Adele McMurry

I explored quizlet.com and think this is  a great site for two reasons.  One, it was started by and MIT student, and two, he created an amazing site for students to collaborate and share learning.  This site allows students to search or create their own ‘learning environment’ for any subject or standardized tests.  It also allows classrooms to create their own study sessions with teacher involvement.  Printing flash cards are easy, but the interactive tests prove to be so much better than wasting paper.  I hope teachers will show this to their students and encourage them to study together, or just peruse the many subjects available.

K12 Online Conference session http://a38.video2.blip.tv/6090002791827/K12online-Googlios494.m4v?bri=5.5&brs=389 was a really informative session about Googlios.  This is worth listening to because it addresses the 21st Century classroom and the How’s, Where’s and Why’s teachers should change ways of teaching.  Teaching is not driven from “top down “anymore; kids of today need to be taught from “bottom- up” because they are a generation of constant connection to technology and teaching themselves how to get what they want, when they want.  Our teaching methods need to incorporate lessons that use and address this technology so the student is put in the position of being responsible of their own learning and not being told “what to learn”.    If we guide them using technology the classroom will be a more productive and progressive place.

Bora Bora

This is the closest I’ll get to a beach this summer.  My dream beach!  Wish I was there.

Image by jsmoral

CC is pretty cool.  I actually didn’t know about this until just now.  Very useful.  In the past, when I used pics and stuff from the internet for teaching, I included the link (under the pic) for the source.  I also have never noticed CC on websites or at least don’t remember looking for it.  However, last year when we used VoiceThread, I was shown a ‘creative commons’  website that allowed usage of pictures.  The collection of pictures were not many and I didn’t really like the lack of selection.  I image all the youtube videos are CC?  didn’t see that in the material so I need to do some more research.

My favorite Wiki on the list was the Westwood Wiki http://westwood.wikispaces.com/

She did a great job of organizing her classes and kept a nice list of ‘Hall of Fame’ stuff.

I was surprised with the Chemistry teacher posting grades on his Wiki…aren’t those suppose to be confidential?  I wonder if parents complained…but then again it is high school and how many parents really follow up with their kid’s Wiki space info.  I log into my daughter’s science one just to make sure she is doing the homework and stuff, but she is in middle school.  http://reich-chemistry.wikispaces.com/

The sixth grade science wiki was good too.  Lots of references for the kids to use and organized well.  However, I didn’t quite understand the left margin and all the clinic stuff.  I assumed those were case studies that the kids created or that the teacher dreamed up so they could comment. http://codeblue.wikispaces.com/

Then there is my Wiki.  I created mine more for Teacher support so KRCS middle school science could use my references for Earth Science.  I also had links to sites that were useful for parents to use in Elementary school.  Much different use since I really didn’t have a collaborative classroom in a content area and was a resource teacher.  When I get back to teaching content, that will change!   http://krcstechnology.wikispaces.com/

I posted these at one point but now i cannot view them.  I’ll check back later to see what happened.  Weird things are happening because Thing 5 disappeared for an hour and then Thing 6 came back and Thing 5 disappeared.  i’m wondering if I have too many tabs opened and am logged in twice in my blog…  How Many Tabs can one have open….way too many!  Enough for today…

I have added many feeds and blogs to my reader.  This is a lot like delicious.com but personalized and may prove to be more helpful for creating KRCS groups by lower, middle, upper schools.  I have already started a delicious KRCS list but once all of the teachers learn how to use RSS feeds, etc., this might be a better system for classifying links, etc.

My favorites Google Reader links/blogs are science and technology.

www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/index.html

www.instantanatomy.net

My favorite blog is this one:

www.intelligenic.com/blog/?p=152

Getting the hang of adding feeds to my Google Reader.  Have organized them in folders and added bloggers I will follow.  Next I’ll start sharing certain topics with teachers.

My first thoughts about Web 2.0 were WOW!  This is so powerful.  As teachers, we need to start using more technology, to complete tasks in the classroom, so our students are experienced with learning and taking charge of their own learning in life and college.  Most of our students know more about the internet, researching, and finding music, etc. quicker than teachers.  I think that a major impact that teachers can have is to show students how to collaborate and use their knowledge to its potential in establishing meaningful support for each other.   It’s great what we do to prepare kids but I would like to see less lecturing in classrooms and more hands on tasks.  21 Century technology could motivate many students to take control of their own learning; especially if we introduce collaborative classroom activities where students can tap into other classrooms around the world.