Key Elements of the ‘Modern Learner’

Key Elements of the ‘Modern Learner’

An Explanation & Reflection

Throughout this course my beliefs and views of technology in the classroom have been challenged, changed, and revitalized.  I have been one in the past to try and use technology, to moderate success, but only to be stuck with old, dated, and slow equipment that runs on a dinosaur of a network.  I have been reminded by my research of how useful new technology, presentation tools, and social networking/learning can be.

An explanation

Rather than I describing the key elements of ‘21^st century learning’ I attempted to show what my central view and supporting components consist of.  I created my own personal blog/website/e-portfolio.  My multi-faceted advertising/promotional tool goes with my view of learning and education at the high school level.  I am responsible for preparing students for either higher education or the workforce.  With this in mind, students need to be educated in the uses of technology, there are very few careers that no longer rely on at least basic technology and there are even fewer employers that would not be impressed with a well-educated and technological savvy employee.  Many applications that a student will place in the future will be, if they are being actually considered for the application (job, tenancy etc.), will be followed by some basic research on who they are.  This search highlights the importance of a positive ‘digital footprint’ and an e=portfolio which displays the student in a positive light and highlights there skills, abilities, and accomplishments in the past.  My vision for the modern learner hinges on the element of e-portfolios and technological footprint/advertising.

My E-Portfolio

E-Portfolios

I have come to a realization that the e-portfolio could end up being the greatest tool that a high school student leaves the institution with.  I am in the last days of my twenties and am just now putting together an e-portfolio.  I am creating mine in preparation for international teaching applications and attempting to increase the exposure of my experience, training, and essentially hard work over the past 10 years.  For students, this could be a great tool for an application for any job or university, or even further down the line when they are applying for graduate programs or career positions.  Lorenzo and Ittelson define an e-portfolio as a “digitized collection of artifacts including demonstrations, resources, and accomplishments that represent an individual, group, or institution.”  With the technology available today students are able to showcase their work in such a diverse nature and are able to share their learning with an online community.  The demonstration aspect of an e-portfolio is of great importance because the student can demonstrate their learning, abilities, and knowledge in a diverse and personalized way that suits who they are and what they would like to be displayed.

Within the e-portfolio all of key elements of modern learning can be incorporated and displayed for a greater audience.

Discovery

Discovery is the result of exploration and inquiry.  The AASL states that an essential skill for students is to follow “an inquiry-based process in seeking knowledge in curricular subjects, and make the real-world connection for using this process in own life.”  By allowing students the freedom express and demonstrate their learning in different ways using technology, students will make news discoveries as the result of inquiry based learning.  They will then be able to display their learning on an e-portfolio, resulting in more real-world connections.  Writing a research paper most likely isn’t going to be used again after it is submitted, but a Prezi presentation or blog can be inclusive of an e-portfolio and used to showcase a learners capabilities.  This course has allowed me to see the value in having a topic to research with an opportunity to express my learning in a personally effective and meaningful manor.  During my research I was able to find useful sites/information through my inquiry.  Reading the Richardson text prior to my research always provided starting points and then led to new and valuable discoveries, that I have since shared with my students, their parents, teachers/administration at my school, and (which I have enjoyed the most) our teacher-librarian.

Students rarely have the opportunity to explore and seek information on their own terms, and this is an aspect of learning that is passed over far too easily.  As AASL stated, a key element of current and future education is the monitoring of their “own information-seeking processes for effectiveness and progress, and adapt as necessary”.  The use of an e-portfolio in combination with this allows the students to promote what they have learned in an almost limitless ways using web based tools.  I have been able to share findings and information with colleagues on my blog, which I will add to the professional development tab of my e-portfolio.  Students similarly, would be able to share findings with friends, other students, or even act as mentors or sources for younger students and aid them with their research.

Access

For e-portfolios to be effective and avoid becoming a burden for students, access to computers and a reliable network is paramount.  My school lacks computers and what we do have is quite dated.  For us to successful incorporate technology and benefit from such use, we need increased and improved access to technology.  This includes more consistent access, by way of both more reliable computers and networks.  With the e-portfolio being such a great tool, and one that I will now design some of my courses around, teachers and students alike need to be confident that access won’t be an issue or hindrance.  I have also been very pleased with students accessing their work/assignments from home.  Since I have incorporated blogs into the curriculum, I have found that students take more initiative in making sure they have their blogs up to date and current.  When students miss a class, it can often be like pulling teeth to get them to print the information from the course website or take the information from the missing work binder in the class, but when a students misses a blog day they just simply login at home and they finish right away (some even have downloaded the WordPress app and have the entry done 10 minutes into lunch).

 

Self-assessment & reflection

With the use of an e-portfolio and the incorporation of other presentation alternatives (blogs etc.), which are all incredibly easy to include and connect within an e-portfolio, students will develop new methods and skills related to self-assessment.  Since others, and not just their teacher, will view the information that they post, the students will put more time and effort into what they produce.  If a student provides their website/blog address on applications (which I now will include/link to on my international application), cards, or in any professional setting, they will need to ensure that what they have online is a positive reflection of who they are.  As a result, students will need to reflect and assess what they have produced and be more cognizant of what they are producing.  This self-assessment will happen on a smaller scale each time they post or add to their e-portfolio because of the possibility of anybody becoming an audience.  I have found that the students are much more thorough during blog creation than they are during traditional classroom work.  Students are also able to go back and edit posts, entries or pages made on their e-portfolio, which is a huge asset for publication purposes and another example of students assessing and re-assessing their own work.

Reflection is so vital in the process of learning, and is one of the best tools/ideas I am taking away from this course.  My students reflect on what they have made in class and how successful they were during their creation.  In a sense, the whole blog process in this course has been a reflection of what I have learned during each week and even now I go back and read my own reflections as a reminder of what tools to use and which ones to avoid (we have covered so much I need a reminder already!).

Peer connections ­

Today people need to be connected.  This comes in so many diverse ways now, Twitter, Facebook, Linked In just to name a few.  Students need to learn these skills in school to prepare themselves for life outside of high school.  Via online learning tools and e-portfolios, students are able to comment on each others postings, look back and reflect on their own work, connect with others, converse with people around the globe, and create meaningful and educational conversations (comment trails).  The AASL highlights that students need to “use interaction with and feedback from teachers and peers to guide own inquiry process.”  Through this interaction learning will occur.  A simple comment or question from a teacher, friend, or online reader can have a great impact on students thought process and possibly make them look at some of their work from a different light (the old ‘aha moment’).  A conversation can also begin where all involved come out with a better understanding or new view point.

