23 Thing-a-ma-bobs

Thing 23 WRAP UP: PIONEER PROF

2012-02-21T10:06:00.001-08:00

Take a few moments to reflect on your journey. You've covered a lot of material over the past ten weeks. What does it all mean? How has your thinking changed between Thing 1 and Thing 23? Do you see the trends that Hargadon writes about in a different light than when you read about them in Thing 1? Has this program changed how you view the Internet or how you view education in the digital world? What plans have you made for using these tools in and out of the classroom? How will you continue to learn about Web 2.0 tools? What are your big "take aways" from this experience?

What does it all mean?
What it all means is that we need to nopt only get and stay in the loop of technology, but we need to stay ahead of our students.

How has your thinking changed between Thing 1 and Thing 23?
Although some of the information is actually somewhat outdated, it is still better to be using Old Stuff than None At All. "23 Things" has triggered a cascade of curiosity for me to dig deeper into finding better and better web-obased tools.

Do you see the trends that Hargadon writes about in a different light than when you read about them in Thing 1?
I had given intellectual assent to the power of WEB 2.0 but it waasn't until I delved into it tha I saw the plethora of applications.

Has this program changed how you view the Internet or how you view education in the digital world?

We all know that the Internet is a Wealth of Information but what "23 Things" accomplishes is raising the awareness of what our classrooms are actually missing out on by not using more Web-based tools.

What plans have you made for using these tools in and out of the classroom?

As a result of "23 Things" I have already introduced students and given them the opportunity to apply or see the application of:

Google docs
Delicious.com
Flashcardsdb.com
Slideshare

My future plans involve:
student creation of podcasts
student creation of slideshare/google presentation
student collaboration of editing
continuous use of iTunes Podcast (already in motion prior to "23 Things")

Ideas roll around in my head as to how to incorporate these things. I have already started out by developping a Big Picture then using discovery to fill in the Road Map. The road map itself will be packaged as A PROJECT once the major wrinkles have been ironed out. This is a veritable PIONEER approach.

For example:
French 6 has conducted research on French Monuments and places. They have:

1. used Delicious.com to bookmark their favorite websites
2. used Microsoft Word to create headers for their papers, including the insertion of French accent marks
3. uploaded their files into google doc
4. reviewed a comment on their uploaded work
5. retreived documents at home through the Power of Zangle email that allows me to keep parents informed. Parents are sent links and invitations to the google docs. (I have even received very positive feedback from parents thanking me for keeping THEM in the technology loop)
6. retrieved instructional documents at home like how to insert an accent mark, insert a header, change a file name, upload a document, make changes to a document and so on.

The students are currently writing their rough drafts in the classroom. Spending day after day in the computer lab does get tiresome, so in order to break things up, they have written introductions and bodies in the classroom. Once they get the Final Rough ready and cleaned up, they will upload the entire thing into google docs by a certain time. A rather large window of opportunity to submit this, as there is always some Glitchy Computer Issue.

The Culminating activity may be a choice between a Slideshow or a Podcast. This thought is based on the PD on Project-Based Learning and the Final Product. To avoid too much of one final product or the other, slips of paper containing a Final Product Idea will be offered so students will randomly choose their final product.

Somehow Mashups and Spell with Flickr will find their way into the fray...

Now. What French 7? French 8? French 1?

Baby steps. Move forward. Keep moving. Even if it's just a day ahead of the students, keep going.

ajt

via Bloomfield Hills Public Library
I lost track of the hours...

Thing 22 create a WIKI

2012-02-21T04:05:00.000-08:00

In your blog post be sure to include the link to your wiki. Then discuss your feelings about using a wiki. How does a wiki differ from a blog? When is one more appropriate to use than the other?

Username:

MadameTasich

New Wiki:

tasichfrench

Wiki Address:

https://tasichfrench.wikispaces.com

Wikis=members' ability to edit the posting
Blog=members' inability to edit the posting.

When doing collaborative work, it is good to be able to make changes, so a wiki is useful.

But isn't that what google docs does?

Are wikis outdated?

should RESA update this 21st and 22nd thing?

ajt

Thing 21 WIKIS

2012-02-21T03:55:00.000-08:00

Describe a wiki you found that inspires you to create one of your own. What hurdles might stand in the way of your using a wiki? What would it take to remove the hurdles? Is it worth the fight?

"Book Trailers for Readers"

It is important to be in the loop as to what the kids are currently reading. It gives us something to talk about, to relate, to share, to let the kids know we are not just out in the pasture...

I also have friends who write children's books:
Kelly DiPucchio
Carrie Clickard

Good PR for them.

