Some Student Work with Web 2.0 Tools

Here is a VoiceThread my students did about Plate Tectonics.

CeDO 550 Week 1

These are some problems I had navigating the course management system and utilizing the discussion boards.  I have been exhausted this week with attempting to do he work I need to do at my school, help my 2 kids at home, work my second job and attempt to keep the house clean since my wife herniated a vertebrae in her neck.  Due to this, I was confused by our new class site and how the work was going to be assigned.  When I checked out the assignments page and the submissions page, I hadn't realized that we needed to click the link in order to get the description of the work.  I am very glad that the contact number for our professor was listed on our class site. Between the phone call and re-watching the recorded session of our "Class 0", I was able to get my work done.  Hopefully I won't have the same problems next week.  

Being SMART with technology

   One thing that we were asked to think about how we would use the applications we have been introduced to over the last year.  Specifically, we were asked to consider the following:

Specific - what exactly will you do?
Measurable - how will you be able to prove it was done?
Attainable - Will you have the resources and time, what might you have to do to make it occur?
Realistic - Make sure it is doable, you certainly can add something to a lesson plan or work item, you caanot get to the moon?
Timely - Assign a timeline - when will this be done by?

Overall, each of these considerations is important to be able to help students be successful in their learning even if you are not using modern technologies to deliver your content.  It is always important for the educator to plan for student activities and learning experiences with the learning expectations in mind.  A salesman that had tried to train me as a salesman once told me, "You only can plan to succeed, if you succeed to plan."  This is as true for education as it is for sales.  If you do not plan with the outcomes you want in mind, there is no way that you will be able to reach them.  This is especially important when attempting to integrate technology into the presentation of information in a classroom.  When attempting to get students to use a new technology, the educator needs to be able teach the students the appropriate way to use the technology.  There is also the fact that the educator needs to be able have enough time to be able to learn the technologies and have enough time to teach the appropriate use of the technologies to the students.  If the teacher fails to plan appropriately, they are doomed to fail in their attempt to integrate the technologies appropriately.

CEdO 535 Week 5

This has been an interesting week.  We have been looking at many different ways to spark our students interest using technology.  Looking through the Web 2.0 sites made me realize just how many applications there are out there that I don't know about and have no clue how to use.  I have always thought that I was technologically savvy, but seeing all of this stuff out on the web, I just know that I am still a babe exploring this new world. 

Google sites are pretty nice.  I have created my own websites before using an html editor, as well as WYSIWYG sites such as GeoCities (before they were taken over by Yahoo).  I am realizing that I have much less time than I have ever had previously in my life to do fun things such as creating a website.  So the WYSIWYG format is pretty nice to be able to create a site quickly.  Here is my site as it is so far.

Eyejot.  The program seems to have uses to be able to enhance learning for students.  For me, there is only one problem.  I have a small phobia about creating videos of myself.  Maybe it is due to the experiences I have had in the past, but I would rather not publish a video that I feel would be ridiculed.  Even though I can think rationally about the fact that not many would ever bother to look it up, there is a small niggling voice in the back of my head that says that if I create a digital video, it will end up (somehow) with either a student or co-worker that has an axe to grind.

Weed 4 of CeDO 535

This week we turned our attention to several different things.  Social Bookmarking, Podcasts and Screencasting, Social Networks and Micro-blogging in the classroom all were discussed.

This is not the first time in this MEIT Cohort progression that we have talked about social bookmarking.  Digg, Diigo, Deli.cio.us and Stumbleupon are all relatively nice ways to be able to share your favorite sites with others. One of the nice things about Digg, Diigo and Stumbleupon is that you are able to login to each and share information with your facebook account.  This way you are able to easily use social networking in conjunction to the social functions of the social bookmarking sites.  Deli.cio.us has just restarted as a social bookmarking site.  There is a blog that details the status of the restart.

Speaking about social networking, I found this picture posted by one of my facebook friends.

