Week 7

If you type in the word Web 2.0 tools into any search engine, you will be amazed at how many you come across. Trust me, choosing just one is a lot harder than you would imagine since there are so many to choose from. I am not currently teaching a class at the time, but I have been observing with a Science teacher at the local high school. This school is a rural school so resources are very limited at best with little technology usage unless it is by the teacher herself. The library is antiquated and ill furnished. There are looking to build another school soon, but of course that comes down to levies and if they pass around here. She uses PowerPoint to present her lectures, videos from reliable resources to engage her students, and the computers in the library if students need help with a report or research. Other than the items mentioned the usage of Web 2.0 tools is very limited at best. Between the information gained from this course and observation from the high school, I chose Educational Wikis.  

Wikis for me are a new thing to use. I was taught in college to not trust anything from Wikipedia and we were even warned if we used any of the information for our research we would automatically fail the paper and the class. At first I was skeptical to even look at them since I had been trained to stay away, but to my surprise I found them incredibly beneficial for my future students. When it comes to standards, I want to use the standards from Washington State and the NETs for teachers. NETS for Teachers are the standards for evaluating the skills and knowledge educators need to teach, work, and learn in an every changing digital age. As teachers, we need to be able to keep up with these through regular training and staying up on the times. Facilitating and inspiring student learning and creativity, design and develop digital age learning experiences and assessments, model digital age work and learning, promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility, and engage in professional growth and leadership are all very important standards that today’s students need to meet to be successful in school and for life after school.

I want to develop a wiki where students can go for further learning. Here they can post to class discussions, find a calendar of assignments and due dates, as well as collaborate with other students from my other classes for research and projects. When I was researching Wikis I found a teachers site where he actually post questions for parents to ask their children at dinner and students the next day after an open discussion in class over the questions. You can even use this to involve the parents as well. This is an environment where students and parents can be involved in the class more with open communication. Parents can look at what the students are learning. I wish I could show this to students for the course of the year, but I just did a run through with the local students that I observe and they liked the idea! They thought it would be a great way to keep up with assignments and be able to post questions.  

I plan on teaching high school biology which can be challenging to present to students. This biggest challenge will be the ability to keep them motivated. I also plan on teaching at a rural school, where the budget may be very small for hands on classroom resources. Any time you implement technology into the classroom, you run into challenges from operation error to mechanical issues that nobody can control as well as monetary issues. I plan on using my knowledge I have gained from this university as well as the advice from veteran teachers to be able to overcome these challenges and be able to have a successful classroom. Working through my degree is a work in progress.

We finished up this week with our last technology explorations, Delicious.com, HistoryPin, Diigo, two math calculators, Math Wiki, and PicLit.

Resources

From that I could see, Delicious.com seems to be a more controlled version of Facebook. Here you can post/save your likes and interests from the web such as pictures, videos, blogs, or music. Here you can network with others who share the same interest you have as well.

I have to admit I have an addiction to Pinterest. I have been able to find good recipes for my family, DIY projects for my house, and cute crafts that are inexpensive. HistoryPin is along this line. Here you can pin pieces of history so people can see it, add to it, learn from it, and become worldlier. It is a way for people from all over the world with different cultures and backgrounds to help people see things from the past and build upon our knowledge of history. This is a great resource for schools and universities! This was created by a non-profit and based in London. According to the website, “It is currently made up of photographic images, videos, audio clips and descriptive and narrative text”. There are currently working to upload diaries, letters, and records at a later time. If you have ever used this Pinterest, then this will  be easy for you to use. Like many sites, this has a mobile application you can use as well.

Diigo, which is an abbreviation for Digest of Internet Information, Groups, and Other Stuff, I find really useful since I spend quite a bit of time researching a host of different things and sometimes I forget to bookmark a  page and then I can’t remember where I found an article that I really liked. I know we have all done this at least once. With the use of their downloaded browser, instead of just bookmarking the page, you can highlight portions of webpages, attach sticky notes, and when you return back to the webpage, their items you highlighted will still be there. Then you can take what you find and highlighted and share with other people. Diigo is a social information network, beneficial in the fact of collecting, organizing, and discovering information.

The other two resources are talking calculators. One of them is from PBSkids and the other is a softpedia talking calculator that can be downloaded directly from the website. The PBS is for the smaller children and adds numbers up to a trillion. The Softpedia calculator is another talking calculator that can be used in different languages, takes care of basic math functions, and the ability to save the work you do.

In the Classroom

I am not currently a teacher, but these could be useful in the classroom. You could use Delicious.com as a get to know me about your students project, where they can post classroom friendly interests they have.  You could also use this as a place to students to network with others in response to research or a project. 

HistoryPin would be a very beneficial site for the students. Here students can search and upload their family history as well as research for photos or videos they can use for their projects making sure they properly site the information. This would be a fun site to just sit and browse through for rare photos and videos.

Diigo would be another beneficial resource for students. This would be a great resource to research for group projects as well as extended learning with independent projects or supplement their textbook with information with all this information available to be shared with others on the website.

The talking calculators would be useful for students who have visual impairments. With the talking calculator, they can hear when numbers and operations are conducted. This would also be good for really any grade to use in the classroom.

Recommendations

I don’t think I would recommend Delicious.com to educators since it is not moderated for content. I am not sure this site wouldn’t be blocked by the school. It is free to use and if you have ever used Facebook, you will be just fine.

HistoryPin I would recommend for educators, it is easy to use, free, and if you have ever used Pinterest, you will have no problem playing with this. 

Diigo I would recommend for educators. It can be free for educators unless you need more stuff then it can cost money. The plan offers unlimited number of bookmarks and highlights, with free mobile or IPad application, limited ads and a teacher console. The only upgrade plan is $40 a year and completed unlimited add ons for everything. If you know how to highlight using PDF files and post information, then this should be a piece of cake.

Both calculators are free with the softpedia one able to be downloaded to your computer. There are very easy to use.

Resources

Now this is new and innovative to me! This Math Wiki provides information to use writing in mathematics. Math is definitely one of my weaker subjects. I struggled through grade school and through college trying to understand simple concepts with no such luck. This site is helping teachers integrate writing into mathematics to help with literacy skills. It emphasizes the five types of writing that should be included, three ways of how teachers can assess how the students are doing, implementing with use of framework, and how to devise new plans for future classrooms.

PicLit is another fun resource site. It is a creative writing site where you match images with selected words in order to inspire and motivate. You just drag and drop words to create an interesting image that tells a story or you can even freestyle. Then you can take your images and save, share them, or email them to whoever you want.

In the Classroom

I am not currently a teacher, but this could be useful in the classroom. Any time a student can incorporate fun writing into a math class, everybody wins. This could be used in everyday class. Students could construct a poem to remember how to use geometry or give a daily log of how mathematics plays a role in their daily life, such as buying a sandwich at Dairy Queen or buying Groceries at Safeway. 

The PicLit would be a fun project to use to get to know your students. They could construct images of their interests and use as an introduction to get to know your students. This would also be fun to use in a creative writing class, I am not completely sure of how it could be used since it has been over a decade since I took such a class, but it would interesting.

Recommendations

I highly recommend this Math Wiki for educators, it’s free and very easy to use. It helps introduce math teachers and even other content teachers to incorporate fun writing activities in daily lessons.

PicLit would be fun to use in the classroom. It is free and pretty easy to use. Drag and drop or enter words to make an image.