One Last Thin

This has been an interesting journey. While I was already using some of the Web 2.0 tools we looked at on this journey (Goggle- Doc, Cal, Reader, Sketchup, and Facebook, Myspace, Creative Commons, etc.) this path has lead me a different way and allowed me to look at things from a different perspective.  It has forced me to examine them through the lens of an educator not just a user. This gave me a different perspective. While I not yet convinced that some of these apps are use full in an educational setting that reticence is more from a chicken or egg perspective. With out fully technology infusion the power of many of these in a educational environment is limited but at the same time if we do not use them we will never convince the holders of the purse strings that they are need.  Nor can we ignore them in school while the rest of the world moves into the era of social-net interaction lest we become a island of anarchism in a sea of change. 

I would recommend this SD to teachers and other educational professionals.  Even as we are busily plowing our furrow of instruction we must be reminded to raise our eyes to the horizon and member to look toward the future. 

Moikka (Goodbye in Finnish)

Joel

Thing #23

I like what I see on Ning and Classroom 2.o

It seems to me that these are the Web 2.o version of the 1990 internet users-groups and list serves that I was involved in. 

The college level physics community set up physnet in 1989 and physl in 1990 so that physics teacher around the country cold collaborate on teaching ideas. This was pre WWW days, no graphic interface. Every thing was text driven and there were not user friendly. In addition there was no spell checkers.  It was all about communication. 

This site takes this concepts to the next level. It adds a cooler interface and all of the social interaction tools such as grouping tagging in near context commenting. This is a great improvement over the users-groups and list serves that were a challenge to follow a discussion thread and did not have the capability of images. It was real challenging to discuss physics with no pictures.  

Physnet has come a long way since 1990 but physl (an e-mail list serve) had died. Physnet is not fully Web 2.0 but is making progress there. 

I can see a teacher setting up a social network site for their class so that students have a place to discuss the class and get input from the teacher on the learning. 

Thing #22

Here is my Facebook page Joel Palmer. I have a Myspace page but do not like it very much. It seemed to be more sleazy then Facebook.

I use this page to keep up with my children. My daughter is much more active than my sons but they post occasionally. It helps me keep up with what they are doing.

Educators should be aware of these sites but need to be careful about interacting with their students on the sites. As a teacher you need to know what interest your students but you need to keep the student teacher relationship intact. 

I have recently been able to get in contact with a large number of former students who have a alumni group on Face book. If has been great to hook up with students form 20 years ago. If you go to that group you can see some realy old pictures of me with a beard. 

I am not sure of any educational uses unless students used them to collaborate on home work. 

Thing #7c

I read an article to night about the Flue affecting Schools in Texas. 

This very interesting article from the New York Times gives a more global perspective on the possible pandemic that is starting in Mexico and quickly spreading to Texas. 

With out the RSS feed I would have only seen the local newspaper articles. 

Thing #21

Where to start. 

I have been using Google calendar for more than a year both personally and with my district calendar. 

I have google home page, G Mail account and use Google bookmarks.  

My favorite tools are Google earth which I see has many education uses and Google Sketchup.

In fact I am teaching a one day seminar for El Centro college this summer on using SketchUp.  If you check out my links on Delicious you will see one for 3D Warehouse. This is google site for storing and sharing models made in Sketchup.   One link is to my posted models. I have many more to post. 

Thing #20

We have been using Google Docs for months now. I recently used it as a cite for teachers to register for the Science Department dinner next Tuesday night. 

We are using it to collaborate on documents and collect data in spread sheets. We have not used it for presentations yet due to the limited features available. 

I definitely see it a s a way of collaborating on curriculum development projects. 

Thing #19

I think this is the coolest thing I have discovered on in this course. 

The implications for collaborative learning are astounding. I can imagine a group discussion on the periodic table in Chemistry or the differences between plant and animal cells. 

The problem I have is "Do we have sufficient technology resources to make effective uses of the program?"

Thing #18

A number of our teachers are using videos both from teacher tube and utube. At this time utube has more cool science videos than teacher tube but i think that will change over time. 

Utube has much more junk on it so you have to be careful what you use. I wold be real careful sending students to a utube web site but I would use it in class and embedded on my own web site.

