Ed 632 Week 7 Wikis

WIKIS

What did I learn about wikis?

The word wiki comes from the Hawaiian word for quick. The main thing that sets wikis apart from blogs is the ability to have many people contribute to the web page. Wikipedia is the most famous example. Not only can a wiki have several contributors of information, wikis can also have many editors of the information. Wikis can remain in a state of being continually expanded, updated and edited.

Controlling the accuracy of the information is the major drawback. However, wikis tend to police themselves since they are created around specific topics of interest. The experts in the area become the content police in many cases. An earlier saved page can be posted to replace the inaccurate page. Nevertheless, the balance between accessibility and accuracy remains an issue. In some cases, certain destructive contributors could have their IP addresses blocked from future contributions. Some wikis require a registration to cut down on the problems.

Wikis:

• allow for multiple contributors
• allow for multiple editors
• allow for online collaboration
• help eliminate frustrating email chains
• can have issues with accuracy

What is the relevance of wikis to me as an educator?

I see myself using wikis in three ways: for myself, my students, and my teaching colleagues. I can see myself joining a wiki for areas of personal interest to help me increase my own knowledge about a topic. I can also see my students using a wiki for a class project or as a class website. This would allow them to collaborate with each other outside of the school day. However, I will have to research how much parental permission is required by my district for student use. I am also concerned about possible cyber bullying among my middle schoolers and how I could track and control that. I can also see my teaching colleagues using a wiki as a way to share resources, calendar events, and plan lessons and activities.

Ed 632 Week 6 Podcasting

What have I learned about podcasting?

Wow! I have learned that there is a whole new world out there that I really didn't know existed. I thought podcasts were just a way for me to listen to people talking. I didn't realize all the video podcasts that are available--both professional and amateur ones. Now that I know what to look for, there are so many available. I also didn't think about creating my own podcasts or having my students create one. I didn't even know that you could subscribe to a podcast, but now I have subscribed to several through iTunes. I even tried making a podcast through GarageBand.

Podcasts allow you to:

• download FREE audio and video files
• select only the files you wish to download
• subscribe to them, so new content is automatically sent to you when it becomes available
• use iTunes to access them
• download files to your ipod or other media devices

Relevance of podcasts to me as an educator:

There is a whole world of podcasts that can be used in the classroom. There are podcasts designed for teachers and for students. For my world geography classes, I will use Anderson Cooper 360 Daily and CNN Student News podcasts for current events in my classroom. For my animals of the world class, I will use the Animal Planet Video Podcast and the Discovery Channel's Dangerous Encounters Podcasts to show short 3-10 minute videos about a wide variety of animals. I looked briefly at iWeb for posting podcasts, but I'll need to learn more about it. I also played around with creating a podcast on GarageBand, but I also need to learn more about it before I feel comfortable having my students create one. For my own professional development, I have subscribed to The Tech Teachers podcasts.

My postings in the Ed 632 Google discussion group about podcasts:

1. Librivox is a site that has audio podcasts of books, short stories, and poetry. It can be used for individual listening or for a classroom. It loaded quickly and the quality of the readers was quite good for those that I tested. Educationally, I would use this to play the reading of the book, story, or poem for the class and have students follow along with their own copy of the text. The amount of entries is fairly limited at this point, but there is a nice selection of different genres and many classics.

2. MasteryMaze is a site that has video podcasts of PowerPoint presentations that review the major concepts primarily in ancient civilization, modern world history, and US history. It was developed by a teacher to help her students learn the material in her classes. There are a few other topics that are listed, but there is very little content in them. Some of the PowerPoint pages have no photos, so they wouldn't be too interesting to my seventh grade students. However, as a quick review for key concepts, they are quite good because most are just a few minutes long. I would use the ancient civilizations section for my world geography class as a review at the end of a unit.

3. Global Sound is a site from the Smithsonian that has podcasts and vodcasts of music from around the world. There is a wide selection of musical genres and a wide array of countries to choose from. You can search by country, culture group, genre, instrument, and others. I had trouble with the vodcasts being jerky while streaming. I did not have trouble with any other vodcasts that I had tried during the same evening, so I'm not sure if it was my computer or the site. I downloaded a few and there were no problems. I can see using these as a way to introduce a unit or play as background music when students are working on classwork. Also, I can see playing this while I collect homework. There is a nice descriptive paragraph about each song.