Students who are able to use online resources that allow for learning and connections to be made will come out of a course more educated and prepared.  By utilizing sites/sources that allow for collaboration, students can be part of the ‘whole learning’ process.  Wikis are a great example of this, but when online research is being completed and posted in any form, learning will follow as a result.  I was totally surprised when I linked a website that I made last year to my ‘in progress’ e-portfolio.  This website, which I completely forgot about, has been getting hits every day.  For the first time in a year I checked the site and the hit counter and I had 21 unique visitors just the day before.  It is quite amazing that something I created, which had slipped out of my mind completely, is still be utilized by dozens of people a day for educational purposes.  I now wish I had a comment board or any form of communication for those using the site to ask me questions or provide suggestions.  In the classroom, by being able to post and comment on each others work, students are able to provide constructive criticism for their peers as well as tips and ideas prior to that students’ next blog post or addition to their e-portfolio.

Variety & Presentation

For a student to fulfill their learning potential they need to be permitted the opportunity to produce and create work and prove their learning in a way that works best for them.  I have heard countless times about different styles of learning, but with the e-portfolio, or online tools in general, students are able to create and present information in many different forms that fit their learning style and technological abilities. By giving students the opportunity to personalize their work, they in turn will make the work more meaningful to themselves.

A ‘blank canvas’ may be overwhelming for some students, so ideas or a list of options is very helpful.  Options also provide the chance for variety, as some students learn how to use one tool and become comfortable using that tool and then, in turn, will want to submit all of their work or research using the same tool.  This is positive in  that they may become an expert, but by using a variety of online tools and presentation options, students would be able to have a more well rounded and diverse e-portfolio.

 

Educated Research & Online Publication

With all this comes a students need to be taught how to search, be resourceful with their time, and keep on track and on topic.  The librarian is someone who needs to be utilized to teach digital citizenship and tips and tricks to help avoid becoming encased in the web of time wasting that can become the Internet. Equipped with the proper strategies and tools, students can be more productive with their time and more efficient with their research.  Once students are given the tools to research effectively online their quality of work will increase and be more beneficial to an e-portfolio.  The teacher also needs to be able to assist, in some capacity, with the tools that they are introducing and asking the students to use.  Leaning about screencast in this course has had a huge impact on my ability to help the students, as they can access and use the screen-casts as they need.  I no longer need to go around individually and help those who didn’t pay attention during my demonstration as they all have access to the screen-casts that I have made.

The amount of information that students are posting online is alarming.  There is a necessity for students to know about the repercussions of their unfiltered posting.  I have learned a great deal about a digital footprint and students need to be made aware of of their personal footprints.  E-portfolios can be a way for a student to see the importance of having a positive footprint and begin to have them make changes about posting any and all pictures online.  I have always been one to limit what is out there, but I too posted a lot more when I was younger and in University.  This course re-affirmed my hesitation to post certain material online, but has made me aware of the need to have an effective digital footprint to showcase my abilities, which resulted in my work towards a completed e-portfolio.

Professional learning and sharing

By sharing/posting key tasks online and being able to showcase work that the students have completed, students are not only sharing their learning with the online world, but they are also sharing with other teachers (my colleagues).  This provides such a great opportunity for not only their learning, but for teachers learning as well.  I have gained so much from this course by seeing what other teachers are doing (Kristina Dimini’s e-portfolio and Westwood’s efolio page just to name a couple).  These have not only been educational but also inspirational.

If teachers are able to share something they found and are connected (via blog, Twitter, etc.), other teachers are able to get more creative with their lessons and learn as well.  The best way for us to move forward as a profession is through the sharing of knowledge and connections.  With my e-portfolio I will be setting up a blog (or continuing my current one) with which my colleagues can read/follow and hopefully they will comment and provide new tools and information as well, a connected blogging community would be ideal.  I also thought that the online book club was a great idea, and something that I am striving to organize once my courses are over this summer.  These are all goals and ambitions I have as a result of my learning in this course, and will add some depth and read/write aspects to my e-portfolio.

Process

After all of the exploration we did I wanted to come away with an idea that would change how I offered some of my courses.  I also wanted to create something for this final assignment that is beneficial and re-usable for me.  The e-portfolio serves both of these purposes.  The students in my courses may not generally make an e-portfolio in all of my classes, but they will be using great web tools (Twitter, podcasts, wikis, Prezi etc) we have seen over the semester, which they then can later link or add to an e-portfolio.  The e-portfolio in this way is most effective, as it is a centralized hub of all the work a student completes.  Rather than having to go to multiple websites to showcase a student’s work and personal accomplishments over the course of a semester, year, or duration of high school, students can simply share their e-portfolio site.  Some of the classes which I will use a full e-portfolio include Planning, Foods, and Tourism.

Setting up a WordPress blog for my e-portfolio took a lot of work, as once I began adding pages and text to the page it wasn’t as intuitive as the simple type and post method I had been using throughout the semester.  Once I finish my courses this summer I am going to have a good look at whether WordPress is the best option for me or if Weebly might better fit my needs.

Each tab and page on my e-portfolio has been either completed or filled in with some notes on what I would like to add in the future.  But that need for something tangible to come away with steered me away from creating a presentation summarizing all of this, as I felt my blog does this effectively already.

References

American Association of School Librarians. Standards for the 21^st Century Learner.  <www.ala.org>

Lorenzo, G & Ittelson, J. (2005).  An Overview of E-Portfolios.  Educase Learning Initiative. <net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eli3001.pdf>

Kist, W. (2010). The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Webtools for Classrooms.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Blogging about Blogs

“Blogging is to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud.” -

Andrew Sullivan

Blogging

Blogging has been part of my Foods curriculum for two years now.  As I have discussed many times, it is a great learning tool for my students and, for the most part, the students respond well to it.  The students benefit from the sharing of what they have done, and the instant response they receive.   This response can come in the form of a comment on their blog from their peers, myself, or once I even had a parent comment.  Blogging is a great way to connect students to the read/write world online and to have their thoughts be known and heard by an audience (unlike handing an assignment in for just me to read).  I find that the students are more conscious of what they write, because they know there may/will be a larger audience.

Here is the blog assignment (21 – Blog Assignment) that my students complete throughout the semester.

This assignment is very effective because, like Fernette and Brock Eides highlight in the Richardson text, blogging “promotes critical and analytical thinking.”  This works so well for me because I want the students to be critiquing what we eat in class, as they will try some food that they have and have not tried before.  A big goal of mine is to have the students leave this course as ‘critical eaters’, meaning that they will think twice before shoving any old food into their mouth, or maybe actually look into the nutritional content of a meal.  By having them regularly assess our meals I am trying to get them one step closer to questioning their food intake.  Fernette and Brock Eides also mentioned that blogging combines “the best of solitary reflection and social interaction” which I couldn’t agree with more.  Each entry is a personal reflection on what we have done, made, and accomplished in the course, but after they post, they begin to look at each others’ posts and make comments.

I would like to further my usage of blogs.  Currently I run a course website through Google Sites.  Using Google Calendar, I have a homework calendar for each class and I also have a Google Calendar that provides the topics for each lesson, so students who are away can see what we are working on and complete those items to stay up to date with the course.  While I was reading about blogs in Richardson’s book, I began to think that having my daily lessons typed on the blog and posted might be (1) more effective, (2) easier to read, (3) easier for me to post, and (4) more aesthetically appealing.  I could simply type out what we are doing, and even provide links to the handouts/recipes etc. on the ‘Course Materials’ page on my website.

