AHA's

I have learned so much this semester in this class. I am really glad that the work is “hands on” assignments. I learn most by doing and this class really emphasized the designing of projects not just paper assignments. Some of the AHA’s this semester includes desktop publishing, blogs, wikis, podcasting, and social bookmarking.

(AHA): Desktop Publishing

Desktop publishing is the mechanical process that the designer and the non-designer use to turn their ideas for newsletters, brochures, ads, posters, greeting cards, and other projects into digital files for desktop or commercial printing. While desktop publishing does require a certain amount of creativity, it is more production-oriented than design-oriented. I learned how to use desktop publishing in projects of all types. I made a banner in class for my little girl’s softball teams. I had learned how to group and ungroup images to make them the way I want them to be. I love changing images and making my creation, this is so much fun to do!

(My Favorite AHA moment): Blogs

A blog is a website that is maintained by an individual that includes journal entries of events, information, video, and images. Blogs can be used for many different purposes in the school and outside the school. I maintain a blog for my personal use to keep family that live out of state up to date on what is going on in the Turney household. My blog address is www.theturneys.blogspot.com. I also have a blog that I made for this class. When this class is over I am going to change the blog to reflect only book reviews and book talks. I will also include links for teachers to use as resources. The name of my blog is Mrs. Turney’s Library www.turneyc.blogspot.com. Educators and students for assignments, book reviews, discussions, journal entries and commentaries can use blogs. I loved making the blog this semester and learned so much about them. I had heard of blogs before this semester, but I had never seen one or expected to actually use one. This is by far my favorite AHA moment.

(AHA):Wikis

Wikis are a way to use real time collaboration in a web page format. Real time means that all users are able to collaborate, edit, and create documents at the same time together. Some of the free programs that have wikis are wetpaint, peanut butter, and wikispaces. Students and educators can both use wikis. Students can collaborate on projects together from different computers, but at the same time. Discussions and chats can be done with many users at the same time. Wikis are a great way to communicate and collaborate with other people using real time. The JAPD group that I was in decided they wanted to do their discussion in a wiki. I was very skeptical at first because I had never made or used a wiki before. However, by the end of the assignment I was glad that my group chose to do a wiki instead of the regular class response groups. I learned how to really use a wiki and how to make one. I don’t know how much I will use wikis, but I see great potential for them.

(AHA): Podcasting

Podcasting are media files that are broadcasted over the Internet to be used by portable media players such as ipods, and computers. I can see this being used in the library for audio books. It can be used in classrooms for many uses. Classroom teachers can record their lessons and discussions for the day and then put them on media players. The students that were absent could then check out the media player to get caught up on the assignments. Also, classroom teachers can use podcasts for students that need modifications or accommodations in the class. Podcasts can be used for many different reasons and the more creative an educator gets the more purposes they can find for podcasts. We didn’t work with podcasting much, but there was a lot of talk about them in group discussions.

(AHA) Del.icio.us

Social bookmarking is a way to bookmark sites in one place and other users can share them. Del.icio.us is the account that we used to social bookmark our sites. I really enjoyed seeing the other users websites and I was able to use these sites for teacher resources in my school.

Picture Credits: http://vector-images.com/search.php?query=smiley&min=150&atype=clipart&exclude=, en.wikipedia.org, http://www.apple.com/ipod/whichipod/

Primary Sources

Mendelevev's 1st Periodic Table

A primary source is a document, recording or other source that was created at roughly the time being studied, by an authoritative source, usually one with direct personal knowledge of the events being described. A primary source could be a first-hand source from the past including diaries or artifacts. Primary sources provide researchers with direct information about the information that is being researched. They may contain original research or new information not previously published elsewhere.

Primary sources allow students and teachers to access information about a topic by someone that lived in that time and recorded their thoughts and experiences. How awesome would it be to talk to Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev about the periodic table and know what he was thinking while he was developing this table. You can pull up broadcasts that people made in that particular time era. For example, students can hear the broadcast made when the first man walked on the moon. The NARA or National Archives and Records Administration is an excellent site that can be used by educators and students to find primary sources. This website is user friendly and makes it easy on everyone to do research. Students do need to have some Internet search skills, inferencing skills and need to know what a primary source is to be successful working with the Internet primary source sites.

Fears & Hopes

Some of the fears I have are keeping up to date with all the new technology that comes out everyday. Can I remember it all, can I learn it all, can I understand it all, are some of the questions that I ask myself.