ED 632 Week 5 Podcasts

Blog posting was not required this week, but I've decided to post some comments and ideas from the google discussion group.

The questions for the Ed 632 google group discussion for Week 5 are:

1. What sources of podcasts did you find?

CNN News Podcasts--There are many podcasts to choose from. My favorites are Anderson Cooper and CNN Student News.

PBS Podcasts offers several different podcasts. My favorites are: Nature, Nova, and Frontline.

2. Would you recommend them?

Yes! For current events, CNN Student News is great! I love Anderson Cooper for my own news. The podcasts have an easy search feature too. PBS shows like Nature, Nova, and Frontline show the most current news and discoveries.

3. How would you use them in your classroom?

You've watched these shows for years on television. Now subscribe to the podcast and show just the sections that relate to your lessons that day. I like to show current events about the region we are currently studying in world geography class. Usually, there are three or four different topics in the fifteen minute students news report. Sometimes I'll show all three segments, but often I will show just the current news that relates to our current area of study. It would be a neat idea to have kids research a current news topic and create their own news podcasts. The PBS podcasts of Nature, Nova, and Frontline can supplement any science or social studies lesson.

Here are some sites that were mentioned in our discussion group:

This Common Craft video clearly and quickly explains "What is a Podcast?"

How does RSS work?

Mashable website for podcasting tips and free media links.

Mastery Maze is an excellent source of short vodcasts to review many subjects.

Itunes has lots of podcasts. I will check out "Backyard Film School" for my daughter.

The Education Podcast Network

LibriVox includes audio versions of novels, short stories, and poetry.

ED 632 WEEK 3 and 4

I have created a video that explains how to share your documents and presentations in Google Docs. Documents and presentations can be shared with other people as viewers or as collaborators.

This is helpful to me if I want to work on something with a teaching colleague. You can also group kids together to work on a project as a group.

Watch my tutorial video about sharing documents in Google Docs.

Google docs allows you to create:

• word processing documents
  
• slide show presentations
  
• spreadsheets
  

Google Docs allows you to:

• share documents with others
  
• allow others to view your documents
• allow others to collaborate with you

Google Docs is helpful for teachers who want to:

• collaborate on lessons and presentations with others
  
• have an electronic "in box" accessible wherever there is an Internet connection
• assign students to collaborative groups for project work

The sharing of Google Docs opens up a world of collaboration. Students don't have to meet at each other's houses to get work done. Teachers don't have to use jump drives to work on the same document. Once the document is shared, it is automatically updated when changes are made. You don't have to keep sharing and sending it over and over.

TEACHER TOOL BOX

I haven't had time to look at all these Web 2.0 tools that were suggested by my classmates in Ed 632, but I hope you can find some useful ones here. For a list of these with links, go to the blog for Social Web in Education.

• photo bucket
• picasa
• flickr
• discovery streaming
• national geographic videos
• hulu's movie and tv clips
• google maps and street view
• google earth
• wallpapers and screen savers from National Geographic
• pbs kids
• edu blog
• a to z teacher stuff
• jonathan bird's blue world
• dictionary.com
• big brainz (3d multiplication)
• multiplication.com
• voicethread
• promethean planet resources
• brain pop
• iweb
• zamzar (to convert video files....youtube)
• Julie ThompsonSmartboard Resources
• BBC School resources
• Discovery Education
• Who Dunnit?
• Mac VCR (record what happens on your screen to a Quicktime movie)
• Grammar Girl podcast "Does Grammar Really Matter?"
• Tumble Books (library collection online)
• google lit trips
• spelling city
• gaggle net (safe email for kids)
• net trekker
• personal webkit
• punctuation paintball
• lego link
• neoOffice
• Enchanted Learning
• Ed Helper
• Sellarium (solar system)
• Solpass (interactive games--fling the teacher)
• typeracer
• kids quintura
• google calendar
• die net
• widget box
• widget box today in history
• edmodo (micro blogging)
• nexio
• scholastic
• Promethean Plant
• NCTE Read-Write-Think
• NASA
• CIA kids
• I respond
• moodle
• audacity
• skype