Home page of my course website

Richardson also mentioned that new postings could be automatically communicated, which made me think that if I had the students ‘follow’ the homework blog (parents could as well) that they would get a reminder or an update, every time something new is posted.

I could see Richardson’s point when he was examining blogs a ‘filing cabinets’ and I love the idea of going paperless in the classroom.  But to have students submit all of their assignments in digital form just isn’t plausible at my school, as we have 3 computer labs and 1400 students, so computer time is a very restricted.  If my classroom had a mini computer lab (a couple do around the school) then it would become more likely, but this isn’t something I have access to at the moment.  I do have students complete their major assignments on the computers (including their blogs) and they do submit electronically, but I just don’t have the means to convert the whole course over.

The Daily Create

From reading parts of Dean Shareski’s blog I came across, and was really impressed by ‘The Daily Create’ and how creative some of the “assignments” are.  Since they are so open ended, I could just imagine the creativity that would result from using this in your classroom.  I thought immediately of my friend who is an art teacher, and how this could be a really interactive and thoughtful weekly activity (I thought Fridays could be Daily Create days).  In my opinion, students really excel when they are given an opportunity to show their creativeness.  Now all students won’t be as successful and might be overwhelmed by how open this is, but allowing students to work in partners easily alleviates this.  This reminds me a lot of when I have the ‘Iron Chef’ challenge in my Foods class.  The students are given that ‘blank canvas’, similar to the idea of  the Daily Create, and are set forth with no exact path.  Rather than having an assignment description like the Daily Create does I have the ‘Steel Bowl’ item which must be included in each groups meal.  There are also certain parameters, much like the Daily Create, check out my Iron Chef requirements (26 – Iron Chef).

Dean Shareski’s Blog provided me with lots of great ideas

The Daily Create would be great for my friend who is an art teacher

PechaFlickr

Again from Dean Shareski’s blog, I came across PechaFlikr and I like the creativity of this site, but I just worry too much about possible pictures that would show up.  It would be interesting to try this with a class and see if they can come up with how the pictures all connect (some seem to not fit the description at all).  However, when I completed a search and began having pictures pop onto my screen, I had some pictures that I would never display in front of a class.  Several times I had pictures of people partying in a bar when I searched baseball.  So as creative as it is, I will take a pass on PechaFlikr as a tool for the classroom.   If there was a way to filter the content, I could see using it for fun once or twice.

Kiva

As I kept digging though Dean Shareski’s blog I came across a story of an elementary teacher and her class that is working with Kiva.  I hadn’t heard of Kiva before, but was really motivated by the premise of how the site works.  I was really impressed by this elementary teacher who was teaching her students about Kiva, and how they wanted to loan some money to people around the globe.  The premises of Kiva is really interesting and a great way to teach the idea of being ‘global citizens.’  The idea is that the money loaned out  is eventually sent back once the loan is no longer needed (completed on a repayment schedule).  I was quite inspired and wanted to some how include this in my teachings.  In foods I teach the students about where our food comes from, why certain foods and less expensive than others, what is happening around the globe as far as food production is concerned, and even about different food cultures.  I think a great way to connect all this, would be to send a small loan to one of the countries that we research.  At the beginning of the semester I have students research and calculate how much one cooking lab costs.  They must breakdown cost per students, cost per kitchen (group of 4), and cost per class.  This gives them an idea of how much is spent on their foods class and makes them a little more conscious of being wasteful.  Once I heard about Kiva, I thought that I could approach each class and see if they would be willing to give up one of their labs from the semester to make a donation to a food related endeavor on Kiva (there are many farmers asking for donations on Kiva).  Not sure if my budget would be allowed to be allocated this way, but something to look into for next semester!

Kiva!

Side Note

After all of the reading and searching I have done while reading Richardson’s book, I have come to the conclusion that the E-Book would have been way more suitable to my needs.  Having to transfer the links from the book into my computer, often making typing mistakes, has been a minor nuisance throughout the course.

E-Portfolios and the like

I believe the E-portfolio is a great tool and resource for both teachers and students.  I can’t think of a better way to track the progress and development of a student.  I also believe that students can use E-portfolios for university applications, job applications, or in any situation where they need to promote themselves.  And there is no better way to make an E-portfolio than to use a blog.

Planning Class

Using an E-portfolio when I teach planning would be a huge asset for the students.  In the curriculum we create resumes, cover letters, and work on all sorts of different ways to promote yourself (i.e. way to dress, how to sit at in interview etc.).  The next time I teach the course I will have the students create E-portfolios where all of the information that they want out there about themselves will be in one location.  A blogging site (for example WordPress) would be a great place to create an E-portfolio.  Students would create different pages for resume, hobbies and interests, an about me page etc.  Kristina Dimini’s blog would be a great one to use a a model blog.  This would provide them with a very useful tool for any application situation and would also allow me to centralize a great deal of their work for the course, reduce the usage of paper, and be able to really see their improvement over the course of a semester.  I would be able to have a weekly write, where they need to respond to a question on a blog page (maybe how they would react to a certain situation in a workplace or at an interview), which they could then remove at the end of the course if they didn’t want potential employers to read.  In the end students would have the skills to be able to make their own blogs/webpages, which will be a great tool for the future workplace.

Foods Class

The blogging that we already do in class could be just one page on a WordPress account created by my students.  I could have them dedicate a page to pictures that they take during the different stages of food creation, their end products, their methods etc.  I could also move my recipe book assignment to digital and have the students create a different page for each section of their cookbook (e.i. appetizers, desserts etc.).  This way they could incorporate pictures for each recipe and not have to print off the 20+ pages that the assignment becomes at the end of the course.  There are so many options to expand the E-portfolio (cooking videos, links etc.) and something I will put into practice next semester, after I have a summer to digest and assess how I would like the E-portfolio to be put together.

Professional Development

The use of blogs at any given school or district has the possibility for immense learning opportunities.  At a school, it would take one staff member to create and show others how to create a blog.  Once the staff (those that are interested) know how to, they simply need to either create their own blog or follow the blog that has been created.  Entries could be made to a common blog that all of the other ‘followers’ could follow and then make comments on, add other ideas, or even post new or related ideas to their own blog (which all the other could follow) and a web of teachers could follow along.  I realize that this happens to a greater extent, but a learning community among colleagues at the same school would promote a learning atmosphere and possibly bring the staff closer together.  Entries could be as simple as a link to a resource that they found, and once again the possibilities are endless.

Also, a school blog that could either be independent of, replace, or attached to the current school website would be a great way to keep parents and students up to date on what is happening at the school.  Blogs, being so easy to update, could be kept up to date by leadership, office staff, admin, or a collective of people who have access to the blog (even all teachers if that would work).  This would be a great promotional tool for the school and doesn’t require a registration like Twitter would.

