on a collaborative research paper.  They could discuss who would research each element, and then they could write their part.  Revisions could be made back and forth.  I could also use it as a sandbox.  After a particularly hard day, I could give the students a few minutes to "play" in the sandbox, expressing themselves as they choose (within reason).

What I think is interesting about the wiki is the way you can immediately respond to other entries and everybody can see your comments.  Everything is right there.  I also like the way you can get creative with fonts, colors, and size of print.  I think students would really enjoy wikis. 

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Thing # 14


This is a mind map that I created with Bubbl.us.  The tool is for brainstorming which I did.  These are my ideas for a paper I have to write for Intro to Special Ed.  I like the way you can cluster the ideas and see the relationships between them.  It is fun to manipulate the bubbles and change their colors.  The only thing I didn't like was the amount of time it took to save and load.  Bubbl.us allows you to share with friends, collaborate, and move to a blog or website.  You can also e-mail and print.

I also looked at Gliffy, a flowchart tool.  It has floor plan software as well as ways to create a website map.  These are just a few of the diagrams you can make and blog and share.  I played with the floor plan for awhile and then looked  at the flowchart.  You have many shapes to build with, and you drag them from the sidebar to your blank sheet.  You can easily connect rhe shapes with lines, write in the shape and rotate the shape.

I'm not sure why I chose these two sites.  Perhaps they were just more attractive to me.  I do know why I chose to make a mind map rather than a flowchart.  The mind map allows you more flexibility as you move back and forth between ideas and yet you have structure.  With a flowchart, you have to know where you are going because it moves straight ahead.


Monday, October 18, 2010

Thing #13

I did not know that you could do word processing online.


     Halloween Party


Saturday, October 31st
at Judith and Tony's Place



Bring some goodies,  Wear your costume!!!!
Prize for the Scariest Costume!!!​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​


Zoho Writer has many good features.  Sharing documents, for example, instead of attaching and e-mailing.  You can also upload documents from your desktop to Zoho.  They have a template library to use for building documents.  Since it is online, you have access to your documents from anywhere.  You can link a doc to a web page.  There is a spell check in 75 languages.  You can share documents with friends and they can edit or make comments.


As i worked on my little creation, I was disappointed about a few things.  There is an icon to change the color of your background, but I could not get it to work.  The same was true of the border icon.  I wanted to change the size of my image but was unable to.  In Word, it is no problem.  The script would not change and I could not find any clip art. 

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Thing #12

http://www.google.com/alerts/manage?hl=en&gl=us&mqm=c&q=Abilify&sig=fMPNiTlMPzXKkJU-iU6ee4XO28k



Google Alerts is a great way to keep up with the lastest devlopments in a news story.  It is very easy to pick out your topic.  Then e-mails of current articles come to you.  My topic was a drug I happen to take.  I can keep up with the most recent research on it.  In advanced mode you can pick out type of source, how often, and e-mail length.  Educational uses are numerous.  Students could set up their own alerts and use it to find  the latest information on a research project.  The whole class could follow a topic they are studying and share comments.  Any current event that interested the students could be followed.

http://translate.google.com/#en|no|Education%20is%20definitely%20the%20field%20for%20me.%20%20Not%20only%20do%20I%20enjoy%20sharing%20knowledge%20and%20interacting%20with%20students%2C%20but%20I%20like%20to%20learn%20new%20things%20as%20well.%20%20An%20interactive%20clasroom%20is%20so%20much%20fun.%20%20People%20keep%20telling%20me%20that%20the%20high%20school%20students%20will%20drive%20me%20crazy%2C%20but%20I%20like%20teenagers.%20%20I%20have%20worked%20with%20some%20lately%20at%20a%20grocery%20store%2C%20and%20we%20got%20along%20great.%20%20I%20know%20there%20will%20be%20some%20discipline%20problems%2C%20but%20I%20am%20ready.


Google translate is a blast.  You just choose the language to be translated and the language to be translated to.  Then you type in you text and it is immediatly translated.  The father of my children is Norwegian, which is why I chose that language to play with,  There are over 50 languages to choose from, and it is incredibly easy to use.  Even though I know some basic Norwegian, I could use Google translate to write more substantive letters to family and friends in Norway.

This site could be extremely useful in a language class, although there is the possibiity of abuse, such as cheating.  But students could type a paragraph in the language they are learning, and then see if it translates correctly into Englsih.  They could also look up hard to find words or colloquial phrases that cannot be translated literally.  It would also be good for students to see what various languages look like.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Thing #11

This was a difficult exercise for me.  I think Google was the easiest to work with.  And I would say the same for the search tool.  The Edublog confused me; I couldn't see how to get anywhere.  In Google Blogs I found 23 Things!  I also found 2CoolTools which includes things like Photoshop tutorials and Technology Trends. I can't say that I found anything unusual.  Topix seemed OK, with its keyword search.  But the number of posts that came up was overwhelming. Syndic8 is a newsfeed that I liked the looks of, but I couldn't connect the feed on my computer.

Thing #10

http://www.google.com/reader/view/#stream/feed%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.globaldashboard.org%2Ffeed%2F



RSS Reader is fun to use.   I found sites that interest me like The Kitchen which has unique cooking techniques displayed and recipes.  I also like  the Global Dashboard which gives news on recent environmental issues.  It is great to go to one spot and see recent entries instead of having to go to each individual site. 

In school you coul ude any number of news sites to help your students keep up with current affairs.  You could include sites that have to do with international news, domestic news, environmental news and film industry news 9I'm not sure how educational that is!).  Students might enjoy setting up a public page so they could share their thoughts with others,

Teachers could use entries from their favorite sites to get ideas for class starters or class discussions.  They could also guide students to open their own Reader account and choose their favorite sites.  It could be an information source for them when writing papers.