Fore science teachers it allows us to show demons that we may not have time, money or equipment to to in our class. 

• This is a Utube science video called How much Sugar is in a can of Soda.
• 
  
  
• This is a teacher tube called Thunder and Lightening 

• This is the most amazing video. This is a Ping-Pong ball launched by what is called a vacuum cannon. It is a 10 foot long PVC Pipe with aluminum foil covering each end and a ping-pong ball in side. A vacuum is drawn on the tube so it is a vacuum inside. then you poke one end with a sharp object. Air rushes in and accelerates the ball so fast it comes out the other end with enough force to destroy a coke can.

Another look

Thing #17

I am fascinated with the use of podcast in education. I am actively exploring the use of it with students and as a staff development tool.

This coming Tuesday night I am hosting a dinner meeting for MISD science teachers to discuss the new TEKS and our plans for implementing them. 

There are some teachers who can not make the meeting so we are going to record it and publish it as a pod cast. 

We also have some required yearly safety training. We are exploring the possibility recording a series of podcast (probably vodcast) that we can post on the district Moodle site and have the teachers go through the training at their own pace and time. 

Thing #16

Ok maybe I am cynical but I am not seeing a lot of classroom applications. Personally I can see using it as a guide to selecting reading material on a given topic. 

I guess what this site reveled to me was one of the powers of Web 2.o. It allows thousands if not millions of people to "tag" or express opinions about many things whether it is websites, books or pictures. This metadata makes the web more search friendly. When I create a web page or post a picture I may include search terms that I think make sense but they might not make sense to you. When thousands of people tag the picture or web site odds are that some one will se it as you do and place a tag that will let you find it when you are searching. 

This site does it for Books. 

Thing #15

This is my Delicious book mark page. Click Here

I have save a number of bookmarks that would be use full to teachers as well as well as some that I think are just fun. 

I could see this a away of getting teachers to collaboratively share bookmarks for good educational useful sites. We are constantly e-mailing good sites to our teachers but we do not have them collected in one location where teachers could search them for tag MISD and the maybe the subject area or topic. 

Thing #7b

I chose to write about Roger Bannister and the Four Minute Mile. This post is form the blog of Roger Bobo one of the greatest Tuba players of all time. HE has been a personal hero of mine since I was 16 years old. You may not know but I am a tuba player. I have been one since 1973 and continue to play today. I am not a great player maybe not even a good on but I play with Joy! 

The tuba playing community is unique among musical instruments. There is the International Tuba Euphonium Association formerly known as the Tubist Universal Brother Association (TUBA) and Tuba Christmas to name just a few of the Tuba organizations. 

This blog's title is about the running of the first 4 minute mile by Roger Bannister. A strange topic for a tuba player blog. In the blog Bobo is responding to a posting from a young tuba player who sets his ambition to be the best tuba player in the world. Bobo tells the story of how no one had ever been able to run a 4 minute mile and many thought it was impossible. Bobo was convinced it was and then did it. Since then many have done it but no one has run it much faster than 4 minutes. He compared it to progress in tuba playing in the last 30 years in light of the fact that the quality of the playing of the other instruments (Violin, trumpet, sax) have not undergone the same improvement. (The tuba is one of the most recent inventions in musical instruments) He pondered how could it could get. 

This may not be interesting to any one else but to us tuba players it is fascinating. 

Thing #14

I chose to look at http://quizlet.com/ and was pleasantly pleased. In science there are a number of things that students need to memorize. I can see a number of quizlets that we could develop and use for tutoring students. Off the top of my head I and see us using it for the following:

• parts of an atom
• Parts and function of a cell
• Metric prefixes
• types of changes

I think the possibilities are limitless. I plan on using it in the next year. 

Thing #13 Image generators

Wow I am constantly amazed how the web is bringing software capability to the average person at little or not cost. These sites allow the average user to create amazing graphical images. I can see using these images to spice up presentations and bringing some levity to lecture PowerPoints. At the right is an image I made with Custom Sign Generator.  

