Reflections on Learning

The tools having the greatest immediate impact which I'm now actively organizing and exploring are the various Google tools (still more to learn here), delicious and Flickr. These tools were not entirely new to me but it will be some time before I've tapped into their full potential. After these tools I'd list all the other web2.0 tools introduced. I don't think I saw anything I don't plan to revisit and explore further .

For me this type of learning environment was ideal. I enjoyed using our Blogs as a way to interactively communicate with the other participants and the ability to keep up with everyone's learning experiences. In many ways the opportunities for interaction between participants was far superior to traditional face to face staff development classes. I would most definitely be up for round two if that became available.

Where do I go from here?
At this moment this is a really tough question for me because there are so many places I'd like to focus my attention. I need a bit more time to process and prioritize before I can answer that definitively. I do plan to maintain a blog but have not quite settled on the exact format, title of or subjects I plan to target with my blog. I am committed to it's creation but it may take me a while to get it off the ground in a format I'm happy with. Stay tuned

23Things has been a pleasure!

Thing 23 - Beyond MySpace

Classroom 2.0 on Ning was an unexpected surprise. I'm not sure how this one had escaped my attention but it had. The first thing I looked for were resources for math teachers. The reason for my search was because of the difficulty math teachers seem to have in embracing technology integration. If I can locate resources or point math teachers toward some of the Forums or Groups in the Ning Classroom 2.0 network we might find ways to get started. My second search was on the subject of iPods in education. We have a several ESL classrooms with iPods that we're using to enhance the acquisition of language skills. I see a great deal of potential with this kind of device and approach to learning but would like to communicate with others also using iPods as language acquisition tools. There were several resources to pursue related to my math requests but only a couple related to iPods in ESL classrooms. Looks like an opportunity to start some of my own Forum topics.

I most definitely see Ning as a tool that I'll make use of for professional learning and collaboration.

On our 23 Thingsters site I've embedded a YouTube video "The Networked Student" that I came across in the video section of Classrooms 2.0 that seems to sum up much of what this class has been about. Hope you watch and enjoy?

Thing 22 - Social Networking

I created a Facebook profile because I knew family members and friends with active Facebook pages and I wanted to be able to connect with them. I guess what I like best about the social service was how easy it was to build the network. I also enjoyed the surprise of receiving friend requests from two people I hadn't seen, talked to or even really thought about since I was 16. Even though our paths went different directions it was nice to see where they are and what they're up to.

What I don't like about the service is the constant list of advertisements on the right side and the occasional friend request from individuals outside the US that obviously have nefarious reasons for the request. I think it's important for us as educators and parents to know how these sites work so we'll be in the best positions to guide our kids to the possibilities and away from the pitfalls.

At this point I'm having a tough time seeing a K-12 educational applications for either of these two sites because of their open and uncontrolled nature. A site like Ning that allows you to create your own social network with a bit more control seems like a better fit to me.

Thing 7c - Things from my RSS Reader

I'm always on the lookout for content I can use in Professional Development and this article Teaching administrators about Wikipedia posted on the Dangerously Irrelevant blog is just the kind of stuff I need.

This second link came into my Reader via a Delicious bookmark post from Miguel Guhlin. It's a link to directions on How to Back Up Your Blogger Blog. Something I am interested in doing and I thought you might be interested as well.

A third post I just had to include is from Welsey Fryer's weblog entitled It is a promise we make to our children. Truly an inspirational video about President-Elect Barack Obama. Our kids need to see and internalize this message.

Thing 21 - Other Google Tools

I've actually been anxious to test drive Google Sites and up until now have not taken the time. Google introduced Sites several months ago and I've been hopeful it would fill the bill for what I've been looking for for the past hand full of years.

The need as I perceive: We've had campus websites for a least 10 years in MISD and on many of these sites we've had pages dedicated to the staff members on campus. In many cases our staff pages haven't been much more than a bio page and the teachers usually had little control over getting timely information posted to their page. So it hasn't been a truly affective way for our teachers to communicate with their kids or kids parents. I've felt we've needed a district supported method for creating a web site for ALL our teachers and then linking to these teachers sites from their campus site. The teachers would then be in complete control of the content on their site and could modify and update the information as they needed.

These teacher created websites could become the teachers jumping off place to any of the Web 2.0 resources the teacher chose to employed. Links to blogs, wikis, videos, Google Docs, VoiceThreads or anything appropriate for teaching and learning in their class. What I've been looking for is a starting place, a Home that could grow and evolve over time to become the teachers launching pad to all the richness of Web 2.0.