I also really liked Richardson’s idea about an online book club.  I find that our book club (when I have gone) has been poorly attended.  But if everybody had a means to converse at different times, without needing to all be in the same room, the popularity of the book club would grow rapidly.  I also feel like the pressure to get through a book, and having it feel like homework instead of reading for enjoyment, would be alleviated.

PE

I have long been considering a class where students create their own workout regimes (after I have taught them many different types of workouts, lots of exercises, safety etc.) and track their improvements and development.  A blog would be a great way for them to do this.  They would be able to post their workout schedule (Google Calendar), meal plans, descriptions of exercises, improvements they are seeing, a workout they created to fit around somebody else’s (parent, friend, co-worker etc.) schedule and then have them follow it.  With everything being  posted onto the one blog, on different pages, we would just need access to a computer once a week (maybe Friday’s) so they could post the upcoming weeks plans.

RSS

I only began using RSS when this course began.  I receive the feeds in my Google Reader when any of my classmates makes a blog post.  I have gotten use to Google Reader and once its time comes to an end I am not sure where I will turn from there.  I have organized my RSS feeds into different folders so my subscriptions remain nice and neat, I can’t operate without organization so that was a must.

My organized folders in the bottom left

I like how the reader organizes all of my subscriptions onto one page, but I am not a huge fan of RSS.  Personally, I like going to the individual pages.  To me the reader makes everything look the same, I find it boring and, for me, difficult to read since it is so mundane in appearance.  I prefer the different websites that have their own appearance and color scheme, which reminds me that I am on a new site.  I just find that I don’t get very excited about the headlines when they appear in my reader and that advertisements seem to take over the whole page.  I also found, and this could be just a fluke that I checked a split second earlier, that the reader needed a few extra minutes to get the articles from my favourite sites.  This obviously isn’t a big deal, but I was able to read an article by accessing the original page before it even showed up in my RSS feed.

Ads take over the appearance

I also thought that an RSS feed may make my marking easier and help me become aware of when students posted something new.  After trying this, I found that I had to check on my reader, to see if there was a new post.  This is the exact same setup when I follow each blog and read the students blogs in my WordPress reader.  Within WordPress I also am able to get instant emails when a post is made on any of my followed blogs.  So when students make posts on their own time or when they make a post to make up for a missed class, I get an email, which I instantly know about rather than having to check the reader which then takes me to WordPress anyways.  Is this a type of following considered RSS?

My WordPress reader

I also gave Google news a try, in search of some stories or genre for me to subscribe to and receive in my reader.  But I just found the format of Google News to be very overwhelming and didn’t like the idea of getting constant updates sent to my reader.  I am ridiculously picky about what gets sent to my email account.  I don’t like to have any unread messages as I detest the red circle on my iPhone reminding me that I have unread emails or missed calls/voice-mails.  So the constant list of unread material in my reader just doesn’t fit how I use the web or my personality.

Technorati

Finally, the Technorati page directed at teachers was one page that I did subscribe to, and I will see if it remains over the course of the next few weeks.  One article I did read was ‘Picking the Best Platform for your Classroom Blogs.’  A great read for anyone thinking about starting out blogging in his or her class and one that I will rad again prior to next semester.

Tecnhorati page for teachers that had some great reads!

Happy Blogging!

Tweets

Twitter

I find that Twitter is a great source for information, and is now a site I visit daily to get updates from around the world.  It is the place to be for breaking news, as so many major announcements or breaking news gets broken via Twitter now.  It is everyone’s chance to be heard and shared.  I really enjoy the quick and to the point tweets, but I myself have never tweeted.  Well once I re-tweeted, if that counts, a famous NFL player who I follow had a ‘Superball’ ticket (American Lottery)  and he tweeted that anybody who re-tweeted his photo holding the ticket would get a cut if he won (link to the tweet).  Needless to say I am still teaching so the collective ‘we’ did not win.  I am simply a window shopper when it comes to Twitter.  I use it for all of its great information and breaking news, without providing any information myself.  As far as using Twitter in the classroom, I have yet to come up with an idea that I truly like.  Being connected is a great idea, but what will we end up sharing with each other?  I don’t want to get updates of students communicating what is going on Friday night or after school.  I like WordPress and having the students comment on each others blogs as my source of ‘online community’.

My Twitter feed

For the first time since I been getting my foods students to blog, they began to actually follow their friends.  So when the students were making entries last Friday, they then began to ask around and get each others addresses so they could follow them, which I thought was really cool.  A few of them began commenting on others blogs, nothing meaningful at this point, but I can now work this into the ongoing assignment and require them to delve into comments and conversations about others posts.  I do believe that if we were using Twitter, the students could possibly be even more connected, but they would then be limited to 140 characters per entry. The simplicity for students to follow friends and add pictures to their tweets is very appealing, as many of my students have begun adding pictures to their food blogs, but I like the limitless characters of WordPress.

I have found some interesting links to other teachers while searching around on Twitter.  I found a quick and to the point article on ’36 Things Every 21^st Century Teacher should be Able to do” (http://www.teachthought.com/teaching/36-things-every-21st-century-teacher-should-be-able-to-do/) which is a great quick synopsis and explanation of many of the skills we have picked up in this class.  I highly recommend a quick look.

Pic of the article

Twitter in the classroom, to me, is more of a higher education tool.  I watched the video “Twitter in the Classroom” and I just can’t imagine that working in my classroom.  I enjoyed that type of interaction while I was at UBC, but my school won’t have enough computers, as our two labs and one library are almost always booked up.  I also doubt that the interaction would be all that high.  I can think back to the summer when I had a laptop with me in class (this was the first time I did this, as I got through my undergrad with a pen and paper).  During the summer I had to fight the constant urge to check email, sports scores, etc. and I just can’t imagine a 14 year old being able to handle anything more than 5 minutes in front of a computer without becoming completely distracted.

Inner Twitter

I found this to be a very interesting idea.  I like the idea to stop and pause for personal reflection and a moment of disconnect from Twitter, but I thought that 15 minutes was too short, and this would be much more effective if it was 30 minutes or so.  But this definitely served as a reminder that we all need to disconnect from time to time.  I picked up a book of my choice for the first time since the winter holidays, and it is amazing how enlightening such a simple task can be and how nice it is not to be staring at a computer!

Inner Twitter

So happy to be reading again! My current book of choice

Directory of learning professionals (& others)

I searched several times and ways and the page was not found

Not Found

Not found

Westlake High School

I found their school’s twitter page to be a little disorganized at first.  When I looked at this page a couple weeks ago the main purpose seemed to be as a place to showcase pictures taken on school outings.  Now that I have another look at it, I do like the announcement and updates.  I thought it was a great way for the school to promote what is going on around that school, which may go unheard during the daily announcements.  I thought it was really cool to see the athletics teams being advertised and trying to rally some support for them.  My only issue, is that when I look at the page, it has only been update a half dozen times or so since the New Year, which is a sure fire way to loose credibility amongst students who are use to constant and instant updates.  I believe a site like this could be a huge benefit to a school if a leadership group, or a group of the like, would take it over and really promote what is happening in the school.  Students could be kept in the loop about all happenings at the school, and the results of sports events, reviews of musical theatre productions etc.  By following the school Twitter page updates would be sent right to smart phones with the Twitter app and a way of enticing usage would be to do weekly draws for giveaways for student comments or re-tweets.  Even parents could get involved and by completely up-to-date with what is happening at the school (save paper by not sending home monthly newsletters!)

