Thursday, April 30, 2009

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.  

Sunday, April 5, 2009

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. 
v8 o33 Wood Scrabble Tile L Copper Square Letter C A letter n letter O

"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