I realize that a number of teachers and departments have taken matters into their own hands and have created their own web presence and shared that info with their kids and parents. It's my opinion their efforts would be much more affective if their web site was linked to their campus site and we had ALL our teachers participated.

Our obstacles to achieving this goal:

• Lack of manpower to support 2500 teacher websites.
• Expense of hardware to support this many sites.
• Technical Support to keep this up and going.
• Complicated and expensive web mastering tools.
• Lack of user friendly tools that can be used on any computer from any location.
• Lack of funds to purchase third party hosting services.

So take a look at my experimentation with Google Sites. I spent about 4 hours learning and developing this site as a way to demonstrate and show some of the potential of Google Sites. Using Sites felt very familiar with many of the same tools we've been using in Blogger.

One other feature of Sites that I want to make sure you're aware of is that you can invite others as contributors to your site. So it would be a cinch to create grade level sites or academic team sites where a group of teachers collaboratively build the content. I love it!

I think this may be the silver bullet I've been looking for!
No cost, easy to use and powerful.

The second Google tool I explored was Calendars. I had never used Google Calendars before but it was a cinch. I chose to explore this tool because I wanted to see if I could embed a Calendar into my Google Site. Snap that was easy! I love the way all these puzzle pieces fit together.

Let me know your thoughts?
Am I on the right track?
Could we get our teachers on board?
What if we required every teacher to have a web presence?

Thing 20 - Google Docs

I'm a huge fan of Google's tools and as I mentioned in the shared "Unblocking Google" doc these tools have transformed our Instructional Technology Department. Below are ways we are using these tools.

• As with the shared "Unblocking Google" document it gives us the ability to collaborate with others without ever having to meet face to face. The hurdle of finding a shared space and time for a meeting vanishes. I can attest that our department is now accomplishing more in a shorter amount of time than was ever possible before. The cool part is that I can also collaborate with others outside my office, outside my building, outside my city, state, country. To understand how transforming this truly is I sent the email to share the "Unblocking Google" document on Saturday at 12:38 pm and Carla added information to the Shared Google Doc about an hour later at 1:39 pm. Wow - it's a bit mind bending and when we're able to have our kids collaborate outside the four walls of our classrooms it will transform education.

• Our office still has face to face meetings but instead of everyone recording their own set of incomplete notes we put the agenda in a Google Doc and as we are having the meeting everyone adds notes "Live" while the meeting is taking place. The benefits have been tremendous. Everyone leaves the meeting with access to the same set of complete notes and if anyone was absent from the meeting they have access to these meeting notes and are up to speed in a flash with no misunderstanding about progress or decisions made during the meeting. I have noticed this year a complete absence of questions like these coming from our Instructional Technology team. - I can't remember did we decide to do A or was it B? or I know we discussed this a few weeks ago but I don't remember who was in charge of what. What's our next step? We effortlessly are staying on the same page! The same Google page that is.
  

Side Note: I'm also a huge fan of the iPhone and this past Friday I was the one who missed the face to face office meeting. With Google Docs and the iPhone I was able to view the meeting notes as they were happening. Can't edit from the iPhone "YET" but I could view what was going on. It really would be cool if I could edit. To give you an idea of what that might look like I've included a screen shot off my iPhone of the "Unblocking Google" document. I can scroll down and read the entire document while standing in line at Best Buy and I can see who's contributing. Thank you "cmsuzie5" for your comments on the topic. It's sort of like being 007 and having a cool device in my hand designed by Q. Click on the graphic below to see the full view as it appeared on the iPhone (my blog shrunk it a bit) and you can see how I know that "cmsuzie5" edited the document at 1:39 pm.

BTW - almost all of the Google tools are accessible from an iPhone so often I'm reading my Google Reader RSS feeds from my iPhone instead of from a computer.

• A third way we are making use of these tools is by gathering information from a group of individuals that automatically flows into a Google spreadsheet. This is often simple data such as dates, email addresses, birthdays and phone numbers but we've also used the tool to gather opinions and as a simple assessment instrument. The possibilities for gathering information for classroom research is limitless.
  

Thing 19 - VoiceThread

One of the reasons I was excited about the opportunity to take the 23things staff development class was because I knew it would force me to take the time to explore a large number of Web 2.0 tools. It seems odd to me that I had glanced at VoiceThread two or three times before but really wasn't getting it until I gave myself the time to explore. So many possibilities - so little time.

