Final podcast on series on Read Write Web Class. Busy Monday. In Class and Prep Session for It’s Elementary Webcast. Oh Well another twitter missed opportunity. Great Networking Session. I also reflect on integrating technology in Room 36.
Listen at Coordinator’s Office #10.mp3
I am not referring to teacher class I am completing this week. I am referring to building and maintaining a Read Write Web Classroom. These last few weeks have given me a good overview of the different tools available to my classroom. There continue to be challenges to integrating technology in classrooms in lausd. Professional development is the first step in producing lasting change. My teacher blog continues to be a place to reflect on my teaching profession. Regular postings here help me find my own path in teaching. Keeping and maintaining a student blog allow me to showcase the learning that is going on in my classroom. It is like a virtual bulletin board. I will also use my classroom blog to coach my students in learning literacies that will allow them to participate in a flat world.
Decided to a Special Edition for a busy Monday! I had inservice on mindmapping and was part of two online meetings. I also want to share my thoughts on the development of Webcast on the edtechtalk channel. Visit and leave us your feedback at webcast planning wiki
Check out Coordinator’s Office #9.mp3
I like to think that any new learning needs to be experienced at the personal level. Podcasting has two facets; listening and producing. I like to learn by audio. I can sit and listen to radio programs and enjoy the show. In podcasts I have found a few great podcasts. I am a big fan of the Speed of Creativity. Wesley Fryer usually podcasts the different conferences that he attends. I enjoy listening to the different keynote speakers. It’s like being at a conference, but I can attend anytime, anywhere I can take my mp3 player. I now participate in live webcasts. I started in the edtechtalk programs. In the last few weeks (after WIAOC2007) I have joined other online conferences like FOE2007 (Future of Education 2007). All of these synchronous (live) presentations are recorded to be listened to asynchronous (later). As a teacher I have played around with podcasting. I produced several podcasts to reflect on what I am learning as a teacher. I podcasted last year on NCLB (No Child Left Behind) visit to our school. This year I podcasted my student’s participation at Infotech 2007 (District Technology Conference). We created a digital story as an entry in the elementary competition. Now I have posted weekly reflections on the Read Write Web Class I am taking now. In regards to video I posted in the class discussion forum;
Vodcasts or video podcast are the 21st century version of the TV and VCR player. Schools and districts invested fortunes buying videos for all subject areas from Science to Art. In the last couple of years the internet has seen an explosion of personal video streaming. Anyone can post video to sites like google video and youtube. As the medium matures we are now seeing content for teachers to use appear on these and similar sites. This morning was our bi-monthly visit to the computer lab. I searched for videos on our current language arts theme: money. I found several cool videos as teachertube. I choose to post video titled; The Money Poem by Shel Silverstein. I had students view video and respond to teacher prompt. My next step would be to have to students respond to each other. Check out post at http://room36.wordpress.com/2007/06/05/money-money-money
There are different kinds of blogs. I started with a personal reflection blog. It was more like a journal. Afterwards I started a Professional Blog. In this blog I’ve kept my learnings in the Web 2.0 world. When I was out of the classroom my posts were on administrative part of education. I posted a series of blogs about NCLB and a review held at my school. I came back into the classroom in the fall 2006. My focus this year has been on creating a classroom blog. I’ve been active the last few months at room36. I have also found a few classroom blogs since then. Ms. Mercer’s Class and Mrs. West Classroom
I keep up with them in my bloglines account. You can also set up a search feed inside of bloglines that will search for you. I’ll update at the end of the week with new links.
This week I read two articles for my Read-Write-Web class. Blogs: Webs of Connected Learning by Miguel Guhlin from Around the Corner Blog and Successful and Safe Educational Blogging by Wesley Fryer from Moving at the Speed of Creativity.
I started my first blog in the summer of 2004 and have been hooked since then. I have used my blog as place to reflect on the different things going on in my career. The idea of creating a PLN or Personal Learning Network really resonates with me. At first it didn’t bother me that I wasn’t getting any readers on my blog. I was writing for myself. Nowadays this has changed for me. I actively read other blogs and comment on what I find interesting. I then link back to my blog. There is an intersection between reading and producing content. RSS facilitates the development of my Personal Learning Network. I have used bloglines as my RSS agragator and it works great; check out my blogroll Just recently there was a discussion around social learning communities like classroom 2.0 I read several posts and commented. I then wrote my own reflection on my blog. I also enjoy listening to educational podcasts. I have created a few podcast myself. I use them just like a blog but in audio format. In the last year or so I have participated in live webcasts. These synchronous conversations involve the use of a chat room, Skype, and desktop sharing all at the same time. I have also joined twitter. I keep up with my edtech friends. Conversation develop around our day to day activities. It is easier than creating a block post and you are sure your friends are reading. You can even update with text messages from your cell phone. The BIG idea for me is for information to be transparent.