Not only can Facebook be used as a way to keep in touch with friends and family, but it can be used specifically to focus on current events or the topics that a classroom is discussing.  The problem with sites such as Facebook, is that many districts block access to sites such as this.  If students do not have access to sites such as this, then educators are not easily able to show them how to use it for not only a social media, but also as a learning tool.  The good/bad thing about districts blocking social media sites is that while it is more difficult for students to misuse these sites during a school day, it is more likely that students will not use them as anything other than a site to connect socially or cause drama that then spills back into the schools.  The other issue is that in many cases, students are still checking their social media sites on their smart phones during the school day even though the use of such phones might also be banned during the school day.  This causes more issue for classroom management for the educators.

Podcasts and Screencasts would be very useful in many situations for education.  In MPS the only problem that I would have with trying to use these media to get messages to my students outside of class is that the population that is able to use a computer outside of school is only about 80% of the students I teach.  There are also students who have internet connected computers at home, but they are locked away in a parents room, inaccessible to the student.  The main way I might be able to use a podcast or screencast as a part of my class is to use them for students who missed classes so that they do not fall behind.  In many cases, students who miss class, not only miss the work for the day, but also the explanation of the work.  For most students, this explanation is the more important of the two components that they missed.  

Micro-blogging is a great way to send out quick information to the students who follow your Twitter account.  For students who follow, they would be reminded of due dates, assessments and other important classroom happenings.  But again, this is only for students who are able to 1) have access to the internet outside of school, and 2) have access to Twitter.

RSS Feeds, Flickr, Creative Commons

    This week we were looking at several different topics.   One of these topics was RSS readers.  The link to my shared items can be seen here. I have a feeling that with tools like RSS readers, teachers will truly be able to move toward being the facilitators of knowledge rather than the "font of knowledge".  For many educators this will be a total paradigm shift where educators will need to be able to modify what they use to teach almost as quickly as new information becomes available.

    We also used learned about Creative Commons licensing.  We were to use what we learned about these licenses to put a usage license on the images we displayed on Flickr.  The pictures that I shared can be found here.

Week 2 in CEDO 535

While searching Wikipedia to check for how accurate the site is, I looked at some things that I know quite a bit about. Two Harbors, Minnesota was one of the items I checked the entry for. I spent several weeks each summer wandering the woods and rivers near this town. During those 30+ years of vacations, I learned a lot about the area by listening to the people who lived there. One of those people was Walter Sve who owned and operated the Split Rock Cabins, where my family usually stayed. Walter was a commercial fisherman and carpenter who augmented his income through the operation of a resort that his son operates today. However, due to pollution of Lake Superior by the taconite mining industry, the commercial fishing industry as well as the fishery of the lake were nearly destroyed. A link to the legal battle to stop the pollution can be found here.  Here is a short video detailing some of the trials and tribulations of commercial fishermen on Lake Superior.

We also were working on mini-blogging (aka using Twitter).  I have a feeling that I might get addicted to this. I hope that it does not overtake other pursuits that I have at this moment though.  But, with currently 0 followers, I guess I won't have to worry about getting a big head by having lots of people wanting to know what I say :).

Editing this Sunday evening ~7pm.  Thanks to Twitter I found some neat new sites we might be able to use.  The first is an image hosting site. http://imgur.com/
The second is an open source security software:http://preyproject.com/
This software allowed a guy to recover his laptop when it was stolen and he had gone out of the country.  Link to that is here: http://storify.com/hawaii/sean-powers-laptop-recovered?awesm=awe.sm_5J8w5&utm_content=tweetdeck&utm_medium=awe.sm-twitter&utm_source=direct-awe.sm

Week 1 CEdO 535

One of the assignments for this first week of class was to look at potential sites to host an educational blog.  Our review of the sites (a minimum of 3) was to be documented and shared by the end of the week.  Some of the sites that were interesting for an educational purpose were: Xanga, Edmodo, 21 Classes, Edublogs, and WordPress.  Each of these sites had attractive features that a classroom teacher should be able to find useable. 

