Photo Sharing

What a great site Flickr is. I have done some posting of photos to the web through iPhoto for family and friends to access. I chose to add these photos of Shea Stadium and Yankee Stadium to this posting since in about 3 weeks I will be at both of these stadiums with my two older sons. I found it easy to search the creative commons for these photos. There were many to choose from. The uploading into the blog took a little more time to figure out the easiest path. Now that I know the procedure, the next time it will be easier.
I can see my students using Flickr in their Keynote presentations. This will give them access to many photos to spice up their projects. The tagging concept will make it easy to search for photos. I also might use this as a place for students to upload photos that they take and edit in iPhoto. This will allow friends and family to see the photos. The students can access the photos anytime and anywhere. Also, future classes could use the photos as part of their projects. I can see this technology addressing many of the NETS-S as students will research, collaborate, it is innovative and they are using technology operations and concepts. I really think the students will enjoy working with the photos and then take pride in showing friends and family the things they can do with the photos now that they are online.

Social Bookmarking

I like the idea of being able to access my bookmarks from any computer. So many times I have bookmarked a site at home or at school and then not been able to access it from the computer I want at the time. The concept of the tags will help to cut down on the time to search for related sites.

A way that I might possibly be able to use social bookmarks is as a resource for research topics. Students will be learning how to use Keynote. After each student determines there topic I can bookmark sites that are related to their topic. The students can then access my social bookmark as a resource to direct them to related sites. This project and use of social bookmarking will help with covering the second and third NETS-S.

RSS feeds

I just added the CNN student news RSS feed to my blog. The feed can be found at http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_cnnstudentnews.rss. I chose to add this feed so that I can be kept up to date on happenings in the show that we will be watching daily with our middle school students in the advisory period. Also, students who visit my blog can read more information about the show and possibly comment on the show.

I like the use of Bloglines as a collection point for the latest articles, news and blog updates. I only have to go to one site to get all the updates and I can have access from any computer, not just my own. What a time saver and I am sure that as I research lessons and educational information I will add more feeds. I also like the folder option that allows you to organize the feeds. I can subscribe to personal feeds, educational feeds and feeds that have to do with hobbies or even coaching.

I could use RSS feeds in my class with students doing research for a keynote project. Students can subscribe to feeds about a topic. This will give the students a site to collect any new information that may be published about their topic. Also, students would learn that now instead of them having to go get the research they can set up their Bloglines account so the information comes to them. This activity will address NETS-S #3 on Research and Information Fluency. What a shift in the research process. Instead of the students going out and finding the information, the information now comes to them and they just have to sift through it all.

Wiki Wiki

Creating the site in PBWiki was as the Hawaiians say "wiki wiki". The registering and set-up is really quick and easy. The next step is to use it functionally. My thought for use of my wiki is not so much student related as it is staff related. We are adding an advisory period to our day. The students in each grade are separated onto to teams of teachers. These teams are responsible for creating the advisory curriculum. I thought what a great collaboration tool for our team to use to generate an archive of the curriculum as we go through this school year. I think by having the teachers on my team use the wiki in this manner, they will be come comfortable with it and then maybe discover ways that they could use it in their subjects. Our teams consist of a teacher from each major discipline (math, science, social studies and English), a special education teacher, and what we call non-core subjects like computers and swimming. As I explored the different wiki sites and resources I was amazed at all the different uses of the wikis. I found a Star Wars wiki. What an interesting concept for the true fans to be able to join together and create a site that talks about all the behind the scenes hidden messages and the history of characters, planets and spaceships. As a former math teacher I liked the idea of a wiki for the students to generate the study guide for a unit test or final exam. Like blogging limitless possibilities.
My PBWiki page is the following: http://advisory7.pbwiki.com/7th-Grade-Advisory-Hour

Keep checking back there from time to time to check the progress. Especially after the school year starts.

Blogging

Wow. There is an overwhelming amount of information out there in regards to blogs. I feel that I have only looked at the tip of the iceberg. I could spend hours reading and reviewing all the information on blogs and still feel like I have so much more to read and learn.

I can see myself using blogs in my classroom as a make a tranistion form teaching math to computers. I think to begin with I will start small and probably only use the blog for informational purposes about the classes I am teaching and links to sites that the students can use.

One thought on how I could get the students involved in blogging would be with 6th grade students. As I generate the curriculum for the 6th grade computer class one component that I am looking at is teaching photo editting in iPhoto. I could have the students do some blogging by having them post a photo that they took after editting and do a journal activity on the photo. Students would write about why they selected this photo, where they took the photo, and what the photo is about. I would then require the students to view others blogs and post comments about the photo and the writing. This activity would cover almost all of the NET-S.

As I think about using blogs with students, the greatest challenge to me and other educators is going to be the ethical use of blogs. Unfortuantely, in this day of myspace, our students are exposed to so many unethical and inappropriate uses of technology that they in some ways have become numb to the inappropriateness. The challenge is going to be teaching, discussing and maybe blogging about ethics and technology. The students need to push for the change so that it becomes their cause and as a result more meaningful.