Thing #12

This is an example of making a Bubble share Slideshow to demonstrate the different types of volcanos. This is a neat way of making a review of concepts the students could access from any where. 
BubbleShare: Share photos - Easy Photo Sharing


http://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/817669/ by Alan Levine
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kahunapulej/326086995/ by Kahunapule Michael Johnson
http://www.flickr.com/photos/waldenpond/2150851852/ by Andrew®
http://www.flickr.com/photos/topten/480298741/ by Erman Akdogan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/monterd/189236869/ by Paco Olvera Monterd

Thing #11

In my search in Flicker I went back to my earth science teaching days and found a number of images if volcanos.  While teaching in East Dallas many of my inner city kids had little or no experience out side of Dallas. I always felt it was important to use visuals when ever possible to help them understand a concepts. This resource opens up a world of images for people. 

"Spell with Flicker" is a cool way to create amazing titles for blogs and presentations. 

Atribution:

Volcano Picture by Paco Olvera Monterd

Letters:
V by Karyn Christner
O by Karyn Christner
L by Leo Reynolds
C by Leo Reynolds
A by AmpersandAmpersand
N by Leo Reynolds
O by Leo Reynolds

Thing #10

We have already been using Creative Commons for quite a while.  In science we are always looking for good graphical images and picture to use in curriculum and assessments. Creative Commons is one good sources that we have the right to use. 

I was not really aware of the philosophical concept behind the development of the project. It is what I believe is one of the first forays into restructuring copyright for the digital age. 

Thing #9 Wiki

Well I finally got around to setting up a Wiki in the MISD Sandbox. I have already set up one that my facilitator and I are using to plan Meetings and staff development. 

This tool seems very flexible and allows a great dal of collaboration. 

Here is my Wiki

Finally There MISD Sand Box

Thing #8 Extension

I love Wikipedia!! I use it all the time. I even have an article from Scientific where a group of researchers investigated the rate of errors in wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica. Turns out they could not find any statistical difference.  (Wales, J. (15, December, 2005) Special report internet encyclopedias go head to head, Nature Vol. 438 pp 900-901, )

I looked up an article on Atomic orbitals and found a very understandable explanation of a complex idea that is usually describe in such complex language that no one understands. In fact I wold include this article in our HS chemistry curriculum. It is that good and that understandable. 

Thing #8 WiKi WiKi

Well I am impressed. I have been amazed with WIKI's since I first stumbled across wikipedia almost 7 years ago. I have been impressed with the power of corporative collaboration. I think statisticians call it regression toward the mean. As all the various collaborators make edits and changes the collective wisdom of all the individuals moves toward the central truth. 

I liked Vicki Davis' blog post Wiki Wiki Teaching She seemed really excited about the learning activities of her students. I found the Honors Biology web page interesting. It was a little sparse but if it is a collection of information that helps them understand the concept it may also provide support for students who are struggling. 

The Flat Classroom Project.  http://flatclassroomproject.wikispaces.com/  

is very interesting. It is amazing the depth and complexity that the students involved have created. I found the Design Matters Keynote by Dean Shareski. He does an incredible presentations on how to develop good video presentations. On the same page he gives a short tutorial on how to use the Chroma Key technique in video production. IT's really cool. 

Thing #7

I guess I should have named this blog "The ramblings of a frustrated writer."  I am going to post this just like it comes of my fingers. I do nt know why ihave somuch problem wiht writing. it i snot just a typing thing. I make the same number fo mistakes and kinds of mistakes weither i write by hand or type. In additionit is very difficult for me to spot my mistakes onse they are down on paper. As a young person I loved to write and actualy think i had some skills in that area. I have note books of poems and short stories that i wrote back in high school. Unfrotunately eve time i shared my wrings with some onw they spent so much time correcting mey mechanical mistakes i do think they ever co to the content of what i was writing so i just stoped. 

when the internet was just getting started I had one of the earilest e-mail accounts, way back in 1991. In thoes days there were not many people with e-mail accounts.  Thei phsics community had a great preseence onthe net. In thoes days tehr was a premimun on quick communicatioin. If you sent a  message that was perfect, in spelling gramer and puncuation otheres would make fun of you because it was clear yo uhad spent to much time on it. There wer no spell checkers then. I fond freedom in thoes listserves and dialogs like i never had befor or since. 

Sorry about all the errors but that is the way I write. I could go back and clean it up but I just dont whant to spend the tome.   Even as it is and I was trying not to I can not tell you how any timees I auatticlay hit the back spact to corect soem thing. I ownder how many of our students are as frustrated as ME.