The Highlights

I was floored by the the ability of Edumodo to have assignments and grades for your classes on the site.  This site really seems much like a Moodle type site for running a class and allowing a site that students could use to discuss class topics while not in class. 

Xanga was interesting in the fact that depending on the activity on a certain blog, they were able to get different rankings.  The highest ranked were linked on the homepage of Xanga.  This allows users to see where and what the buzz is.

21 Classes is neat due to the fact that a teacher is able to set up blog sites for their students in a relatively safe environment. 

WordPress is very informative with an extensive user guide to bring a user from "zero-to-hero" with regards to the use of the site.


We've also had the chance to read a bit of Will Richardson's "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other powerful Web Tools for Classrooms".   The intro is a good history on the development of the ability to author things on the web.  Things are much more plug and play compared to the start when to do anything, one would need to know how to code what they wanted to show online.  Now, all one has to do to author web material is to sign up on a site.

Identifying and Evaluating Major Data Resources on the Internet

This past week we have had the assignment to investigate and analyze some online data resources that were provided for us as well as find and analyze some resources on our own.  My findings can be found here.  I was surprised by how some online resources that one would think would have their data accessible online did not.  One of these was the National Archives which had broken the link that our professor had given us due to some internal reorganization.  For the most part, if someone was looking for genealogical or census data, he or she would need to either pay for some microfiche to be sent to them, or to travel to a National Archive site for free access.  The National Archive site closest to Milwaukee, WI is in Chicago.  After that, the next closest is in Lancing, Michigan.  I was very surprised to find out that there is no site located in either the capital city of each state or in the major universities located all over the U.S.  However, I did find out that the only reason that this is the reality, is that there is just too much that needs to be stored in the National Archives to be able to digitize it all and maintain it online.  That being said, I am glad there are some enterprising individuals (such as the creators of Ancestry.com and Heritagequest.com) that are doing what they can to make this available for a fee.

Surveys, Analyzing Data and Other Questions

This week, we actually created a survey, solicited responses, and analyzed the data.  We chose to do a survey on who preferred the books and movies of the Lord of the Rings series or the Harry Potter series.  The link to our survey can be found here.  The results can be found here.  We were initially of the mindset that younger people (under 30)  would prefer Harry Potter, and older people (30+) would prefer Lord of the Rings.  One of the reasons we thought of this, is that people who are younger probably have not been exposed to Lord of the Rings, while Harry Potter has been almost universally known among readers.  The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series should have been more known by those who are older and were exposed to the books and original cartoon movies when they were newer.  Our group found that younger readers preferred Harry Potter, while older readers were more evenly distributed.  Males preferred Lord of the Rings by a margin of 2 to 1.  Females were reversed preferring Harry Potter by a margin of 2 to 1.  One thing that I wish we included were questions about if the survey taker was into role playing games (table top or online), Society of Creative Anachronism or LARPing (Live Action Role Playing).  I have a feeling that that would have been able to give us more information about the two series.  The people I knew had taken the survey and asked about it, the people who were into AD&D, online games, etc. seemed to prefer Lord of the Rings.  This might have to do with the fact that Lord of the Rings is not a book series for a person who has not been introduced to a "hard-core" fantasy series.

Surveys & Gathering Data

One of the things that we were assigned to explore this week is the creation of surveys.  This is something that I am somewhat familiar with since my students created a survey to gauge the thoughts of people about the Budget Repair Bill that was proposed by Governor Scott Walker this spring.  The main thing that I wanted my students to understand is that the data you can get from an experiment or a survey can be severely impacted by bias.  This could be bias that is found in the questions that are asked or the sample that is used to find the answers to your question.  My students, when creating their questions let their bias (against Scott Walker) influence the questions.  The population sample was also tainted due to being done in a school where most people had a natural bias against their pay and benefits being changed to a smaller figure.  So after all of the work my students did, I had them analyze the data.  To no ones surprise, the feelings about the budget bill and Governor Scott Walker were negative.  However, when my students realized that they had biased questions and sample, they understood that the data that they received was not representative of the state of Wisconsin as a whole, but only of one Milwaukee Public Schools middle school.

