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.
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• 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.