We are going to focus on RSS and blogs today. I heard about a list of 10 Best Practices when using wikis in education. I’ll touch on them tonight. I need to remember to keep bringing things back to how to use these tools with students.
We are going to talk about RSS, Blogs and revisit wiki’s a bit.
Add comment Posted in Uncategorized February 8, 2009
We had 6 people at class! I like having a small group, but I want to include as many teachers as possible. Sara told me that she was able to promote the class at the MS staff meeting. I’m not sure if anything will come of it, but it is nice to know it came up.
Ellen gave me a suggestion to write the class agenda on the board. That will be good to keep us on track. I want to leave time for questions and playing, but I also want to make sure we move at a good pace and learn new things. I’ll try setting an agenda at class 3.
Add comment Posted in Uncategorized February 8, 2009
I hope I’m ready for class. I’ve been so busy since our last meeting. I bet we will all have this in common. I invited everyone to our class wiki. A few were able to register. We will go over this today.
What I plan to accomplish (agenda):
watch Wiki’s in Plain English
Make sure everyone has joined our wiki
Look at people’s customized myYahoo or iGoogle pages
Look at groups both on Yahoo and on Google – talk about what is a group, why join, different settings, info you can tell about a group after looking at descriptions and activity
Homework: add to the wiki (suggestions: what you have learned in the KWL chart, describe your experience in looking at groups, any thing you want to share with the group) and maybe find a group to join.
Add comment Posted in Uncategorized February 1, 2009
Ryan, Sara, Ellen, and Doug were able to make it. At first I was feeling bummed that we had such a small group, but having an intimate setting made it more personal. I glad Sara left feeling so happy!
I added a KWL chart to the class wiki, TTT Learning 2.0, where we brainstormed things that people wanted to cover in the class. I’m glad the topic of internet safety came up during the discussion. I was not really thinking about it as one of our topics, but it is really important. I feel somewhat confident in protecting myself from disreputable things that come my way, but I need to take more time thinking about how to educate teachers and kids.
We watched a “What is web 2.0?” video on YouTube. I had a hard time finding a good video that was not too techie or too much blah blah. I hope it was helpful. I love starting with some visuals, either video or photos. There is lots of good stuff for most of the topics of this class. I love the “In Plain English” videos.
I think we will revisit managing your browser to make your life easier. I was happy to learn about how Doug manages his browser. It is really personal thing, what works best for you. I’m not sure my way is the best. My hope is to empower people to seek out the modifying tools that can help customize their viewing and content.
Finally, we played around with iGoogle and My Yahoo. Actually, I think everyone is doing iGoogle. This makes giving directions and sharing in the group easier. I rarely ever use a My Yahoo or iGoogle page. I think I need to add it to my tabs so I get reminded to check. I’m already sucked into many things as it is.
Hemant met with me today to catch up on our class. I’m glad he made the effort. We looked at customizing his MyYahoo page and adding tabs to his start page. I also invited everyone to the wiki today -a little slow on that one. Hemant had already signed up when he came to see me. For some reason he did not have write privlages (I’m guessing no one have write privlages). I think I fixed it, but I’ll have to get Ryan to test it for me.
When everyone left the class week Doug told them to bring a friend next time. I even stopped Maria-Elias in the hall to invite her to next week’s class. We will see if more people come next week. Many people said things like, “Oh, I should take your class.” “It sounds good, I don’t have time.” It is a personal goal to make PD more convienent and easily available. Still thinking about the best way…
Add comment Posted in Uncategorized Tagged: overview, professional development, reflections, ttt January 28, 2009
Our first class is starting this afternoon. I’m happy we ended up with such a diverse group. Two classroom teachers, two counselors and our business manager. Having people with different professional backgrounds will make our group discussion especially rich.
What I plan to accomplish (agenda):
watch Web 2.0 by Jeff Utecht
Talk about the agenda of our class, what are the needs and expectations?
Get organized:
Invite class members and take notes on the class wiki http://learning20.wetpaint.com/
Homework: Play with your page
Add comment Posted in Uncategorized Tagged: customize browser, learning 2.0 class, set up personal page January 24, 2009
I want to teach a class about 2.0. Teacher 2.0, student 2.0, school 2.0 and web 2.0 I say web 2.0 last because these are merely the tools that can help make it happen. You, the teacher are the key to making happen.