Westlake’s Twitter page

Academhack

I had a read through some of the ideas.  I wasn’t sold on many of the ideas and quickly dismissed the page.  In our information overload world, if you don’t convince me in the first few moments, you lose me.  The idea of class chatter is great, but is geared towards higher education where the students all arrive to class with their personal laptops.

Ademhack article

Social Networks

Google Plus

I hadn’t used Google+ until I began this course.  As the course has gone on I can see how useful this social network is.  If I could go back and begin my personal social networking all over again I would definitely consider doing away with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc., because I feel like I would be able to do all of what those sites offer (or at least something very similar) all within one site.  I have been very impressed with how easy it is to use and how so many tools are at my fingertips within the confines of one site.

My Google+ profile… still needs some work

My homepage

I use the photo aspect of Google+ to email photos to family and friends.  Since the photos are in my Google+ account, it is too easy to send via my Gmail account.  I have found that my sharing of photos has improved greatly since I joined Google+ and I have been sending updates of our renovation to family and friends.  The big green share button couldn’t be a better reminder to share what I have done.  I also am very appreciative of how easy it is to make my pictures private or public

A sample of my photos on Google+

I have also felt very guilty about not being able to join in any of the hangouts this semester.  Unfortunately my soccer training falls on Tuesdays and Thursdays and prevents me from being able to join.  I invited a friend of mine to a hangout, just to try it out and I can see this an alternative to Skype.  I still will stick with Skype as it has my contacts already, but this is another example of ‘if I was to start all over again.’  I would without a doubt use Google for all of my networking needs.

Hangout

Facebook

Facebook is a great tool for communication and networking in general, but not something that I use all that often.  I became uninterested in Facebook a few years ago when I began to notice that more people live more of their lives through Facebook instead of life itself.  I understand the ease of posting pictures and updates for friends and family to keep everyone up to date with your life, but I don’t feel the need to post daily or weekly photos.  I do keep my account open because it does have some particular uses for me.

My FB profile page

I do love how this network allows me to stay a click or two away from my friends who live around the world.  I spent the early years of my teaching career taking extended time away from teaching to go and work on the cruise ships.  During my 3 TOC years I would take extended time off to work on these ships and made many friends from all over that I still keep in touch with.  In fact I have designed whole trips around Europe, Canada, and the US that have been tailored to the location of these friends so I have places to stay.  It is awesome that way, to be able to send a quick message to a friend wherever they are and not need to gather email information or phone numbers.  I doubt I would still have a Facebook account if it wasn’t for the easy ability to maintain long distance friendships.

I have also recently been using Facebook to see if I can find any information about prospective tenants in my basement suite.  Not sure if that is what Facebook was ever intended to be used for, but it sure has helped us wean out a few already!  I have even had a friend of mine call me because he was trying to rent his house and the person who was applying for tenancy had me as the only mutual friend.  He wanted an indication of their character, and since then I have been using the same style of detective work.

I have seen other teachers (student teachers for the most part), who have used Facebook as a project or assignment, where the students need to make a fake profile for characters in a novel they are reading and fill in all the details as accurate to the character as they can.  It is an idea that I don’t mind, but something that can similarly be done in many different ways.  I also coach with another teacher who communicates with the teams that he coaches though Facebook.  This makes mores sense to me, as the students check their accounts a countless number of times each day, and they have an easy avenue for communication.  I have always used email, and contact my players via emails and this has worked out reasonably well for me, and even better since most of them have their email linked to their smart phones or iPods.  Now that I have explored the other coaches method, his does seem to be more effective, I just don’t want to put my account out there to be attached to high school students of mine.  I do have the option to start another account I suppose, but I always have troubles with the thought of having to log out of one of my accounts to gain access to the other (I love having my passwords saved and being able to click on my favourites and enter right into my accounts).

The other issue I would have with using Facebook in my class, is that I would need to grant my students access to the site.  This I don’t like, because I already know they are going through ‘portals’ and IP re-locators already to gain access and I don’t want to open the flood gates so to speak.  I can’t imagine too many teenagers being able to stay focused and not check out what their friends are doing if they were completing a Facebook assignment.  Or for that matter, completing a project for another teacher in the lab knowing that they have access to Facebook since they are in my course.

Instagram

I really enjoy how simple and easy Instagram is to use.  I have heard so much about Instagram, but finally had a chance to download the app and use it this week.  They have done a great job of making editing and adding artistic features super easy and accessible for all.  It felt like any picture I took, I could turn into a really interesting photo because I had such simple access to so many different editing features.  I also really like how I am able to follow users who interest me, which is very reminiscent of Twitter.  When I have been using Twitter, I have noticed that many of the pictures that get posted have been posted via Instagram and then tweeted, which now makes sense, since I know how seamless the two can be used together.

My Instagram app download

Unable to access on my computer for some reason…

I have been unable to login on my computer, so I have been restricted to the app on my phone, but I have come up with a few different uses in my Foods or even PE classes.  This would be a great way for the students to take photos and upload images that they can customize and make look really great.  Some of the students this semester are really getting into the blogging and are using images, which is great.  A few have even provided links on their blog directly to the recipes, so if a viewer wanted to make what they have shown in their picture, they are a click away!  I also thought about my PE classes.  Many of the students run with IPods or IPhones to listen to music, and I have been trying to get them to try out some of the great exercise monitoring apps and I thought that they would be able to take some pretty cool action shots with Instagram and connect that with their running route, workout, or game that they played that day.

Sample from a students blog

Another sample

The immediate audience of Instagram, I believe, is very appealing to teenagers.  They all post on Facebook to get their friends attention, so Instagram, which posts immediately, might be a great way to get them intrigued by documenting their learning, what they are doing in class and showcasing it!

Ning

It was charge so I turned away.

I avoided the free trail, I find that I either forget to end my ‘free trial’ or begin receiving countless emails telling me about the great deals they are offering (NETFLIX!!!!)

Online Presentation Tools

I really enjoy testing out these presentation tools because I know that when I find something I like it can really add a new dimension to an old assignment/project or it can be the inspiration for something new.  I like changing up old tasks, as I enjoy seeing new results when I am marking and with the use of a new presentation tool the students often get a little more excited about the end result.