Thing #6

I have done some blog exploring and found a few that are interesting.  I am a Tuba player and one of my long time heros is Roger Bobo, to hear him you can click the here.   Well I found his blog and added it to my reader. It is interesting to listen to him as a person when previously I only new his music. (If you want to here the most amazing tuba player out there today check out this link here.  This is not Bobo, it is a Swedish tuba player named Øystein Baadsvik.) Ok enough about tuba playing.   

I also subscribed to my nieces blog. She is a 28 year old CPS worker in Waco who is going through some tough times and has decided to blog her experiences. 

I also subscribed to Techlearning. I was very interested in and article called Online Library for People with Print Disabilities Offers More Accessibility It talks about Bookshare. This is a site that provides print material for individuals with print disabilities. IT indicates that it is available for free to K-12 educational institutions.  I wonder if MISD has access?

Thing #5

Our assignment for Thing 5 was to set up a RSS reader.
I must say my favorite feed is Car Talk form NPR.

http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510208

I try to listen to this show every Saturday but often miss it. With this feed I have an opportunity to catch those I miss.

I als0 have been checking out the feeds on infinitethinking.org

The following article. was particularly of interest to me.

http://www.infinitethinking.org/2009/02/lucy-and-lucies-friday-five-cellphones.html

We have to come to term with the fact that our students have more computing technology in there pockets than a major tier one research university had in their entire campus 30 years ago.

Thing #4

http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=133

Why I Don’t Assign Homework

March 7th, 2007 by Dan Meyer

I Agreed with this author. I thing this is a discussion that needs to take place in education today. I did not give home work during the last few years in the classroom. I thing it was much better for me and my students.


http://817math.blogspot.com/2006/12/boeuns-scribe-for-december-4th.html

Boeun's scribe for December 4th

This blog was very well done and the student demonstrated a lot of thought and effort. I was disappointed with the comments. They were all about style and form with very little about content.

http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2007/01/spies-like-us.html
Spies Like Us

Ok, good blog with keen insight that brings up a lot of questions.......BUT.. there is is again. An evocative statement that sets the tone of the blog and is clearly ment to prove a point ...but.. no referens to support it. What am I talking about? Here it is....

Arguably, the most highly educated society in history was Nazi Germany. They learned what they COULD do with no discussion of whether they SHOULD do it.

Could be true but the bloger does not give any refernce for the argument.


http://yongesonne.edublogs.org/2007/06/29/the-ripe-environment/

The Ripe Environment

I realy like this post. I think what he is trying to say is that the need for a focus on colaboration is independent of the tools used. All the tools cna get in the way. If the tools of web 2.0 can foster student interest that is fine but the technology is not the end in and of its self.



http://weblogg-ed.com/2008/an-environmental-break-why-cant-we-do-this/

On My Mind 02 Feb 2008 12:01 pm

An Environmental Break–Why Can’t We Do This?

I like that this blog is short concice and makes point quickly and with a minimum of verbage.
The comments are as important as the blog.

Thing #2

I an concerned about the videos in thing 2. They all give various statistics but the first two do not provide any bibliography to back them up. the third has a bib but it list 5 sources, four of which are not primary sources in any stretch of imagination and the one that is to a reviewed site (Pew Internet & American Life Study) takes you to a page that informs you that it provides raw data but you have to have and be able to use SPSS to down load and analyse the data. This is not really an acceptable reference.

One of the references Fisch, K is just a blog talking about video #2.

In other words there is not way to check any of the statistics or claims made in the videos. This is a disturbing trend I see with Web 2.0, fact checking seems optional ye the video clips we saw were clearly developed to impact thinking and persuade. One might argue that they are just meant to start conversations. That is bogus starting conversations with “facts” that may or may not be correct is a very dubious practice.

Lifelong Learning

I am a firm believer in life long learning. As I get older I am becoming more selective about what I am learning. I am deciding what I relay want to learn and what things I can live with out. This is a major shift for me. In my younger days I wanted to learn and know about just about everything. Now I want to learn some things ver well and other things not at all.

The 7 1/2 habits are habits that I have had all my life especial teach others.