Thing #7a

I have been following Scott McLeod blog, "dangerously irrelevant". He is very insightful when it comes to technology in the classroom. He writes...

Our intelligence tends to produce technological and social change at a rate faster than our institutions and emotions can cope with. . . . We therefore find ourselves continually trying to accommodate new realities within inappropriate existing institutions, and trying to think about those new realities in traditional but sometimes dangerously irrelevant terms. (War: The Lethal Custom, p. 441)

http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2009/11/survey-why-isnt-your-school-organization-making-more-progress.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dangerouslyirrelevant+(Dangerously+Irrelevant)
This week he posted a 3 minute survey: Why isn't your school organization making more progress? He gives 8 responses to chose from and you can follow the results live. I am going to share this information with my department when the survey closes.

Thing #14 - Web 2.0 Tools

This lesson was so much fun! I have literally spent hours just playing with each one of these! I chose to blog about http://www.wordle.net/. Below are just a few uses for the classroom:


Characters in a Book
Spelling List
SAT Words
Key points in a Chapter
Poetry in Words
Vocabulary
Brain Storming
State Reports - which is my favorite for the younger students. They can place the state's name really big and then in the smaller fonts list all the facts about that state!

Thing #13

Link: www.imagechef.com

Okay, so this has got to be my favorite "thing" so far. I have spent so much time in the last 2 days just playing on these sites and uploading them to Facebook! I have made cartoons of my family, picture galleries of my grandkids, etc.

These site are very user friendly and easy to use. Basically, it is just a matter of picking your design and uploading a photo. One your creation is made, they offering emailing, uploading, Facebooking, printing, etc.

Using these tools in a classroom would be great for teaching the younger students keyboarding skills. Also, for visual presentations such as a cover for a book report, in a Power Point or even on a scient project board.

Thing #12 - Create A Slideshow

For my slide show, I chose RockYou. Although this project was fun, I felt there were not enough ways to individualize my show. I wish it had let me upload my own music. The reason I chose to use alphabet letters was to spell out TECHNOLOGY. I thought this might be a cute way to start a PowerPoint for staff development.

I am having Christmas at my house this year and I am going to make a slide show with family photos and music. I can play it on my big screen TV while my family is at my house and the photos will just continually loop while we have our get-to-get-there. I am thinking this will earn me brownie points with my husband's family and with Santa!!!

Attribution for Photos:
T=Leo Reynolds
E=duncan
C=monceau
H=mag3737
N=takomabibelot
O=dogwelder
L=Leo Reynolds
O=duncan
G=monceau
Y=claudecf

Thing #11

Few sites have had as much impact on digital photo sharing as Flickr.

Before Flickr , sharing photos was a long and not very user-friendly process of creating albums, uploading them, and coming up with a way for people to search them.

The whole idea of posting photos to the web was still based on the idea that they should come in a set. But with the use of digital photography; we no longer process rolls of film, nor do we have to file away groups of images in album-sized collections. Flickr allows the user to download one photo at a time.

The topic I chose for my image is crafting. This image was posted by Audaciousgloop.

I will use Flickr when creating presentations or handouts for technology. Because Flickr has so many photos to choose from, the images can help make my presentations visually appealing.

Thing #10- Creative Commons

Before this lesson I was not aware of Creative Commons. Thinking back, I wonder how many times I have violated the Copy Right laws! This is such a great idea. There are so many times, when creating a presentation for work or school that I have just gone on the web and hit "save as". This is also a great lesson for our students. So many times, they are taught what they can not use, but we should also give them instruction on what to use. Most students are not cyber criminals but some student lack creativity. To counteract the negative impact of this creativity, teacher should make an effort to teach students the importance of cyber ethics and safety. As online learning grows, the implementation of lessons in cyber ethics and safety will become necessary. The lessons should emphasize the students' role in protecting themselves as well as the school.