I think the easiest way to overcome fears is to understand those fears. Knowledge is a powerful tool and keeping up to date with technology is very important. This can be very hard to do since technology is always changing and new technology is developed everyday. Workshops, professional development training, and classes can help me with this problem. I thought I was very technology literate until I took this class and learned about all the new technology out there, wikis, blogs, Photo Story 3, etc. It just showed me that I was technology literate 1 year ago and things change everyday! I think that by realizing that I will have to continually search for knowledge in order to stay technology literate it will put me closer to my educational vision of using technology to enhance curriculum.

I think that teachers, staff, technology coordinators, and administratorsion need to share technology ideas and validate why these ideas and tools can be helpful in the class. For example, I share powerful technology information with my teachers as I learn it, but I am also showing how it can benefit them and why it is important. Teachers need to understand why it is better to change and use tools that they have not already been using. Sometimes teachers believe that what they are doing is working and don't understand why they would need to change. I try to explain that they are not changing just adding technology tools to enhance the curriculum they already teach. Explaining isn't enough for most teachers and they want evidence and valid ideas that they can see and use. Teachers are busy and dealing with state objectives that are always changing. It can be very overwhelming for veteran teachers as well as new teachers. I understand this and I only hope that I can help them and make their job a little easier

Distance Education

Distance education is allowing teachers to present students with opportunities that were not offered before. Video conferencing is one of these examples. Video conferencing can provide students with the opportunity to interact with other students around the world or people that could not come to the actual classroom. I did a video conference with my 7th grade students in which they were able to interact with a criminal forensic investigator. The students were able to ask questions and here questions asked by other students in different schools. The investigator also played a mystery game to see which school performed the crime. It was awesome and the kids loved it. They also learned a lot of information that could not have been learned from just me and their classmates. Hearing comments and questions from other school was an extraordinary benefit. The only disadvantage to this was that it was only offered at one time and I had to combine all of my 7th graders into one class and they missed their other classes for that time period. The time it was offered was not during our regular bell schedule so we had to switch the class time around some as well. However, the advantages well out weighted the disadvantages. I have also used virtual dissection in the classroom. My school could not afford real frogs for the class to dissect, so I found a virtual dissection site. It was great. The kids learned the same information with out the squeamishness some kids have, the cost, or the clean up! Some teachers have made the comment that technology is getting so good that they may eventually replace us. I think that distance education is changing the world of teaching, but it will never completely replace the added benefit of a real teacher. I believe that they need to go hand in hand and that the technology should enhance curriculum not teach it.

Check out this virtual 3D environment www.gogofrog.com. Gogofrog allows you to experience the ultimate 3D world in your browser. You don't need to download anything to your computer, just sign up to the site and create your own 3D place with unlimited online space. At Gogofrog you can share your art, photos, journals and interests with an ever-expanding network of friends and visitors. Chat with your site visitors, furnish your environment and change the space to suit your mood. Think of what you could do with this as a teacher. Assignments could be posted, students can interact with each environment, historical reenactments can be designed, experiments performed all in 3D.

Desktop Publishing

I had so much fun creating videos and using them in class that I created one that I sent out to all my teachers. The video I created was to shoe everyone what ottobib.com was and how to use it. I will attach the video to this post so you can view it as well. www.ottobib.com is a site that will allow you to put in any ISBN number and get the MLA or APA citation to it. I love this site and have been using it a lot lately.

The program that I used to record my video is called Camstudio. It is a free program and you can download it from the internet. the website is www.camstudio.org. I will use these resources to help with teacher and students training in the class and professional development.

Web 2.0 In Education

Web 2.0 technologies will be an excellent enhancement in education. By utilizing all the technology that can be offered students and teachers will reap the benefits. Wikis can be used as class discussions, question and answer sessions, group collaboration on projects and more. Del.icio.us can be used as a place for the teacher to put links that they want the students to view and use. RSS feeds can be used by the teacher to keep them updated on new topics and information about subjects. Student can also use this for things like research and essays.

The Wiki I developed was done in wetpaint. The name of the website is CHS Library and the address is http://chsbookclub.wetpaint.com/. The CHS Book Club Wiki is designed to help students find books that interest them by reading peer reviews. You and your peers can add comments and suggestions on books of you’re choosing. The site also list meeting detail and dates for book talks.

I can not count the number of times that I have searched for information and not considered the source. This was the case especially in my early years of college. As time went by and I learned more about the internet I began to look for certain things in the URL like .edu. I thought that this made my site credible, but that is not always the case. For example, in November’s article “Teaching Zak to Think” the website URL has .edu in it. As a result from doing the MAPit activity I have learned how to dissect the URL piece by piece. Looking for the tilde symbol and people’s names in the URL are a sure sign that the website is a personal website and not an educational website. I also learned how to check altavista.com and see who is linked to the URL and the history of the URL. I am posting these easy hints in my library for students to use in the future when they use the Internet for research.