Week 2 CEDO 540

The statistical mean has had an extreme impact on some kids I deal with recently.  I was fortunate enough to be able to help coach the Milwaukee Swim team entry for the U.S. Youth Games in Cocoa, Florida.  Instead of using an automatic timing system (such as a Colorado Timing System) the Youth Games used 2 timers per each lane and then the meet manager would "average" the two times and record the "averaged time" to find the place of each entrant.  Unfortunately for one of our swimmers, even though she out touched the other swimmer, one of her timers stopped the timer late.  This meant that her mean time was 0.17 seconds slower than the other swimmer.  So, according to the mean, she did not win the race.  Unfortunately, this also meant that she did not get the points a first place finish would get.  The difference between getting first and second place points in this one race was great enough that our girls ended up getting 3rd place overall in the meet.  They only missed second place by 2 points.  However, our boys won second place and had enough points for the team total points won the team a second place finish.  Kudos to my wife for a great job coaching.

CEDO 540 Week 1

This week we were introduced to the basics of statistics.  For the most part, statistics is the gathering and analyzing of data.  To many this is very boring stuff.  For me, it depends what I am doing with the data.  In many cases, I use data to try to predict what would happen in a future occurrence of something such as weather (which is all about statistical analysis) or even to predict the results of a future experiment.  I also attempt to use statistics along with the scientific method to help either prove or disprove a hypothesis that I might have.  For the most part, my hypotheses are relatively simple.  They can range from "Can I hit the snooze button and still get the kids onto the school bus?" to "How can I best make sure that I won't be one of the teachers on the cutting block next year?"  The snooze button hypothesis is tested on almost a daily basis, which adds to the amount of data that I have (for the most part, I can hit the snooze button at least once and get the kids on the school bus successfully). 
One of the books that was recommended to us in class, (How to Lie With Statistics) is a good review of how statistics can be used to attempt to prove a specific point of view if used in a biased manner.  I liked what I read enough to order a copy from Amazon.com.  The link for the book at Amazon is here.

CEDO 530 Week 5

This week we were able to see what others did with the Prezi's.  I was amazed at the ability of others to convey stories through pictures.  Just tonight, my wife was asking me to help empty her phone of all the pics my kids have taken with her phone.  She started deleting many b/c there "was a mess" behind the target.  I was crying "No! Don't!" because these were some amazing pictures that I could only hope to be able to take.  Unfortunately, my wife won the argument since it was her phone involved. 

The other things that we did were to finish our Pecha Kucha, create rubrics to score multimedia assignments, and review some technology in our groups.  I put in quite a bit of time on the Pecha Kucha, but in order to be perfectly understood, I will need a voice double so that my mush mouth won't impede other peoples ability to get my point.  The rubric was relatively easy since I used one of the websites to create it.  I just needed to modify the assignment a bit in order to add more technology to it.  The technology review has yet to happen as of this writing.  But I am sure that there will be much learned.

Prezi, Pecha Kucha and more.

First off, I apologize that I am posting late on Sunday.  I just got back home after a family weekend trip that surprisingly did not have internet connectivity.  I will definitely be suffering from the sunburn I got while fishing (well, not actually fishing, but taking off the fish of everyone else).
                 

This week we used the photos that we have been taking for the last month.  We needed to use them in our Prezi.  I am really impressed with the ease of use of Prezi as a tool.  I showed several of my co-workers and they were amazed at the way the non-linear and size as hierarchical organization.  I have a feeling that there are going to be many people asking me to show them what I know about Prezi over the summer.

Great Pictures on Prezi

We also needed to storyboard our Pecha Kucha.  This has been really helpful with the planning and execution of this exacting presentation.  I even had some of my former students critique what they saw.  The information was good.  I just need to work on my audio component.

Here is the link to the Pecha Kucha storyboard.