Thing #14

During class today I commented on the voice thread Classrooms in America

Although a little intimidating to try the first time, it was kind of fun to put an actual voice comment onto a voice thread. I could see this as a neat option to posting on a forum. You could have students leave comments and actually explain their reasoning behind their comments. Many of my students struggle with typing their explanations.

Thing #14 Challenge

Thing #13

Google Docs

To create and share google docs is a inovative and fun way to collaborate. I could see this being used by staff or students to cooperatively share ideas for staff meeting agendas, student sharing for group projects or just a fun way to share a project.

One thing I really like about Web 2.0 so far is the many ways to get students to work together and share ideas and information!!

Just for Fun!!

Thing #12

Wiki's

Wiki's are a very useful tool for creating a site for students to access information, d0cuments, videos, etc. It is simple to use (some wiki's) and is easy to teach to your students. I think that it is a great organizational tool for both the teacher and student. I intend to keep a document repository on my wiki for students to find any documents that I hand out in class.

Students can work independently or cooperatively and the wiki will provide an easy location for students to access each others work, ideas, and opinions. Students can work together from home by sharing on the wiki. You can control the groups of students working together by creating different wikis and then you can also view the history to see what each student is doing.

The wiki will provide a very flexible and creative way to work with all students. My students are creating digital portfolios in Alec this year.

Thing #11

Wordle is a very fun and creative tool. I could see a lot of potential for students to use Wordle to help them with their vocabulary. I could see them creating a Wordle to focus on a vocabulary word (in caps) and find related words or descriptive words (in lowercase). FUN FUN FUN!!

Thing #10

Delicious -

This is a neat resource. I have trouble organizing my favorites and often I am saving them in a hurry and don't name them properly or create the folders that I should. I could see potential use for this to organize my own sites.

Another use I may use is creating an organized list of resources for my students to use. The resources could be easily organized so the students could quickly find them. This could make beginning reserch easier for my students and also be useful in time management for the students who often have trouble with research or trouble staying on task.

If students were able to create an account they could use this tool for their own personal organization. Many students struggle with organization and this tool could certainly help them learn to organize themselves.

Thing #9

Twitter............DON'T KEEP YOUR TWITTER PUBLIC.......choose your followers carefully. Within 60 sec I was hit by a person who became a follower of my twitter who was a less than appropriate individual. I have reset my account so I have to accept individuals as followers and I am trying to figure out how to get rid of this sick person off of my home page.

Thing #8

I posted a comment on Mr. Blatnick's blog because as I was checking out the various blogs I found an old math funny he posted regarding the pythagorean theorem. I always like it when you can insert humor into instruction.

Thing #7

I was skeptical about looking into the RSS and PLN's. When ever womeone tells me that it will be simple it generally ends up being a royal pain. Google reader was easy to work with and adding subscriptions were a snap. I was able to quickly add my favorite news website, favorite link for dressage, science sites and a couple of our own bloggers sites to watch and learn from.

I could see some real value to using google reader as a tool to quickly go to resources used frequently, to keep in touch with current events in organizations important to me or just the top headlines in the news. It is like a one stop shopping center for information important to you.

Thing #6 part 2

Thing #6

Well, creating a glog on glogster was interesting. I am finding it a little difficult to keep track of everything I am doing (somebody needs to invent the password and user name tracker for idiots). I can see a lot of uses for glogster to create some pretty fun things. I think if I could spend more time with it I would be able to put together some useful items for the classroom. I would like to eventually create a thematic poster for the beginning of new topics to allow my students to do some exploring before beginning a new topic.



Although not very complicated or creative here is the glog I created (still under construction):

http://turi.edu.glogster.com/The-horse-spot/

For some reason I could net embed this glog

Thing #5

This is FUN!!! I have been playing at a Flickr add on called FD Toys where I found FX. As you may have noticed horses are my hobby and I also take photos at schooling shows for my trainer. Here is a friends horse with some special FX. I really think students would have a blast mashing up photos for their own blogs or for their digital portfolios.

Thing #4

This is my dressage horse Tivios Real Illusion (we call him Turi). He keeps me sane in my busy world. You can also view him on Flickr.