My mom is in her mid 80's and still sharp as a tack. I've sat many times and looked through photos of our family and listened as she tells rich stories of childhood and growing up in West Virginia. Being able to capture some of these stories along side photos would be a treasure for my five siblings and our families. This is an incredible tool for recording history. Then the notion of me and my siblings being able to add our own two cents to each photo would make it that much more special. I'm planning a project.

My background in education is in Technology Education and Technology Education is all about project based learning. How I wish I had had access to this tool while a teacher. It would be awesome to record and illustrate tough concepts that my kids could refer to and cool for them to have been able to add comments along side these concepts. As significant this would have been a tremendous tool for the kids to use as a way of documenting their project based learning.

Wheels are turning.

Thing 18 YouTube

I continue to be amazed at the number of web2.0 tools that have arrived, matured and entrenched themselves in just the last three years or so. I was shocked while watching the History of YouTube that the domain name had only been registered in the middle of 2005. If I'd been asked how long YouTube has been around I would have guessed many more years than this.

You can find videos on literally any topic when searching YouTube. The "How To" videos I was searching for had to do with specific software applications. As an example if I needed some help learning to use iMovie 08 a simple search for "How to use iMovie 08" presented me with several thousand videos. As with everything you must filter because some of the videos are of high quality and some - not so much. It would be feasible for a teacher to find then link to or embed videos they were wanting their students to view.

I'm not sure how many employees are aware that our Electronic Media Services creates videos of all sorts for internal uses but once delivered to the target audience posts them to YouTube. EMS also attempt to post their videos to TeacherTube but have not had a great deal of success posting to this service. I don't believe TeacherTube is quite as robust as YouTube which often causes their uploads to fail.

Take a look at this recent EMS creation about raising our TAKS scores. It's a hoot! It was shown in last weeks staff meeting to all principals and central office staff.



Another facinatieng developmet is the roll YouTube played in our recent election and the continued roll it may play in the new presidency. President-Elect Obama has pledged to post weekly fireside chats to YouTube. If he manages to pull this off we may experience a transparency of government we've never seen or experienced before. If I were a social studies teacher I would be watching these every week and when appropriate exposing my kids to the topics and discussions presented in the broadcasts. How cool would that be!

Thing 17 - Podcasts

Podcasting is one of those technologies that happened almost by accident. It's evolved over time to be what we experience today. In June 2005 Apple woke up to what was going on and jumped on board by including podcast directories in its iTunes Music Store. I point this out because I'm still amazed at how new these technologies truly are. For me this inclusion into iTunes was a game changer moment that totally altered the way I consumed many forms of media. I had an iPod at the time that I kept tunes on but now I had the option of downloading and listening to what seemed like talk radio shows targeted at topics I was interested in. This was awesome!

The podcasts I'm listening to for this assignment are from the K12 Online Conference 2008 all downloads through iTunes and titled "K12Online08". There are two feeds from the 2008 conference you can subscribe to - the K12Online08 Audio Channel and the K12Online08 Video Channel. If you haven't been introduced to this conference before its in its second year and is a conference created by educators for educators interested in integrating emerging technologies into classroom practice. Content I believe we are all keenly interested in.

This conference is unique in it's structure in that it was never a face to face conference but instead was created online and will stay online. If you had the opportunity to attend the conference while it was in session you would have had more opportunities for collaboration but the content and discussion boards are still alive and online even after the conference dates have passed. K12 Online 2008 Conference Agenda

I understand the reason for the "no iPod needed!" statement at the beginning of the assignment (which is true) but having an untethered device that you can listen to anywhere and anytime is freedom. I listen to podcasts anytime I'm traveling in a car (it plugs into my audio system - no headphones while driving please) while waiting on appointments, while shopping or basically anytime I have a little time on my hands or have the opportunity to multitask. Anywhere anytime learning I carry in my pocket is unbelievably convienent and we've just begun scratching the surface exploring the possibilities for educating our kids with this kind of device.

Take a look at Wesley Fryer's blog post as he shares his wonder at being able to carry the K12 Online Conference 2008 in his pocket.

Thing 16 - LibraryThing

The first time I experienced the iTunes audio store it was liberating because I no longer had to stare at the CD's on the shelf wondering if I remembered the name of the artist and song title and no longer had to use community head phones to listen to snippets of songs to decide if that was what I was looking for.

LibraryThing has that same liberating feeling. It's now where I'll go to browse for books. Great resource I plan to share with my mom, wife, sisters, brothers -- you get the idea. Thanks for including this tool.