One of the main premises of 2.0 is there is no one person who knows all. Everyone is a teacher, everyone is a learner. This is not a new idea. In my grad program in 1998, professors loved to talk about “the guide on the side” over the “sage on the stage”. In my experience as a technology support teacher I have heard teacher’s weariness over another education trend. I’m sure if I asked, you could list something you know is trendy and might be out of fashion in a few years. And if you have been teaching a while you could probably name some trends that went out and are now back in, with a new name and a few new “methods”. Maybe some professor somewhere or an education guru has newly popularized an old idea.
Commonly, if you are not in with the latest thing then you are an “out dated teacher” “old school”. In my experience this is mostly BS. There are fantastic teachers who just don’t think about all the ways technology could be a part of their teaching. In my years as a technology teacher, it has been my role to support teachers in many things they maybe have not wanted to do. They would have happily handed the “technology teaching” over to me and not thought about it again. Not because they were lazy or looking for another planning period. That is just the way it is. Anyway, I digress.
Back to 2.0. Although, it may be hard to believe. It is only partially a trend. Yes, some things might already be old. Yes, somethings might be shown to be just be flashy and without worth. I’m sure we have all been there. However, the big ideas are here to stay and will only intensify and evolve over time.
I feel remiss in not having this conversation with the many teachers that I’m supposed to be supporting. It is my job to make sure you know the intimate details of this 2.0 practice. Like I stated earlier, one of the main tenets of this movement is, the teacher is a learner with the students. This idea is especially true in this class. Together we will discover, try and discuss the possibilities and implications of the 2.0 movement.
It is my hope that your teaching will be impacted. It is my hope that this will spark a conversation that never ends. It is my hope that we can make a teaching environment that prepairs students for the future they will have to navigate as a learner and leader.
Join/follow/subscribe:
group, blog, social bookmarks, reader, wiki, podcast
tagging, virtual worlds, web quests, flikckr, youtube
Add comment Posted in Uncategorized Tagged: 2.0, class brainstorm, join/follow/subscribe December 12, 2008
I was recently asked to write down my vision for the technology program at The American International School of Muscat
Here is what I came up with:
Create an environment with as little barriers to use as possible. Therefore creating a classroom environment where appropriate technology integration can happen seamlessly. This includes using SMART boards, for teacher instruction and student activity, documents cameras to share books, student work and anything that requires a closer look, mp3 recorders and players to listen to and produce recordings of spoken word and music, easily assessable networked computers available at all times of the day. There is other equipment that can be added to this list and it will always change over time.
Software and subscription resources…. (where to start?) There are important tools to facilitate learning, creating, communication and assessment. Software is also a category that will change over time.
However, a list of equipment and software is not the whole story. The conversation about the way technology changes instruction needs to happen, often. Teachers need time to look at new tools, time to play and create themselves. All teachers, including art, world language and music, need to look at existing curriculum to see where some things can be added, enhanced, reworked or thrown out. I hate to just call it training, because it is much more than that. It is deciding what kind of learners we want TAISM students to be, what kind of experiences students need to become those kinds of learners.
Basically, when I read and listen about the future needs of education, to be an “educated|” person, students need the skills to teach themselves what they need and want to know at that moment. This means they need to be fantastic readers and creative, thoughtful writers. They need to know how to find answers, reach out to experts and become an easily accessible expert themselves. This is called creating their own “Personal Learning Network” (Something teachers as well as student need. Something the life long learners of the world need). They need to know how to work with the person sitting next to them in a face to face environment as well as over networks in a chat, video, virtual, synchronous and asynchronous interactions.
So, the future of elementary technology education at TAISM…???? Create experiences where teachers and students feel successful. Give time for teachers and students to experiment and learn by doing. Honor failure as much as success as long as reflection is part of the journey Ask teachers to share what they are doing with technology at a staff meeting, a blog, voicethread or podcast. Classroom teachers sharing with other classroom teachers is a very effective way to encourage use, create confidence and give vision for the types of things are possible. Have conversations that result in action plans. Agree to at least try something new thing once per year/trimester/month/week/day –what works best for you? Have a strong leader who gives the time, encouragement and involvement to make it happen.
This is just a part of the conversation.
Add comment Posted in Uncategorized Tagged: learning, plan, reduce barriers to use, teaching, technology education, vision December 6, 2008
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