Web 2.0

I visited several of the sessions from the K-12 Online Conference and followed then followed several links within each one.  Some of the sessions were quite interesting, so I see this on-line conferencing as a plus.  If I pay to go to hear an expert in a particular area, but then I find that I don’t need/think/not interested in what he/she has to say, I can’t just leave.  In this arena, I can.  I can leave and go to another session that might be more useful for me.  Also, I cannot travel all over the country/world to see/hear the various experts…money considerations, family needs, job, etc., but I can visit their videos on line.    I particularlyu liked Jeff Utecht’s screencast “Getting to Know Flickr” because even after exploring flickr.com on my own through this course, I still had quite a few questions.   I had questions but didn’t know where to find answers.   Because I am a visual learner, his screencast made using flickr much more concrete, easy to remember, and easy to use.  Listed with his link were several others about flickr, too, and I can revisit them anytime I want/need.  There is value in this type of online, delivery option for professional development.  Teachers can join in anytime that it’s convenient for them and still get the same information.

If one of my dreams came true, here’s what would happen.

1.  reading by rachel sian

2.  Colorado Lottery Ticket by Jeffrey Beall

3.     Sunset Beach by Chris Gin (beach one pp) 

4.  waterfall:  Sandcut Beach  by quas

5.  Family by Creative Sam

Does anyone have any helpful hints to complete this Thing?  Everytime I click on a link that is supposed to help, I get a message that tells me that it’s not available.  Also, do you have to have a myspace page to do the slide show?

Well, let’s see if I can get it right this time.  I watched the help video again, and I hope I’ve got it this time.

I was forgetting going to “Properties” when I right clicked on the image, so I am quite excited that I finally figured this out.

:0)

Image by Januzs l

  Here’s another place I’d really like to be right now..with my husband and kids.

Image by Mumbley Joe

Again, I’d have to have a lot more training in exactly what can and cannot be done/used/etc. under Creative Commons so that I could teach my kids how not to plaigarize.  I think this could be really a really interesting way to make power points better.  Icons or pictures from clip art are okay, but I’d like to have more resources available.

Flickr was interesting, and I’m glad to know somewhere that I can “legitimately” search for and use photos, but I’m still not completely sure what the restrictions are under copyright laws where CC is concerned.  There’s so much out there that’s availalble, and I’d have to know what I cannot do before I could teach my kids or use this in the classroom. 

Well, I’ve tried to upload a photo from my computer  AND insesrting a picture using the URL (where I searched on flickr for pictures of places I’d like to be on vacation), but every time I try to add media to this blog post, it adds a a rectagle with an X in the box instead of the picture.  Not sure what I’m doing wrong.  I searched only those photos that could be found in Creative Commons.  Anybody got any ideas?

This picture was added by down_the_rabbit_hole, and it was entitled, “Falling Water, Falling Light”.

From what I understand from the two videos, Creative Commons gives more freedom to create, share, and edit on the World Wide Web without fear of plagairizm.   I haven’t ever noticed the CC symbol before, but I’ll be looking for it when I am on the internet from now on.  CC makes sense because it seems like a way to protect your work but allow some others to help you make what you create better by adding their ideas.  The neat thing is that you could be getting “help” from someone in a different country who brings experiences you’ve never had.  The potential negatives of this are, for me, a basic fear of all that can be accessed via the World Wide Web.  It seems that there are always computer savy people who can get around a lot of things that are so called “protected”, so it’s frightening to put things on the Web knowing that maybe they aren’t as safe as we think.  Since I’ve never written anything to be published (yet), this isn’t a concern of mine now; however, I still don’t fully understand what is and isn’t to be “messed with” or used properly when dealing with the internet.  Lack of knowledge, to me, in this case, would not be bliss.