Thing 15 - delicious

I created my delicious account several years ago but up until now have only had a couple of bookmarks posted to it. I understood what a fabulous tool delicious was but kept stopping because of the amount of effort it was going to take to transition the bookmarks I had into delicious. I was and am using a service that synchronizes my browser bookmarks between my computers so I haven't felt the frustration of not being able to access bookmarks when switching from one computer to another. About 6 months ago I began using another social bookmarking service called Diggo and although it has some unique features I enjoy I find I'm now committing myself to jumping into delicious. Delicious seems to have many more users and because of this has many more resources available for searching. As a bonus once I have delicious set up the way I want I'll be able to import all that information into Diigo and can use both tools. Sweet!

I've now uploaded almost 1000 bookmarks into delicious and am beginning the process of re-evaluating each link, tagging and sharing. It may take me months to complete but I believe it will be worth the effort. There are many situations where it will be advantageous to be able to share a set of tagged resources with a group of educators. I guess I just can't wait any longer.

Thing 7b - Things from my RSS Reader

NCLB Technology Report

Because of NCLB requirements every district is to now complete a report each November that as a part will identify the number of 8th grade students that met the TEKS for "Technology Applications" the previous school year. Since we didn't know of this requirement until this past May we "as well as many other districts" had to gathered this information by administering a assessment to our current 9th grade students. This assessment was completed a couple of weeks ago. We will soon begin the process of pre-assessing our current 8th grade students and then be ready in May to administer a final assessment that will go into next years report.

In Miguel Guhlin's "Around the Corner"-MGuhlin.net blog he's conducting a survey to gather informal information about this "Technology Assessment" report that districts are in the process of completing. This informatin will give us (coordinators, directors, anyone) a peek into how other districts are doing in meeting this goal and an informal way for us to measure how we're doing in our district. I encourage you to take a look at the results gathered so far. We obviously have some work to do.

I consider the information being gathered to be timely and invaluable. The best part is Miguel is doing it all brilliantly at no cost with free Google tools. Someting that anyone of us could have done - He just seems to be fearlessly a step ahead.

Thing 14 - Web 2.0 Tools

OK - I couldn't help myself - I looked at all of them and plan to return to several over time. A pretty cool assortment of tools with so many possibilities.

When I'm looking at these tools I'm usually looking from the perspective of how could a teacher use this in a classroom as a teaching tool or how could a teacher use this to interact with kids. As I'm testing these tools "from home" my enthusiasm for using them is being somewhat tempered with the knowledge that several of them will not function as described in this "The ABCs of It All" Blog post or will be blocked because of our filter. This begs the question - should we open the filter and make it considerably less restrictive knowing that with the good will also come some bad?

As an example lets take Google. Fantastic tool set that if unblocked would give kids access to not only its wonderful tools but would also allow them to search Google Images. Google Images search capabilities will find more images of every kind than any other Image browser I've found on the web. It's actually also a fantastic tool but if inappropriate searches are made will find images you don't want the kids finding. The way Google Images works is it caches thumbnails of images which may be blocked by our filter when the thumbnail is clicked on but does give you the small unfiltered thumbnail preview. There is technically no way for us to block these thumbnail images without blocking all of Google. If we unblock Google the end result would be access to wonderful tools but teachers would need to be that much more vigilant in monitoring what their kids were doing while on computers.

One of the tools I discovered that I plan to use is PollDaddy and thought I'd try it out for a spin with the above topic in mind. Which would you choose knowing the options we have? Give me your vote and feel free to have others read and vote as well.

Thing 13 - Image Generators

Image generators are a fast and easy way to create graphics that can be used in a variety of projects. The only downsides for me is that I've seen so many of them that they are no longer looking fresh and new and the amount of commercial advertising on many of these sites is more than I would want to subject younger kids to. The two I spent most of my time with were spell with Flickr and Image Chef to create these two graphics. I may use the graphic above as a humorous way to alert users that a particular computer is out of commission.

Thing 12- SlideShow

I used slide.com to create this "books" topic slide show. I was specifically looking for pictures I might be able to incorporate into future presentations. I'm not sure it's the best use of the SlideShow tools but pretty cool just the same. Sandbox page

Thing 11 - Flickr

Flickr has so many possibilities and tools to explore it's hard to know where to begin. The time estimates however for each section are way off for someone with a tendency toward ADD. I would start off on a small task with an estimate of 15 minutes and an hour and a half later would find myself wondering what it was I was supposed to be looking for. So back to the 23 things to re-read the task description.

My search topic in Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License was "books". Just wanted to see what fascinating images of books might be available. I explored several hundred of the 66,186 possibilities and downloaded several images that I'll save for future presentations and projects. Way cool!

Attached photo is Power of Books (3) by MicMacPics1