What are you working on this month for your online portion of the class?
Some of the options were to create a jing (screencast), work with google/docs, explore VoiceThread and continue to work on your blog, wiki and other Web 2.0 tools covered in the class.
When we meet next month I would like to have each person present(ten minutes) to the class showing your blog or wiki (any tools proprofs, jing, etc)that you have been working on and any activities integrated with your class. Here is a link to the CLASS WIKI with your names/blog/wiki links. Please view each other's work.
12 comments:
This month my Spanish III's are heavily involved with video/production and editing and I'm involved with locating missing (non-existent?) usb cables, firewires, etc. I'm trying to stay positive (and not just positively frustrated.) Pam Vallee has been (as usual) a lifesaver--but even after scouring the building for various materials, I'm on my way to Best Buy (I think.)
Other news. Once again, the heroine is Pam. For NEASC we are looking for a web2.0 solution for storage and access to our technology assessment pieces. Pam is looking into MassOne. Derek says we may have folders and bandwidth and space enough to use our own server in the near future. So, I am optimistic.
I'm thinking that if we do find a way to store our materials in cyberspace that a JING to explain how to post and another on how to access will be mandatory! S
In honor of the ELA long comp hurtling our way, we have been working on the 5 paragraph essay, compliments of igoogle. Every student has an account and invited me to collaborate in their work. That means for the first couple of paragraphs I was able to take a look at everyone's intro, which sets up the essay, and provide some feedback. I found it much much more engaging to do it working with my laptop than wading through a slog of scrawled paperwork. The good news is, for the majority of students, their first two paragraphs were absolutely top-notch. The bad news is, keeping pace with 65 students' writing is darn near impossible, and many of them lost that thread of organization they had started with and their essays spiraled downward into...well, you get the idea. Pretty interesting experiment though, with editing and revising.
I am so excited and frustrated at the same time! I do all sorts of work and forget to save it! am trying to figure out how to upload my video to my wiki - can't edit my own pbwiki now because it thinks I am someone else and have to have it check by the "owner of the wiki" aka me!! My GOAL is to creat a PE health teacher resource placing updated articles links etc. for PE and Health staff as well as for my summer class.
I managed to create two very simple jings and to bring my class to the lab to interact with them. They used the jing to get a gmail account and then used the other jing to learn how to get into igoogle documents. We're currently working on a poetry project in igoogle. The kids love it, and (like Heidi) I love the portability of it. The ability to access the project from home / school / lab is priceless.
~Melanie
I am trying to set up a blog for my students to do their weekly journal entries in, but I am hoping that there is a way for them to do this without being able to read the posts of other students. I want them to see what I say, but not what their peers say when they comment. Can anyone help me here?
I have been using Google Docs to write, share, and edit the School & Community Profile for NEASC. That worked great because I was able to pull it up here and at home, and others were able to collaborate right on the same version. I've been helping multiple classes with Movie Maker, PhotoStory, and PowerPoint presentation issues. I'm trying to find an online storage site for NEASC projects and for students to store their work in progress (I'm trying MassOne right now). I just thought of something to add to my blog & wiki - I'm trying to find some quiet time to actually work on my own project instead of everyone else's!!!
I have been experimenting with both Jing and GoogleDocs. I was asked to make several presentations at the MMEA All State Conference on using technology in the music room. Last year the internet was not available so I captured several images and created files just in case. I have posted them on my wiki (http://thmsmusic.pbwiki.com/). The first was a Jing movie explaining how to capture and convert a youtube video for ipods. The second was a slide show created from captured images from the web site. It was quick and easy. The best part was I was able to imbed both of them into my wiki. I uploaded the video right from my desk top and then "published" my Audacity slides to get a link to attach. Neat stuff.
This month, I have used Google Docs to set up a place for our NEASC Committee to write, share and edit our "School and Community Resources" section. The other members of the committee were impressed by my ablilty to set that up...I let them marvel over it for a few moments before revealing how easy it is!! I am also working on a committee for MASCA, the state association for school counselors, and used Google Docs to set up a place for a group of us to work on our presentation for the spring conference at the end of the month. WIthout the ability to use Google Docs for this project, it would be very difficult to coordinate - we are all busy and none of us has the time to be the collector and editor of all the information.
My biggest challenge right now is this.....our guidance office has a webpage that, well, stinks... and also this wonderful web based system Naviance and our counselors love blogger. I am working to figure out what one central place I am going to put all of our information for students and parents....and then how to incorporate the others. When I answer this, it will be what we celebrate at the portfolio celebration!! I attended a conference last week on "Utilizing Technology to Enhance Career Education" - it was great - and slowly but surely it is coming togeher for me!
I have been "blogging" with my classes since we began this Web 2.0 experience and love having a place to post information, interesting videos, writing, links, etc... I also find it so rewarding to read what students choose to share with me through our blog and e-mail that they may be hesitant to share aloud in class. For example, one of my students recently sent me a powerful excerpt on "friendship" from the myspace page of a fellow student. She thought I would appreciate the way it was written and she was right. Using other ELA and science blogs as a model, I have plans to extend my own blog and make it more of a class requirement. We are also going to take a look at the blogs and twitters of some of our favorite middle school authors (I just got around to joining twitter and am very intrigued).
Our team has also been preparing for the grade seven long composition and I have found it convenient for students to e-mail their work to me so that all of us can view model essays in class (using our team tablet and cart) without deciphering handwriting.
Helena and I set up a blog for the science department at the LHS. It has been handy to get opinions on keeping homework relevant, supplies for the budget and updates from common planning time. We have used the blog for department meetings and updates.
On a personal note, I am getting married this summer and I have been on some wedding blogs. I am trying to get some ideas for wedding favors. It is neat to see what other brides have done.
I have decided that I will allow students to see each other's comments...I will not ask about anything personal, so it will be fine for them to see what their classmates are saying. Posts and comments will be reviewed by me prior to posting.
I will be using a blog to help with parent communication. I'll pilot this on our Life Cycle of Butterflies. Good idea Mary to use the rockyou.com site. I'll try that this week.
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