Thing #9

custom image

This image expresses how I feel about computers!  However, this activity was easy.  All I did was go to the site, pick an image and add my own text.  Some of the images had animation and you could send them in e-mails.  All I had to do to get the image in my blog was right click, copy and paste.  Students in a classroom could use this feature to liven up a presentation, create "art", and just play and relax a little.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Thing #8

I looked at Mappr, Mosaic Maker, and Spell with Flickr.    All of these could be used in my future classroom.  I will be teaching English, and Mappr could be useful for showing photos from around the area where an author lived or lives.  It would also show pictures from the setting of a story. 

Mosaic Maker would be fun for the students to work with.  Photos from a field trip or school activity could be made into a mosaic.  If they were reading a novel, they could choose photos that represent different aspects of that novel, such as setting, characters, plot or imagery.

Finally, Spell with Flickr could be used to practice vocabulary words in a fun way.  I have included an image from Spell with Flickr below.
I have no problem with sharing pictures online as long as they are decent and not too personal.

KMcElman_100416_0093
KMcElman_100502_3813_N
letter G
letter L
letter I
letter S
KMcElman_100416_0097
 

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Thing #7


Rotterdam SunsetBy The Cavern Beatles' Photo Blog☆  Favorite

Flickr is a photo-sharing site with over 4 billion photos.  It allows you to tag your photos so others can find them.  You can share photos via the computer, upload and organize in sets and then collections, crop, fix and edit, as well as explore an amazing array of photographss.  I enjoyed just browsing through and seeing all the creativity.  The tour offered is helpful for learning to use Flickr.  You can look up subjects with keywords or by groups.  Leaving comments is an option, and you can add notes to your photos or descriptions.  Find people you know on Flickr by name or e-mail. 

There are many uses for Flickr.  Photographers can share their work with each other as well as get exposure.  In schools, teachers can pull up the site and show students any number of pictures with a theme.  Libraries can direct student to the site if they are in search of photos.  These are only a few of the opportunities afforded by Flickr.







Couldn't get rid of following picture.


Thing #6

http://wordpress.com/

Word Press is a blogger site that displays the best of 356,450 bloggers (as of the day I looked at it).  There are 100 themes, from professional to wacky.  Widgets allow one to share Twitter posts and add Flickr photos.  The site has a free Game of the Day.  There are blogs in over 50 languages which could be especially helpful for students of languages.  You can create web pages from this site.  There are also applications for IPhone 05, Blackberry, and Android.  Various forums can be found.  One drawback is that some features are free and some are not.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Thing #5

The articles that I looked at convinced me that there is no going back.  I can either get the hang of this computer thing, or I will be left behind.  If I am going to be an effective teacher, I will need to be Web 2.0 literate. 

School 2.0 means that more and more school work will take place on the computer.  Reading and writing will gradually go from using books, paper and pen to using the computer.  Also interactions between parents, teachers, colleagues and students will become increasingly electronic.  As schools become linked within systems and systems within states, the flow of information will increase.  Schools of the future will doubtless be able to interact with schools from different countries as well.

Thing #4

Conversation occurs when bloggers recieve comments and then respond.  If you interact with several other bloggers you begin to build a group of bloggers who are interested in the same things.  It is natural for a person to want a response when he "says" something.  Interaction makes you feel like you belong.When bloggers share about themselves in a profile, other bloggers know them better.  Don't be afraid to blog and if you criticiae, do it nicely.

Make your comments relevant - either agree, disagree, add to, or say thanks.  To encourage comments on your blog, invite comments and ask questions.

Comments on other bloggers to come,,,,,

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Thing #3

Following are ideas for using a blog in my future classroom.  Most of these ideas must be credited to Anne Davis on EduBlog Insights.  I could keep a journal on a blog to review my experiences in the classrom as well as with other teachers and administration.  Keeping track of my training experiences is another option.  I could store descriptions of teaching units there and have the ability to come back and edit them if necessary.  Discussions of what does and does not work for me in the classroom could be shared with other teachers,  I could also suggest to other teachers ideas for teaching activities and language games that I have found useful.

A class blog might be helpful in sharing ideas with students.  Information such as calendars, events, homework assignments, and recommended extra reading could be posted.  I could post literature readings and ask students to interpret or analyze them on their own blog from time to time. I would like to try this one with the Romantic poets (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, and Shelley).  Vocabulary activities, math games or grammar games could be provided on th blog.  You could share online readings on current affairs or any other topic for your students to read and respond to.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Thing #2 - McGee

I used my real name for posting and for blog titles.  I don't feel the need to be anonymous since nothing I write in my blogs will be private.  I suppose I should take the suggestion to be anonymous, but I am a bit of a rebel.

Creating the blog was a challenge for me because I've never done it before.  It took me quite awhile to insert the avatar.  I also wanted to edit my post, and I finally had to get my 14-year-old daughter to help me.  But I can do it now!

My avatar reflects my personallity because it is smiling, and I am a generally happy person.  I wanted the evil smile, but I didn't have enough coins.  I made the avatar like me instead of someone else because I like me.  One more thing - I'm holding a coffee cup because I am a voracious coffee drinker.

1st Thing

I have registered and created my first blog.  It was fairly simple except for creating a password.  My first choice was not accepted.  And I had trouble making out the strange letters.  I am a bit anxious because I feel like I don't know what I'm doing.

As far as life long learning, I believe that if we keep an open mind to different experiences we are always learning.  I do feel a bit akward,though, returning to college at the age of 49.  I feel like my mind is noot as quick as it once was, and I have a harder time focussing. I think that all kinds of activities, in and out of the classroom, involve learning.  When it comes to life experience, i've got plenty.  I am excited about this opportunity to further my education.