Thing #23 Reflection

I don't think I have ever been so intrigued and frustrated at the same time. This has been a wonderful learning experience that has tried my patience at times to the point of....... I am not a person who spends alot of time at my computer and I realize that sitting in front of it is not one of my favorite things to do. And I am out of step with today's technology. In my profession not a good thing to be!
The last screencast spoke volumes. Digital text is so many things- engaging, changing, enhancing, vibrant, meaningful-the list goes on. Having gone through 23 things I now say I can do this! I need to go back and practice & refine many of the skills. Yes, this was an introduction and there is much to be done. I see myself using delicious, gdocs and screencasts right away. Some of the others such as tagging on flickr , delicious and others will progress more slowly. I have shared many of the 23 things with colleagues and plan on continuing to do so. Joan & Maureen , THIS WAS AWESOME!

Thing #22 Edit a Wiki

Editing the wiki was very easy. Creating one was not much harder. However, that was just a basic create and start. There is much to practice to produce a truly functional and organized wiki. As we were planning my principal's retirement party someone mentioned using a wiki to communicate and update info. No one was quite sure how to do it. Well, here we are at #22 and I am trying. My hope is that stauts reports will appear and an accounting of expenses will be available to all. The area for discussion will hopefully avoid any major problems or dilemmas.

A blog allows for the sharing of information but not the editing and updating.

http://emillersretirement.wikispaces.com/

Thing #19 Screencast

I put off making my screencast and sort of worked ahead saving entries as drafts. What fun! I see many uses for screencasts as part of presentations, show & tells for students , staff and volunteers. I opted to create a short overview of directions for climate notetaking- part of our 4th grade state report. There always seem to be students who miss the directions because of instrumental lessons or because they were absent. Finding time to give them the in depth recap proves to be too time consuming. Screencast to the rescue! Next time I would add sample cards and I would also make sure that the entire text appears on the screen!

Thing #21 Wikis

The video clip( excuse me, I mean podcast/screencast) was superb. Informative and easy to follow it emphasized the collaborative aspect and resource sharing of a wiki. A wiki is a collaborative website that functions as an authoring tool allowing one to easily add, remove or edit content. Three basic functions- edit save and link. Viewing the Comparing Hemispheres I sat there talking to myself because I now understood how things became part of the presentation- embedding videos, inserting pictures.....The web 2.0 NHS professional development wiki looked just my speed! I did delve into some of the WIKI info and educational wikis . The comparing/contrasting of blogs and wikis was helpful. There are many reasons to use wikis but the ones most universal and basic are the sense of organization that they provide, the opportunities to work on consensus building and compromise. For youngsters it is a quick and easy method of getting your information on the world wide web.

Thing #20 Ebooks

Ebooks. Years ago they could have been written about in a science fiction story. But today they are real! I was amazed at the quantity available on line. The Newington High collection is impressive. As I searched through the Marshall Cavendish books I liked the ability to adjust font size, to print or email. And it offered alternate spelling suggestions or did you mean. I really dislike reading from a computer screen and print out material whenever possible. Many of the articles I accessed were short and visually appealling with illustrations ( I know, they are termed graphics on the web). Some of the introductory screens are rather complicated for a newbie and really require attention to access information. At present my media center does not own any ebooks . I see students using them as they might on line encyclopedias to locate information. I almost forgot TUMBLEBOOKS- my all time favorite available through LWR Public library.

Thing #18 Podcasts

To quote the syllabus, " a podcast is the ability to listen to audiovisual content either live or downloaded for future use." The beauty is that it is available on demand and accessible on many of our new "tools." I love that fact that it is audio and that users will have to listen! This is fast becoming a lost skill and a diminishing format for learning and acquiring knowledge. I see this as a resource for high school and middle school students looking for opinions and current information to use in persuasive writing. Where else is everyone entitled to your opinion! Teaching how to recognize reliable sources becomes extremely important in an exercise such as this. I did notice that NPR gave credentials for each person. In my final reflection I plan on sharing a recent NY Times article entitled Texts Without Context which appeared in today's Arts & Leisure section. However, at this point I will mention the terms access and convenience and the idea that users are willing to take imperfect information in any form that is immediate over a more thoughtful and scrutinized product. I enjoyed listening to Ross Douthat, a friend of my son, who has become quite the conservative voice on NPR, for The Atlantic, and now the NY Times Op Ed Page.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111885116

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92561906

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4567667

I tried some of the educational podcasts but was not able to retrieve them. Podcast.com offered quite a variety. I listened to young children reading stories with expresson ( maybe a little too much!) The next step would be to upload a podcast!

Thing #17 Presentation Tools

Slideshare and Zoho are great tools. The one difference appears to be that Zoho does not necessitate a download as it is web based. I spent my time searching not producing. I found that my search efforts reaped more returns using Slideshare than they did with Zoho. This is another tool that I plan on sharing with peers. I found 2 excellent Web 2.o presentations. Enjoy!

A Teacher's Guide To Web 2.0 at School

View more presentations from Sacha Chua.

Lesson 2

Web 2.0 Presentation Tools & Resources: Flickr, SlideShare, Zoho Show & More

View more presentations from University of Michigan Health Sciences Libraries.