Does it make sense to use these though? Isn't google docs enough? Is this harder than it needs to be?

ajt
55min

Thing 20 Subscribe to Podcasts

2012-02-21T02:44:00.000-08:00

Include in your post the name of at least one podcast to which you subscribed. Describe your experience using the various search tools. Which do you prefer and why?

iTunes.
iTunes store.
Education.
Languages.
French.
Verbcast.

The series teaches relaxation techniques to assist in learning French verb conjugations. The narrator has a Scottish accent.

My students love it. I love it. It works. It calms. It creates a visual. It can be applied across the board.

Subscribed through iTunes.

Google reader doesn't work so great for me. It turns out I never look at what gets uploaded.

ajt

Thing 19 Podcast

2012-02-20T13:08:00.000-08:00

Which podcasts did you find interesting? Identify one or two podcasts and describe how you would use them in your work. (Be sure to include links in your blog entry to the podcasts mentioned.)

Although the WillowWeb wouldn't load, I am aware that it is a series of PodCasts made by elementary school children in Nebraska. It sparks a genuine desire to guide students into creating podcasts for students.

When I first looked at the list of avaiable podcasts, I cringed with the thought of how much work it takes to get all that accomplished. But like anything else, although the learning curve is slow, each successive step does go a bit faster.

the hard part would be developping clear written instructions on how to do this. Many steps are involved such that it would be a nightmare to try to create one massive project all at once. I would start out slowly by breaking the project down into a series of steps. It would take days.
1. Students research a topic
2. Students write about a topic
3. Students peer edit/make editing changes
4. Students type on the computer
5. Students create a podcast as a culminating activity.

I already have an idea mulling around in my head.

I also liked Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Guide to Writing." She even provides the script to her podcast so that it can be printed and consulted later. It is useful for commonly misused and misspelled words. That won't help me so much in the French classroom but it certainly is a handy and useful resource just "because."

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/should-we-abandon-standard-spelling.aspx

ajt
1hr 24min

Thing 18 Slideshare

2012-02-15T02:55:00.000-08:00

What did you like about the presentation you embedded? How might Slideshare be useful in the classroom? out of the classroom.

Voila Paris

View more PowerPoint from Athina KOSSYVAKI

Parfait.

I was looking to learn about online slideshows for my 6th grade French presentation. Google of course is an option, so I will play around with both ways to create a slide show.

The "new look" of individual slides taking the place of boring bullet points is a catchy idea.

ajt

Thing 17

2012-02-15T02:21:00.000-08:00

Give a review of the tool you explored - what worked, what didn't work, how might it be used in your personal or professional life?

Online flashcards: what a Fab Tool.

Neo-Old School.

Students will go crazy for this.

I bookmarked it in Delicious.

My crystal ball predicts my classes will be going to the Computer Lab to play with this.

Did I miss sommething though? Is there a way to TYPE in your answer on the flashcard instead of just SAYING it and then clicking "I was right"?

Good stuff.

at

Thing 16

2012-01-30T12:00:00.000-08:00

C. Reflect - Blog Prompts for Thing 16
How might you use this tool in your personal and professional life? What issues come to mind about using this tool with students (ie, they need email addresses to log-in)?

LOVE IT. I did not realize this google docs is a document sharing site. It certainly simplifies things to have work sent electronically all in one neat little file.

No more bad handwriting, red pens, papers to schlep...

I will get this set up ASAP.

ajt
30 min

Thing 15

2012-01-30T11:19:00.000-08:00

My left eye is twitching. In High School, some thought it meant that it was a Heaven-Sent punishment for cheating. If only I could have cheated on this.

It seems so simple but alas...Brain Surgery is simple if you're a brain surgeon.

What's the big deal about going into Delicious, clicking on a feed-of-your-choice and calling it a day?

I even took notes.

No matter. It is done now.

The Delicious RSS feeds make a lot of sense so why not clean up the ole reader?

I discovered some very cool things along the way. Things that I would not have otherwise sought after.

In the profound words of Miley Cyrus "It's the climb" that matters. (Like the exhausting time I carried a kid up and down Diamond Head)

Just keep playing with it. The vague will become intuitively obvious. That's what i keep telling myself. My eye will quit twitching. I have not cheated on anything. It is just a muscle spasm.

ajt
2.5 hours
in Pete's Computer Lab with other 23 Thingers

Thing 14 Delicious

2012-01-23T03:06:00.000-08:00

Delicious has left a bad taste in my mouth.

The instructions are easy: drag this icon or click the plus sign.

The dragging gives me a circle/slash and WHAT plus sign?

Who's the misfit here?

I REALLY WANT this "bookmarklet." As with anything else one wants, one will go to the ends of the earth to get it...which increases the frustration here.

If it isn't easy, the Average Joe will just bail. The time involved is substanstial. Most people are not extrinsically motivated to dump x amount of hours in pursuing the issue.