I just read Vicki Davis’s Cool Cat Teacher Blog “Wiki Wiki Teaching”, and I was impressed, overwhelmed, and excited all at once.  I’d love to be able to “turn my kids loose” like she did on wikis, having them creating great reviews for tests and responses to literature, etc.  How exciting it would be to see kids excited about learning and doing the “teaching” that we as teachers want them to do.  I feel overwhelmed because I feel like I’d have to have a lot more information about wikis and a lot of practice myself before attempting this with my kids.  I also feel overwhelmed because this would take the one thing teachers don’t have enough of, time.  Time to learn and time to create.  The first wiki I visited was 1001 Flat World Tales Project because it caught my attention immediately that it was a creative writing project.  When I read through the wiki, catching up on the basic idea of the site,  and then checked out some of the pod casts, I was more excited.  How wonderful that students can respond to such an intriguing topic…aliens who expect great things out of humans in the areas of being “‘interesting, intelligent, and beautiful creatures’” but are then disappointed by what the reality is when the aliens arrive on Earth.  I love the analogies that can come from this idea…we expect so much out of friends, teachers, students, etc. only to be disappointed.  This makes the kids see real life situations in a managable light and asks them to think about others’ perspectives on the same situations by having them defend, so to speak, their culture’s “worthiness”.  Kids become storytellers, but they also become thinkers on a global level because the three schools connected are in Seoul, Korea, Honolulu, Hawaii, and in Littleton, Colorado.   A second wiki I read through was called “Discovery Utopias”; I was drawn to this one because I teach Lois Lowery’s book The Giver.  I have asked my kids to complete a similar project…to set up a perfect society.  I like the wiki idea because the kids could have so many more resources available, wouldn’t need to purchase extra materials to complete it, and could work on it at home if they had a computer.  It would be easier for kids to contribute without having one kid take everything home to finish it alone.  This wiki was organized like a lot of the teacher resource pages I’ve visited in the past have been…more like really in-depth lesson plans.  I did like how she included a student’s game and the link to real life failed utopias from history.  Also the Utopia template was a nice addition to help anyone who likes the idea to try it at his/her school.  Finally, I read through two more that I found really interesting…”Code Blue” and “Salute to Suess”.  In Code Blue, the kids set up clinics and wrote blogs as various professionals who held down real life jobs in the medical profession.  In each blog there was a link to factual information about that particular job.  This was more kid-focused as it was the kids who were doing the “talking” through their blogs.  Nice way to share information and synthesize researched infor.  My favorite wiki was “Salute to Suess” ,  by Jennifer Wagner, because it combined teacher resources (like lesson plans with ideas to use AND links for additional resources) AND student work.  I didn’t even know there was a “Teacher Tube” (like YouTube but with student art work).   

 After reading all these, the question is, “Do I see wikis in my future?”  My answer is, I hope so.  I’m going to “Play” a little more until I’m comfortable with wikis.  Then I hope to take my kids to the computer lab to complete a performance task in the form of adding to a wiki.  Is this feasible?  Given the fact that we must be ready for the CRCT and all the interruptions that happen to take away from class time, I don’t know.  It would be near the end of the year this year, as more of a “fun” experimental project.  I don’t honestly know what I’d change about the wikis because I don’t think I can speak to someone who’s been doing these a lot longer than me (I’ve not yet done one of my own), criticizing them on what could be better or what was missing.  I now understand Wikipedia (a resource I often use to get some basic background information about different subjects we’re reading about) a little better.  I understand how the content gets changed and therefore why students need to be careful about what they believe as facts when they read things online.

I found the RSS an interesting resource.  I can see how this could benefit a teacher because we’re always looking for outside resources to suplement what we do and what we have in the classroom.  It gets quite overwhelming sometimes trying to search through everything just a search will bring up.  I liked cool cat’s blog about “Beware of the Ants of Annoyance” because I feel swarmed quite often.  The picture she included just added so much because I often feel like millions of little ants are biting at me.  She said that one teacher said that all the endless paperwork is her swarm while another one said that the AYP stress is hers.  I know how they both feel.  I don’t mind paperwork at all, but when it’s combined with the stress from AYP, it seems like every new little thing becomes another swarm of ants, no matter how good the idea/strategy might be.  I think the AYP swarm bothers me the most because I feel that the gifted and smart learners get “left out in the cold” so to speak where AYP is concerned.  Everyone feels like they already know enough to make and, in some cases, exceed, AYP expectation.  The gifted and smart kids get the task of teaching the other kids who may struggle to meet those same expectations.  While I agree that teaching a concept is the best way to really “learn” it, and while I agree that kids need to learn to appreciate and respect  every different  kind of learner, I think that what we need to have the brighter/faster learning kids do is teach each other…stretch BEYOND AYP expectations.  I do not feel that there is enough freedom for the kids or the teachers to encourage these kids to learn more.  In some cases, these same kids need to slow down and learn some of the basics, but once they’ve got them, they should be able to go on.  If we had the money, equipment, training, and freedom to incorporate some of this more innovative computer “stuff” we’re learning in web 2.0, it might be a start anyway.

From the Google Reader subscription to Students 2.0, I read several blogs that students had posted.  I particularly liked what Anthony Chivetta said in “Innovate or Die” (http://students2oh.org/2008/08/31/innovate-or-die/).    To quote what he said, “Project-based learning, one-to-one programs, insert education buzzword of the month here, aren’t enough. The change has to be deeper”.    First of all, I understand what he means by a generation of producers.   They are producers of “information” via youtube, blogs, etc., which CAN be either a good thing or a bad thing (depending on what people choose to produce and who it affects).  I think that education sees that change needs to happen.  I think that educators are trying to learn new ways, but I think that what’s not enough is that those who control the money to fund the new stuff don’t REALLY value education.  If it looks good on paper, then the teachers will fill in where no money is given.  Teachers are trying to offer students inovative ways of learning, but our hands are tied in A LOT of situations.  It was nice to see the students’ perspective, too, and I enjoyed reading several of the blogs.