Prezi

I have been using Prezi for a couple of years now.  I find that the students, for the most part, enjoy using Prezi.  Once they learn how to use it, students quite often will ask if they can hand in other assignments using Prezi as well.   This tool allows the students to present their ideas/show what they have learned in very unique ways.  The other aspect of Prezi that separates the site from other presentation sites are the tutorials.  Whenever I use Prezi in the classroom I personally do a tutorial on how to sign up (now I will do a screencast as well), and then show them a very basic ‘how to’ get started up.  After I have done that I have the students watch the tutorials once we get into the computer lab, as I can’t compete with how well put together their instructional videos are.  I always give the students a heads up that they need to bring their headphones the day before, so when we are in the lab they can all plug in and listen/watch the tutorials.  The only headache I have had with the tutorials is that the students need access to YouTube to watch them.  To get around this I needed to provide a list of my students and their student ID’s to the school computer tech, who then removes the YouTube restriction from their accounts.

Prezi has the best tutorials

My favourite use of Prezi was when my planning class had to plan a 3 week trip across Europe.  Two of my favourite examples from that class are Link 1 and Link 2.  I also used Prezi in my Foods 10 class.  I had them pick their favourite meal and then track the food miles associated with their meal (how far each ingredient has traveled to reach their plate).  This was very successful, as the students were able to zoom in on one aspect of their meal and then fly across the screen onto a map and land at the country that it came from.

Great for student creativity

The end results were really impressive

Overall, I enjoy creating projects/assignments and even marking Prezis (unbelievable I know).  The students have a complete blank canvas and I have been really impressed by the end products.

Prezi also allows me to search and store all the Prezis I look at, mark, or create on one convenient page, which is awesome for showing students samples.  This link is the Prezi that really made me realize the capabilities of Prezi and inspired my Euro-Trip Project.

A page with all of my saved Prezis

Glogster

I used Glogster last year during a health and wellness unit I teach in planning that I also sometimes incorporate into my Foods and Nutrition courses.  I had heard great reviews of Glogster from my online courses and thought I would give it a try.  From the start of the assignment I found that I was having troubles with Glogster.  After using Prezi and its great tutorials, Glogster just couldn’t compare.  The students also had issues with adding information to their glogs.  I always promote the use of Word for draft work whenever my students work with an online presentation tool, blog etc.  I even do this myself prior to blogging because I can save my work and have an electronic copy on my computer.  I also believe that Word has the best editing and spell checker.  But when the students went to cut and paste their information and ideas onto their glogs, the program wouldn’t allow them.  I spent a few hours trying to figure out this glitch, but was unsuccessful.  Eventually I gave the students the option to create a poster for their assignments if they didn’t want to work with Glogster any longer.

A glog template that I was working with

This summer I had a professor at UBC that spoke very highly of Glogster and he spent part of a class displaying the different tools that the site had to offer.  Even after seeing this I am still not ready to go back and give Glogster another try. Although I do like Wanted Poster template that they have to offer!  And I thought of having the students create advertisements for the different food groups or promoting fruits and veggies using the poster templates.

Would be fun to use

VoiceThread

I have used VoiceThread once before during a ‘Learning Initiatives’ committee meeting a few years ago.  I like the idea of VoiceThread, with bringing everybody’s ideas together, and everybody being able to post, but I just find little benefit to the voice recording.  I remember from my use, hitting an incorrect button and not saving what I had recorded.  Looking again at VoiceThread I just can’t imagine using it, when I could use (for similar uses like group comments or opinions being connected) wikis, blogs, Flickr, and/or social networks.

Tutorial for VoiceThread

The one aspect of VoiceThread that I find to be really unique and quite interesting is the ‘video doodling’.  Being the huge sports fan I am I absolutely love the idea of pausing and rewinding video, making comments, and being able to add drawings and marks to the video.  This reminds me of watching endless hours of sports and the announcers commentating and drawing on instant replays.  When thinking about in the classroom, I thought that this could be used to break down cooking videos in my foods class.  If the students were to film their own brief cooking demonstrations, they could then add pointers, tips, and additional information to their videos (kind of reminiscent of the cheesy Much Music show I use to watch as a kid – pop up video).

Being an announcer was always a dream of mine!

Really cool to be able to draw all over the videos

Xtranormal

This site has really impressed me and is a ton of fun to play around with.   I really enjoyed picking out characters and settings.  Within a few minutes of having an account I had a character on the subway making senseless chatter and doing all sorts of weird movements.  This example isn’t very useful, but I could see how students would really enjoy it.  I have seen a school librarian use Xtranormal as an advertising tool for their library, which I remember thinking was pretty cool and funny.

My creation and his meaningless banter

The site is very well laid out and the tutorials are great.  The tutorials have lots of detail and you can easily skip to a component that you want to learn about.  The site is just so easy to use that I didn’t really feel like I even needed a tutorial to use.  This site reminded me of ‘Monk-E-mails’ which was an e-card you could send years ago (and are still able to apparently) where I was able to pick my monkey, what it was wearing and its location and then type what I wanted to monkey to say (all very cutting edge for almost 10 years ago).

The fantastic tutorials

Monk-e-Mails!

The best plan for Xtranormal in the classroom that I have come up with is the creation of a TV commercial.  In grade 10, I have the foods students create a restaurant, in which they need a menu, floor plan, and kitchen layout.  I thought I nice way to top all of this off would be with a commercial for that restaurant using Xtranormal.

Wiki Wiki

Wikis

Prior to this week I had only given wikis a brief look over and hadn’t really come to terms with how I would ever use them in my class.  And yes I was, and probably still am, very nervous about what could be written and/or edited for all to see.

Wiki-Recipes

While reading Richardson’s text he alluded to wiki-recipes and very quickly I became addicted to recipes.wikia.com.  With so many recipes organized and posted, I have already found some recipes that I can incorporate into my course.  I was blown away by how many recipes people have uploaded and posted onto the site and it made me think of some ideas for my class.  As part of a semester long project, the students in my class create their own personal recipe book that they produce and hand-in to me.  But now that I have seen this site, I am starting to think about having them all contribute to a class wiki where they can sort/organize the recipes that they would all have access to.  By setting up the project as a wiki, they could share their recipes rather than just handing the book in for me to see and nobody else.  I also thought of just sharing this site with the students so they are able to find recipes more quickly and efficiently.  Even better, I found dinner for tonight!

Wiki Recipes is very well organized

Dinner for tonight!

Wiki Travel

Who knew about this? I had never heard of it and wish I had of a long time ago.  This is such a great resource for people visiting new cities and any upcoming travel.  I am use to searching around online and going to dozens of different sites to find information, but this site puts it all into one convenient and efficient wiki.  Most of the pages even include helpful maps and I was really impressed.  Last summer we went to Chicago and I did my research and read some travel books from the library, but this would have blown all of my research out of the water.  I was even able to find little cities throughout Europe that I have visited and I was able to read about where to go and what to do (I missed a few things!).  I also looked at the app store, hoping there would be an app for my IPhone, but no such app existed.  Hopefully some time soon!  When I teach Planning I have students plan out and budget for a 3-week backpacking trip.  Next time I teach the course I will definitely have the students use this resource for some of their information.

