Thursday, February 24, 2011

Technology Self-Assessment: School 2.0 (Nets 3,5)

http://etoolkit.org/etoolkit/reflection/about is designed to help you reflect on your skills in technology integration and to identify areas for growth.


I investigated Nets 3 and chose an article titled Top 10 Web 2.0 tools for young learners, by Chris Riedel.
Top 10 tools that are mentioned:
1-     Wikis: This is the most powerful tool. It can bring all students together on a single platform.
2-     Blogs: This tool is my personal favorite as it makes communication so much easier between  students, teachers, and parents….etc.
3-     Voicethread: It can be used to upload images or videos. Comments can be added.
4-     Glogster: It is like a personal webpage with embedded media links, sound, and video capabilities. It can be used to create presentations.
5-     Skype: Very cost efficient to make voice and video calls worldwide. Very helpful for class participation as well.
6-     Animoto: Used for presentations, and it’s easier than PowerPoint.
7-     Yack Pack: This tool is used as Web voicemail. Communication can be done by broadcasting a message for students, or parents.
8-     Create a Graph: Used to teach students how to create graphs and read data.
9-     Voki: It is an animated figure projected on the screen. It is a text to speech generator.
10-   Kerpoof: It is a website that provides a variety of tools for animation, drawing, and movie creation.

Journal 3: 100 things that make me happy!

1-   Shopping
2-   Visiting Egypt
3-   Teaching
4-   When my husband kisses me
5-   When I hang out with my brother
6-   Warm clothes from the laundry
7-   Getting an A
8-   Travelling
9-   Going on a vacation
10- A full tank of gas
11- Getting a good tax refund
12- Hanging out with family
13- Being with my cat
14- Lakers winning
15- Smooth traffic
16- Summer
17- Spring break
18- Playing video games
19- Watching comedy movies
20-  Hanging out with friends
21- Helping people
22- Playing with snow
23- Sledding
24- Relaxing on the beach
25- Jets keying
26- Going to the gym
27- Reading a good book
28- Eating frozen yogurt
29- Taking a nap
30- Learning new things
31- Smelling flowers
32- Sitting by the fireplace
33- Cooking
34- Sitting in front of my laptop
35- Watching my favorite TV shows
36- Sleeping in
37- Going to the cinema
38- Going to Disney land
39- Going to theme parks
40- Playing chess
41- Lighting candles
42- The weekend
43- Getting stuff done
44- Fresh juice
45- Breakfast in bed
46- Riding roller coasters
47- Listing to music
48- Watching the stars
49- My birthday
50- Valentines day
51- Praying
52- Drinking chocolate milk
53- Giving my cat a bath
54- Eating sushi
55- Driving
56- Drawing
57- Dancing
58- Math
59- My house after its cleaned
60- Food
61- Taking pictures
62- Watching cartoons
63- My phone
64- Singing
65- BBQs
66- Chatting on the phone
67- Texting
68- Running
69- Road trips
70- Picnics
71- Swimming
72- Drinking coffee when I’m tired
73- Showers
74- Weddings
75- Ballet concerts
76- Editing pictures
77- Hugs
78- Rain
79- Nature
80- Basketball
81- Facebook
82- Making new friends
83- A better job
84- Taking my vitamins
85- Halloween
86- Sunset
87- Sunrise
88- Compliments
89- Massages
90- Making someone happy
91- Saving money
92- Going to the hair salon
93- The heater on a cold day
94- Horse back riding
95- Being on a boat
96- Cold water on a hot day
97- Carving pumpkins
98- Decorating for the holidays
99- Kids
100-Love

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Journal 2: “Join the Flock!" and "Enhance Your Twitter Experience”. (NETS 3)

Ferguson, Hadley, & McClintock Miller, Shannon. (2010). Join the flock!, enhance your twitter experience. Learning and Leading with Technology, 37(8), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/issues/Join_the_Flock.aspx


A PLN “Professional Learning Network” is a community of people around the world who learn together.  Twitter helps those people create a community built on communication.
To start this process, you can follow several steps:
1-     Set up your account.
You can sign up for a free account on twitter.  You’ll need to write a brief bio and post a photo.
2-     Learn to follow.
You can follow by simply clicking the follow button.  When the people you follow post something it shows up on your twitter stream.  You can search for a person you know or a group of people who are interested in the same topic.
3-     Check the lists that other people create.
4-     Wait and Listen.
You can just read tweets, blogs, and learn without saying a word if you are not ready.
5-     Start re-tweeting.
You can enhance your twitter experience when you are ready to be a part of the conversation, you can add a comment before re-tweeting.
6-     Expose yourself.
Begin tweeting the links you find. If you read a good article, copy the link and send it out.
7-     Tag your tweet.
Using a hashtag (#), a hashtag, as #teachers, will add your post to the stream of people who follow it.

Q1.  What is a twitter organizer? And what are the advantages of using it?
Twitter organizers such as TweetDeck or HootSuite, will help organize your twitter stream into columns.  You can open as many columns as you want, and delete them at anytime.
An organizer has many advantages; you can manage twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace all from one place.  You can also shorten your tweet using TweetShrink, and translate a tweet from a foreign language.

Q2.  How can you manage your tweets with a bookmarklet?
A bookmarklet Hootlet is a tool within HootSuite.  If you found a post to share, this tool will help you to easily send tweets to any of the accounts that you have linked to your HootSuite.


Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Journal 1: “Do Web 2.0 Right” (NETS 5)

Light, Daniel. (2011). Do web 2.0 right. Learning and leading with technology, 38(5), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/issues/Feature_Article_Do_Web_2_0_Right.aspx

 
Summary: Web 2.0 tools, such as wikis and blogs, are a great way to keep students engaged and motivated when done right. Wikis are multi-authored web pages that focus on the final product while leaving authors anonymous, while blogs are conversation tools for communication. Teachers who succeeded in using these tools have focused on three elements:
1-     Instituting Daily Practice.
Teachers used blogs in two ways; individual blogs and classroom blogs. Individual blogs were used as private means of contact between the teacher and each student privately, which helped the teacher understand how individual students felt about the class. While classroom blogs were used to allow students to comment on the teacher’s posts and each others’.
2-     Considering the Audience.
With Web 1.0 activities, as creating a webpage, it was easier for the teacher to filter negative comments, while in Web 2.0 activities communication is directed back and forth between users. Therefore, students were concerned about the audience, and their participation was limited if they felt their audience wasn’t friendly, or that others will judge their work. Teachers overcame that problem by making weekly assignments private but created a public wiki to publish selected work.
3-     Teaching and enforcing Appropriate Behavior.
Teachers created a supportive environment that encourages students to share their ideas and opinions respectfully, through a strong in-class community.
Web 2.0 encourages students to engage with their peers and their teacher through out the day, in and out of school, which is an extremely effective technique.

Q1. How would wikis and blogs benefit students in a Math class?
Students can benefit from those tools in so many ways, the teacher can post a Math problem and students can try to solve it and comment on the post. Students can share their answers and ask question anytime and not wait for the next school day. The teacher can always stay in touch and answer any question they might have, and can post the next lesson as a warm up.

Q2. How would the teacher get a student who doesn’t have a computer or internet access "at home"  involved through blogs?
The teacher can always allow 10 min in the beginning of every class for that student to check his/her blog on a classroom computer while others are discussing homework. The teacher may give him/her the problem that will be posted ahead of time so he/she can answer it and discuss it later with his/her peers. The student can use school lab computers whenever possible.