My extrinsic motivation is that Delicious.com can work for me, so I will take the time to ask for face-to-face help.

ajt

NB a few weeks later I ended up taking my 6th grade to the little computer lab in the library and THEY added Delicious to most of the tool bars. French 6 is bookmarking websites for their research into French monuments and places. Now it doesn't matter whether or not they get the same computer when they return for the next segment of the project.

Thing 13

2012-01-23T02:47:00.000-08:00

"Share your thoughts about tagging. Is tagging a useful way to organize your digital resources and why? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages? What is important to think about before assigning tags to bookmarks or other Internet content?"

(I do not know why the italics is not working for the above quote)

This Social bookmarking is genius. What a brilliant way to organize. Computer folders and such just get lost in the shuffle. Like real folders, they are often never opened again.

I'm always having to reinvent the wheel in opening my favorite sites. Then I forget about the new ones I have discovered. I even have a composition notebook with a list of good websites but rarely is it ever consulted unless someone asks me for a helpful website.

The disadvantage for educators is that one will go gorilla and bookmark everything little thing thus overwhelming everyone. One must control oneself and ask: would a kid dig this? Is website user-friendly or does one have to "know" how to dance to get through it?

Nobody wants to have to fight with a stinking website. So mark those who will work for the user instead of the user having to work for it.

ajt

Thing 12

2012-01-22T11:48:00.000-08:00

What a pain.
I did not realize the code would switch to the widget upon hitting publish.
Kids love this stuff because they are good at it. I would love it too if I were good at it.

Oops, was I suipposed to put this widget here or someplace else?

Thing 11

2012-01-22T11:14:00.000-08:00

What do you like / dislike about leaving comments? How did you feel when you received your first comment? Why do you think commenting is so important in online communities? What might this mean for students who share their writing online?

Pintophysed gave me the idea to paste the question up at the top of the blog. Merci Lisa.

Comments are cool, even the negative ones if they are written correctly.

I high-fived myself upon receiving my first comment. The comments put me into a feedback loop that keeps me going.

Guidelines are crucial, especially for students of blogging etiquette:
1. be concise
2. spell correctly
3. do not risk writing anything that could come back and bite you
4. "do not feed the trolls" i.e. ignore the cyberbullies.

Commenting brings us together outside of the blogosphere. We discuss each other's blogs at lunch. It opens us up to each other and adds a layer of comfort to the team.

ajt

23 minutes 18 seconds

Thing 10

2012-01-22T10:47:00.000-08:00

Dejeuner du Matin by Jacques Prevert.
A beautifully sad poem about a man who pays no attention to his wife.
Students memorize parts of it to learn how to use some of the French Past Tenses and object pronouns.

Thing 9

2012-01-22T10:19:00.000-08:00

The French music on YouTube teaches various French grammar points. The students get an catchy earworm that makes a connection to the grammar and voila (one hopes).

The irritating thing about using YouTube in the classroom is that students see all the other available options and they start blurting "Can we watch blah, blah?" It drives me nuts.

Another disadvantage is trying to remember your log in and password in order to locate your favorites when trying to call one up. It is no easier than digging through notes to find the name of the specific one. Seems trivial and I know there are ways to help remember passwords. Like making an encoded list and leaving them by the computer.

YouTube is not restricted in our building. At one point it was and it was extremely frustrating to not be able to use it.

ajt

10 minutes

Thing 8

2012-01-22T09:42:00.000-08:00

Thing 8 is dangerously fun. Things that were once urgent are now on the back burner because this is one of those Productive Time Wasters. Relax, look at pretty pictures, tweak, tweak some more, do all the things you would like to do but have zero inclination for but now HAVE to cuz it is a THING. I am loving this Flickr hooey. I even have it set up on my phone with the intent of photodocumenting the upcoming Crestwood High School Paris trip.

The Spell with Flickr was so cute but so useless in that we are unable to send the image to anywhere. Sure the guy gives us the HTML but it's gonna take some time for me to figure out what to do with it.

Soduku is cute, but students would require color copies for a proper punch. We all know THAT ain't gonna happen.

The Memory Game did a fine job of tricking me with its similar-looking images. "What am I doing wrong here, these are both sets of oranges and sunsets. " Yes. DIFFERENT oranges and DIFFERENT sunsets. My score was fairly pathetic and of course I did not allow myself to get sucked any further in by playing another round. Afterall, this is only Thing 8/Things 23. Miles to go before I sleep, people. Miles to go.

The Magazine Cover is the best. BigHugeLabs.com is my preferred site. The other one was loaded with unaesthetically pleasing formatting and I am a shallow snob about these sorts of things. If it ain't pretty, then don't make me look at it.