We might be going to San Francisco this summer, so I started a little research

Wikispaces

Wikispaces is where I have the ‘most’ experience.  I have successfully set up a wiki and started to create pages.  I thought that my foods classes could collaborate on recipes reviews, share recipes, and come up with review questions for the weekly review/random trivia quiz that we have.  If I was to begin using a wiki in this manner I would have to cut the blogging assignment out, and personally, I prefer that the students are familiar with using a blog.  They have more control, can change the appearance of their page (which they enjoy for the most part), and they don’t have to worry about other students reading or editing their work.  I have found that students are much more willing to open up on their critiques of the food if they know I am the only one reading their post.  I really do like the idea of a community recipe book though and Wikispaces would be a great avenue for that.  I also thought that Wikispaces does a great job of allowing control over who can access the wiki.  Since the creator has the ability to manage access and use the ‘user creator’ tab, I feel that I could create a fairly ‘safe’ wikispace.  This would provide me the control over the wiki, which I feel I would need and would allow me to see who was making edits and what they were editing.  As with most wikis, Wikispaces allows users to revert back to entries from an archive if there was an inaccurate edit made, which I thought would come in very handy.

My class Wiki

User Control!

Google

I have only used Google Docs once, and that was during a summer LIBE course at UBC.  In the middle of class we had to sign up for presentation times and we did this in real-time with a Google-doc at the front of the class.  I thought it was pretty cool and even fun and I thought that in the computer lab I could do some pretty neat review type games where students race to enter their answers.  I am hoping to take time to learn how to use Google Docs at some point in the near future.

Google sites is a tool I use daily.  My course website is a Google Sites page (sites.google.com/site/cathcartfoods9/).  I switched over this semester from Wix.  I found that Wix was really nice to look at but not nearly as functional/compatible and was a whole lot slower to load (which is a real problem on our slow school network!).  The Google sites page allows me to very easily edit the page and I am able to provide daily lesson calendars and homework calendars for all of my classes.  These calendars are all Google Calendars that I can edit online or on my phone, which makes editing very quick and easy, and using a Google based site just made sense for all of that.  I have been really impressed with Google Sites even though I’m not certain on how it can be used as a wiki (I don’t now how people would edit my site).

My Foods 9 site

Others

When I looked up wetpaint.com, as recommended by Richardson, it appeared to be a celebrity gossip and news site… I quickly moved on.

PBworks I also looked into but the site immediately had a business feel to it, and when I saw a phone number for a sales line I also quickly moved on.

Of all Richardson’s suggestions I thought the Westwood High example was the most impressive and inspirational.  How the students connected with another class around the world was really neat, but I really liked how Vicki Davis had the students make online eFolios that were posted on the wiki.  From the examples I looked at, they were really impressive and I would love to steal this idea.  Seeing all of the tools that we play around with in this course, I would like to make a more meaningful course long project for my foods class.  I thought having them create eFolios and posting them to a common page or wiki would be great.  This way the students could take pictures of what they are making in class and add to an ongoing eFolio, post major assignments, create food critiques, generate menus, include their blogs, shoot a how-to cooking video etc.  This would end up being a great tool for the students to showcase to their families, friends, and teachers what they learned and accomplished throughout the course.

The Westwood High Wiki I found to be very inspirational

Just podcasting about podcasting

Here is the link to my ‘spoken’ entry this week https://soundcloud.com/lcathcart/lea-podcasting-about

I have included the written version if my pod didn’t turn our so well.  Listening to my own voice recorded is awful and having it typed out just made it even more unnatural! Oh the learning process…

 

 

Sorry for jumping ahead on the podcasting last week.  I have been reading the whole chapter when it is written on the course calendar and just kind of went with it.

Podcast (update)

‘Since my last post’ (you can refer to video sharing and section on podcasting for previous entry)

I still am struggling with ways or reasons that I would use podcasts in my own classroom.  I thought about the example from Richardson’s book where the school has recorded announcements from the students, but our announcements are typed to start and posted on our schools course website, which is a much more efficient for staff and students (don’t have to record and post, or listen to the whole recording just to find one piece of information).  After talking to one of the language teachers about podcasts, she said that she doesn’t use podcasting but in a similar fashion her students record the speech and pronunciation on a computer.  As mentioned before, this is not something that I would look forward to, but after chatting with her about the process she says that there is no better way for her to grade the students pronunciation and speech.  Hosting 30 individual conversations just wouldn’t work.  I have introduced her to SoundCloud and the idea of podcasting, just because I believe this will allow her to access the podcasts from anywhere, as opposed to having to listen to all of the recordings on the school computers/network.

I asigned up for SoundCloud, and by exploring the site I found some new podcasts to listen to during my morning drive which is very exciting.  I can’t imagine going back to listening to music during my commute, now that I am addicted to the podcast app.  The selection is great and I am always finding new pods to listen to.

Some interesting new pods to listen to

Some great new pods for on the road

The other app, which is similar to podcasts, is iTunesU.  I can’t see it working in my classroom, or at least with what I have found and explored on there, but you are able to ‘take’ courses for free through this app.  The app connects and links podcasts, ted talks, and recorded lectures together to form a ‘course’ for people to go through at their own pace.  An example is a course ‘Financial Markets’ which is composed of 78 lectures recorded at Yale University.  From time to time I like to listen to a lecture, I haven’t strung together any courses at all, but from time to time I’ll look up a topic and listen to a related lecture.  On the iTunesU website you can simply log in with your AppleID and begin to create your own course available for download as well.

iTunesU where I was a few clicks and many ideas away from creating my own course online.

Social Bookmarking

Richardson’s point about all of the ‘amateurs’ now organizing the information we search and sort through really hit home.  As I can think numerous times when I know I have a site bookmarked and just can’t seem to find it because I ‘filed’ it under one of my many bookmark folders.

Being so new to social bookmarking I was really, and still am, interested to see how the searching and ‘sorting’ would take place.

Delicious

Every time I have tried to ‘get into’ using delicious I have been unimpressed.  I have tried several times now and there is just something about the layout and set up of the social bookmarking site that just doesn’t work for me.  I have never been all that successful at finding what it is I am looking for on the delicious site, and even when I tried again this time I found myself going down search paths, that kept linking me to somewhat interesting topics, but further and further from what I originally was looking for.

One of my many unfruitful searches.

I found that delicious was not all that user friendly.  Whenever I completed a search I was overwhelmed with the hits that came back.  Also, since the links open in a new window, I can’t simply hit the back button and it seems much more labour-some to get back to the original search I completed. And once again further off track!

I did manage to find a great article on the ‘Top 100 Tools for Learning of 2012’, that just seemed to appear in the related tags down the left side column of the page.  There I found some tools that I had never heard of before and when I can spare some time, I will play around with and see what educational purposes they may offer.

Left hand column had related searches.

Very cool article that ranks online learning tools.

As far as using in my classroom, I have yet to come up with a way that Delicious might be useful.  I still haven’t totally grasped the social bookmarking with delicious and heavily prefer Diigo.

