Web 2.0 is such a concept that is ever evolving and really it can be tough keep up with the changes that are happening. There are ways that one can use these in their personal and professional lives. I for example can see using them in both.
I love the idea of the RSS feeds and keeping up on what is current in any topic. I can find the information for many topics in one place. This saves me time. There is an initial up front time cost to set it up, but using it from then on is easy. I follow both the personal topics--DNR, Hunting News, Political News, and Marfans Foundation. For the professional world I am follow RSS feeds that discuss Technology in the Classroom, Integrating Technology in schools, New and Cool IPad Apps for teachers, and many more.
RSS feeds let the user know how many various update there are to the feeds they are following. I for example without checking regularly will find that I have over 30 articles to read. To ensure that I am keeping up with my RSS I wish to keep my unread articles to under 30 at a time. This seems pretty manageable as I can select the ones I wish to read and ones that are less important are ones I can "cheat" and mark as "unread."
With these RSS feeds it seems pretty manageable as I already have it set up, now I just have to do my job!
I need to make sure that I get this into a routine quickly and efficiently. It is important to start this trend right away and stick to it as I plan to use this same type of format for setting up a web 2.o tool in the future. I wish to start maintaining a classroom blog and website. Both of these are already set up. I just need to get the RSS feed in for practice of maintaining, from there it will be success and I will know what I need to do for further Web 2.o tools.
I will keep up-to-date with how this is all going and when I start with my usual website and blog updates. More to come soon!!!
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Read/Write Web tools
This weeks assignments seemed much more manageable for me in the course of a very busy week. It is great to have time to work on my Wiki page for my classroom, but my big concern is that tomorrow Wikipedia is going "Black." I have to have my Wiki ready and the site will be down in protest of the new bills that are being passed through the government right now. There are a lot of other sites that are doing the same in protest. My concern with being new to Wiki is, will my Wiki page be down if Wikipedia is, or are they separate?
Creating an Eyejot is again a great tool to simply put a video message out there for others to see. I have used this tool before, but what I am to do is reflect. I have got that under control. I can do that with my eyes closed (probably won't seeing as it is a video.) I would have loved to see this assignment be one that would be more meaningful or useful in the classroom.
Twitter is getting a bit over hashed for me. We have discussed it, used it, and discussed it again. I get that it is a great tool, but what about other tools that are out there that are similar ones? I guess we are to discover those one our own is exploring other web 2.0 tools. I guess we will see what I discover when I get a chance to explore those tools!
Creating an Eyejot is again a great tool to simply put a video message out there for others to see. I have used this tool before, but what I am to do is reflect. I have got that under control. I can do that with my eyes closed (probably won't seeing as it is a video.) I would have loved to see this assignment be one that would be more meaningful or useful in the classroom.
Twitter is getting a bit over hashed for me. We have discussed it, used it, and discussed it again. I get that it is a great tool, but what about other tools that are out there that are similar ones? I guess we are to discover those one our own is exploring other web 2.0 tools. I guess we will see what I discover when I get a chance to explore those tools!
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
New Teaching Tools
After learning about the RSS feeds and Twitter I am finding myself looking at the way education is going in my school and also my classroom. I feel that there is so much out there that we can use and are learning to use, but I am not sure that the district is keeping up as well. Our district is committed to using technology, but I need guidelines on what is ok to do and use. With that I have found some new tools this week that I am excited to try out and in the very near future.
I have talked a lot in my work for class lately about our 2nd grade zoo at parkway. It is a tradition of 2nd grade and has been done the same way for many many years. There is so much we could do to update the whole process and I think now is the time. Every year we have at least 15 kids with huge disappointment that their parents were not there. Now we can use ScreenCasting to make sure that parents can see what is happening at the zoo. It will take only a few minutes for students to read their reports to the computer and have it narrate to the picture of their diorama. It will be very simple and the students will have, I am sure great success.
I am also working on creating a Wiki for my classroom this week and am finding it very easy to do and create. I do like that I will have the freedom to set the page as I would like to rather than have to follow the "strict" formatting of the district webpage. It is really kind of a pain to try and figure that out. With my Wiki the same info will be there with even greater images, visual appeal, links, and imports. I like the way it is turning out, it is just a matter of playing with it to get the look I want. It should not be to hard--and I am already liking the end product!
I have talked a lot in my work for class lately about our 2nd grade zoo at parkway. It is a tradition of 2nd grade and has been done the same way for many many years. There is so much we could do to update the whole process and I think now is the time. Every year we have at least 15 kids with huge disappointment that their parents were not there. Now we can use ScreenCasting to make sure that parents can see what is happening at the zoo. It will take only a few minutes for students to read their reports to the computer and have it narrate to the picture of their diorama. It will be very simple and the students will have, I am sure great success.
I am also working on creating a Wiki for my classroom this week and am finding it very easy to do and create. I do like that I will have the freedom to set the page as I would like to rather than have to follow the "strict" formatting of the district webpage. It is really kind of a pain to try and figure that out. With my Wiki the same info will be there with even greater images, visual appeal, links, and imports. I like the way it is turning out, it is just a matter of playing with it to get the look I want. It should not be to hard--and I am already liking the end product!
Monday, January 2, 2012
Creative Commons and More
For class this week I have enjoyed going back through some old photos from my summer academy class that taught digital photography. It was a fun class with a bunch of successful photos taken. The students shared their photos and were letting other students in the class and school use them for various projects. If I had know about creative commons at the time of the class I would have had each student create one like this. Further I would have had a Flicker site set up for the class so they could choose a creative commons attribute for it or choose to keep the photo private. It would be a great way for the students to choose what could happen with their photos. I guess this will come into play as I do my Summer Academy classes that are coming up in a few months.
Below are a few of my example flicker photos.
RSS seems to be really working for me. I am trying my best to keep up with reading the articles and blogs that I have subscribed to, but I doubt I will be able to as there are so many updates. What I do love is that I can simply click on my subscription page and see what is new without ever having to navigate to the multiple pages. What I am finding is that there really is a lot of information out there and it is just a matter of keeping up with it. The idea of the RSS really does make this a lot easier!
Student Samples (Summer Academy 2011) / CC BY 3.0
Below are a few of my example flicker photos.
www.flickr.com
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RSS seems to be really working for me. I am trying my best to keep up with reading the articles and blogs that I have subscribed to, but I doubt I will be able to as there are so many updates. What I do love is that I can simply click on my subscription page and see what is new without ever having to navigate to the multiple pages. What I am finding is that there really is a lot of information out there and it is just a matter of keeping up with it. The idea of the RSS really does make this a lot easier!
Student Samples (Summer Academy 2011) / CC BY 3.0
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