Students will enjoy these. I must design an assignment incorporating the magazine cover. It is also on my list to photodocument the Paris Trip.

2hrs 14 min 52 seconds of worthwhile educational fun. Now, where's my lunch?

ajt

Thing 7

2011-12-30T08:52:00.000-08:00

After spending untold hours trying to transfer images from a Google album of students' work to Flickr, I gave up.

Please accept my apologies for the Most Uninteresting WayneRESA 23 Things uploads on Flickr.

Who has pictures on their work computer, anyway?

My iPhone managed to sync blank files.

Picasa is not loaded on this computer so forget the hundreds of pictures stored there.

Did it ever occur to me to just download some images from the internet?

Yes. But only AFTER I had already uploaded those Miserable Ones.

A Late Bloomer I am.

But better Late than Never.

Thing 6

2011-12-30T07:17:00.000-08:00

OOOOOOOOoooooooooh so many pretty things!

I created a gallery of My Favorite Things and starred several pictures that fall into that category:

Blue Doors in Provence
Blue and White Pottery
Gothic Architecture
Medieval Stained Glass

Then I went cheap and uploaded a canned pic of a blue hydrangea from Sample Pictures File on my work computer (no pics on the ole Public School District Property).

This is exciting stuff here.

Whenver I'm feeling "blue"
all I have to do
is take a look at
ALL MY BLUE PICTURES.

classroom assignments, Paris Trip 2012, classroom hooey etc...

My Muse is annointing me...

Thing 5

2011-12-30T05:48:00.000-08:00

Subscribing to a general RSS feed like "French Stuff" indeed throws a variety of otherwise unsolicited things on The Reader.

Scan it and move forward.

It is good speed reading practice.

Plus it puts infomation in the Cerebral Hard Drive. (Just enough to drive one crazy with "I read something like that somewhere.")

In my adventures , I learned that one can suppress the urge to "go to the bathroom" by grabbing one's calf. Yeah right.

Thing 4

2011-12-29T16:02:00.000-08:00

Those RSS symbols are everywhere and I only kinda knew what they meant.

So why not have stuff sent to me rather than searching?

Specific blogs ain't that easy to find though. Despite Google Searches etc. For example, I was looking for a blog from the French Teacher at the International Academy. The only thing that came up was the dreaded "ratemyteacher.com." RUN AWAY.

I will continue to play with this valuable RSS thing. Now that I know the power of it.

Thing 3

2011-12-29T14:49:00.000-08:00

The Blogosphere.

If I build it, will they come?

Absent students tend to not check my classroom website. Six, count them six, people follow the class on Twitter.

What? I need to get the information out there?

Parents and students sign a document that informs them of this information. CHECK

Class emails are sent out with reminders of this information. CHECK.

Students are reminded of this information and instructed to write it in their notes. CHECK.

I refuse to offer extra credit for it so don't even get me started.

Here's a good one: one misinformed parent complained because she  THOUGHT it was a requirement for students to follow the class Twitter.

Great. Thanks Lady. I bother to provide consolidated enrichment for your kid and you bite my head off. Nice.

What to do with a blog then?

It would be great to have all my thoughts, ideas and classroom information in one spot. It organizes me, educates the students and informs the parents.

Will anyone read it though?

And what of all the tiresome excuses as to why the assignment did not get done? "My computer was down. My internet was down. The printer was out of ink.   I went to an exorcism."

Then there's the Angry Parent who has the need to throw the teacher under the bus: "What is a kid supposed to do if they don't have a computer? Can not get to the school's library before or after school? Do you really expect a kid to come to your room during lunch? What if the kid can not get to a friend's house? The Public Library?"

Yikes.

The blog is not the trouble.

It's the shrapnel:

1. How to get people to read the dang thing.
2. How to circumvent the excuses the students dish out.
3. How to get parents to respect it.
4. How to make the blog something effective and not just some cyber- CYA.

Sigh.*

ajt

*The examples provided are true (even the exorcism bit).

Believe it. Or not.

The un Dr. Seuss Thing 1 and Thing 2

2011-12-29T12:10:00.000-08:00

Thing 1 and Thing 2
Which shall I do?
How about both
for the 2 CEU?

Students love technology.
Me not so much.
cuz learning's a drag
for the oldish and such.

Blog this. Tweet that.
Sign in and read.
Kids might not do it.
If themselves they must lead.

Students complain.
Parents protest.
"My internet's down."
"My kid did his best."

Off to the lab for an on-line assignment
and drat! the website's not working
as well as some kids
lest the teacher is standing and watching and lurking.

So what can I do to make my job better?
Despite my doubts and concerns?
I will take on this task of The 23 Things
and hope somebody will learn.

-ajt