This year I started my blog classroom. I decided to go with wordpress.com I have posted most of the content. I use it post learning topics, student work, and podcasts. The students respond to teacher prompts. At this point I haven’t thought about allowing for individual student blogs. In promoting blogs at a wider scale, either for student blogs or teacher and classroom blogs in one school. I would recommend hosting the blogs on your local server. Both wordpress and edublogs support installing multiple user accounts on local servers. You create a walled garden where exploration and expression can take place without having to worry about “outsiders” coming in. The only drawback to this is that you won’t be able to connect with other educators outside your immediate circle. I recently connected with two classroom blogs in my district, Brooklyn Avenue and Teacher in the inner city. Even outside my district I connected with a third grade blog in Tampa Florida and a Fifth grade blog in Sacramento California.
Welcome to the Coordinator’s Office Podcast. Show notes;
Busy Weekend, Mothers Day. Marathon Session at edtechtalk. Reflections on readings from week one. Following Discussion board and collaboration between participants. How to Skype session on May 17.
The web as platform AKA Web-based applications is a staple of Web 2.0 It is hard keeping up with all the changes. Even though we must find a way to experience these tools as a teacher in our professional practice before we are able to take them to the classroom. I try to stay current by reading edtech blogs inside of my aggregator bloglines. I also try to listen to podcasts that showcase edtech in k12. Moving at the speedofcreativity is one of the best. More recently I have been participating in Webcasts like edtech weekly. These are interactive podcasts. There is audio streaming, usually involving VOIP like a Skype conference. At the same time there is a chat room going on, known as the back channel. The conversations going on here offer just as much as the actual information presented or speakers. At the same time there is desktop sharing. I seen the use of programs like yugma. For me lately I have been involved in the use of twitter. You are sharing what you are doing with your social network. Conversations develop in a more dynamic fashion compared to your traditional Blog. In creating content I think that wikis are my next step. I am looking at developing resources for the different curricular areas for my grade level. In using these technologies with students, the classroom blog is my comfort zone. My students are starting to contribute to our blog. I am facilitating the content like pictures, audio, and video. So what are the implications for the classroom. The operating system doesn’t matter. The web has leveling effect. It is no longer a Windows or Mac world. Students are creating content. The teacher and textbook are no longer the only channels for knowledge. Learning is now extended outside of the classroom walls. By the same token we must try to find ways to keep our students safe out in the World Wide Web. It is a delicate balance that we as 21st Century Teachers are beginning to navigate.
This is an interesting article by the edtech Guru/Superstar Will Richardson. The article; Tech Tools for Learning, is a quick overview of Web 2.0 tools. I want to focus my reflection on how I currently use these tools or how I envision using them in the classroom. Weblogs; I have two Blogs that I bubble sharepost to. I have a classroom blog. This blog is centered around the learning that is going on in my classroom. I post information on current units of study. I have recently experimented with having students respond to prompts. I am also posting student work with bubble share. You are now reading my professional reflection Blog. RSS; I have used for myself. I use bloglines. I think the way I would use it in the classroom would be for exploring new themes and content. I can subscribe to what we are learning and use that content with the students or have the students respond to this new information on the classroom blog. Podcasts; I have experimented with podcasts this year for my classroom. We posted personal stories as a podcast. We also posted our thoughts after finishing our Storytelling unit. I posted a sound seeing tour of our fieldtrip to the California Science Center. We even created a Vodcast. Here we created a quicktime movie. “A Story About Storytelling“. We were a finalist at Infotech 2007. Webcams; last weekend I bought a webcam for my laptop. In the classroom I hope to use Skype to collaborate with other classrooms. Streaming Video; I think video plays a great part with this generation of students. I don’t have a projector for my classroom but I am able to check one out when I need one. This year I used a projector and found great video to Celebrate Cesar Chavez day. I also took a virtual tour of the California Science Center the day before our fieldtrip. There are also services like United Streaming that organizes the curricular material for classroom use.
I started new class today. I got on the wrong bus and arrived 30 minutes late:( I really think this is going to be a great experience. There are many teachers with varying backgrounds taking this class. I got my first introduction to Blackboard CMS. I thought it was easy to navigate. Today was our orientation, it was a F2F meeting. Except for our final meeting the rest of the class will be online. We are exploring different themes in the next six weeks. Our first theme; What is in the Read/Write Web? We are reading two articles; the first is by Wesley Fryer from http://www.speedofcreativity.org and Will Richardson from http://weblogg-ed.com We all posted an introduction on a discussion board. It gave me a good picture of everyone taking the class. There are over 20 educators taking the class. I enjoyed reading the introductions and replying to many of the participants. I am really looking forward in playing an active role in the class. I really want to learn more about online collaboration between teachers. I want to learn more about the use of wikis in bringing in content to an elementary classroom.