Diigo

Easily my first choice for social bookmarking!  While I was learning how to use Diigo, I just kept thinking of how great it would have been to use this tool during my University years.  All the tools that are a click away are fantastic.  I would have saved a lot of paper and time being able to highlight and put sticky notes on articles, periodicals, or journals that I was reading online.  I was originally worried that once I made changes with the highlighter etc. that the page would be permanently changed, but to my surprise, when I returned to the pages my highlighting and sticking notes were gone.  One simple click and all of the notes and highlights were back, which really impressed me.

Adding Diigo to my bookmark toolbar

My empty library that will begin to grow

As far as using in a school, I wondered if there would be a problem getting Diigo set up.  Is there any mass install that has to happen to work on our networks?  My assumption, and hope, is that I would just have to get my students to sign up with Diigo and they would then have access to all of the Diigo features.  I also thought that I could create a private group and share information with students that way.  A class session in the computer lab could have students sign into the group and have them research some of the information I have shared with them and then have them highlight and annotate the readings on the screen.   I also thought that I would be able to make notes and highlight parts of their blogs (in my foods class) and then share this with students individually.  This would be much more time efficient because, as of now, I am writing all of the tips and corrections out on paper and the blog post isn’t in front of them when they get the grading sheets back.  With Diigo they could log in anytime and see my points for them, and when we log back in during class time to complete their next blog post, they could easily refer back to their previous post for pointer.

Easily highlight and add notes on WordPress

I do really like the idea of having students use Diigo, but some of the ideas Richardson had about sharing readings etc. via Diigo, just wouldn’t work in a high school.  Diigo in this way would be very useful in a university level course where students actually (for the most part I hope) complete the readings.

Finally, I thought the Diigo would be a great way for a librarian to share new ideas, information, and tools with staff who are interested.  By having a simple Diigo group, the teachers on staff who are interested could join a Diigo group and receive any information that the librarian wanted to share.  If it was me, I would send out tutorials on how to use different web 2.0 tools, share new arrivals in the library, and/or provide links to great resources or lesson ideas.  This way the teachers who want the information would receive the information.

Pinterest

This site has been the inspiration for so many of my ideas during my ongoing renovations.  Anytime we are stuck for an idea we log in to Pinterest and start searching.  With ease I can click on interesting pictures and am linked automatically to a DIY articles that provide me with step-by-step directions and pictures.

As you can probably tell, we are looking into a headboard upgrade

I also enjoy the social aspect that links me to other people who have ‘pinned’ the same pictures/articles.  I find that these people have similar ideas to mine and that they may have an article pinned that I then end up reading and exploring.  I am amazed at how quickly 30 minutes goes by once I open the page though!

When trying to bring Pinterest into the classroom, my only thought was to have students pin recipes that interest them.  Students complete an ongoing recipe book assignment over the duration of the semester, and if they had to pin a few recipes a week, they could easily put their books together at the end.

So Pinterest and Diigo it is!

Video Sharing

Before I address the topics at hand, I just can’t get over that people upload over 4 years worth of material a day onto YouTube!!

Podcast

Podcasts are involved in my daily life and have been for about a year now.  I use my ‘Podcast’ app on my IPhone and it acts as my car radio.   I can’t imagine life without the Podcast app now as I simply plug my phone into the car stereo and my podcasts start to play through my car speakers.  The podcasts are great because I can listen to sports talk radio from around the world!  Aside from just sports I can also listen to TED talks, Freakonomics radio (one of my favourites), food and beer reviews, podcasts on practically any topic or I could even listen to just about any radio station I could ever imagine.

As far as using podcasts in the classroom, I don’t really like the idea of having students record their own podcasts.  To me it seems super simplistic and in all reality I would just have to listen to a bunch of monotone voices speaking (I have listened in on other students work from a teacher that had them record and I found it painful).  I did sign up for a ‘Podomatic” account and the site was straightforward and easy to navigate.  I was a click away from recording within moments, and if I was to begin producing podcasts, this is where I would start.

Podomatic ready to record

I have used a podcast in my class, which I found had limited success.  The podcast was great and very interesting, but without the visual I lost most of the kids attention.  So anytime that I find a really interesting podcast on food, I’ll search around and try to find a video that might go along with it (an example being TED talks on podcast are easy because I can login to TED online and simply show the video which keeps them much more entertained).

My favourite podcasts

I searched around for podcasts that may be useful for the class and I found a few that I added to my subscription list, which may or may not prove to be useful in the class.  The ‘2 Minute Chef’ is a neat one, because it comes with the video as well, but I have yet to use it in my class.

New podcasts to explore

Screencasting

I was quite excited when I began to read about screencasting.  Anytime I have a problem with my computer, or want to do anything that I don’t know how to I always end up watching super helpful videos on YouTube or something similar.  These helpful video always display the users screen with their voice describing what they are doing, and as I now know, this is screencasting.  I had no idea how they did this and just assumed it was way out of my realm of abilities.  Once Richardson began describing how simple it was I was signed up and was ready to go.

Jing download which I am really excited about

Once I was all signed up with ‘Jing’ I decided to create my first video immediately and as I have discussed previously, I am getting the students to blog.  When I tried this last semester, the students who were either away that day, or who couldn’t keep up with what I was doing at the front of the class on the projector were completely lost (and coincidentally the least computer savvy).  Now that I have created my screencast, I will simply post the link on my class website and the students can go at their own pace after I do my demonstration.  They will no be able to pause, rewind, and follow my instructions step by step.  This will be a huge benefit in a couple weeks when we set up our WordPress accounts!

Here is the screencast I created using Jing

Jing is a super easy and useful tool.  I really liked how easy it is to record using Jing, and how I can save the file, post it online, or discard and shoot the video again.  I took a couple of takes, only because I didn’t hide my password the first time.  I would really prefer if they hid your password and you had to click ‘show’ rather then how they have it now, as I displayed my password for the world to see without realizing until I reviewed my screencast.  The frustrating part is a WordPress account can’t be deleted, so once I made the mistake of showing my password, I could no longer use the email address that I had just created to demonstrate how to set up a WordPress account.  This is because the Gmail account was already registered on the WordPress site, so I had to create another fake account and begin the process all over again.  I am also not completely sold on having Jing constantly running in the background as you can see in the top right corner of my screen.  But overall I am very excited about this new tool!

Top right corner there is a glowing yellow sun, which is Jing running in the background

Live Streaming

I have been using live streaming for many years.  I haven’t had cable or a TV in the past 5 years so my entertainment has been streaming, and for the most part live streaming.  Like the screencasting, I never really understood how it worked or even fathomed that I could successfully and easily begin streaming live within only a couple of minutes.

Ustream

I created a UStream account and within a minute I was one click away from being ‘out there.’  I was really impressed by the ease and I was even more impressed that I could put a free app on my IPhone so I could start to live stream from anywhere that I am.  So showing a friend what we are doing or showing a family member something they are missing is super easy now, and I don’t need a laptop to show them what is happening live!

Ustream app on my phone. 1 click away from live streaming

I am not sold on the idea of using these streams in the classroom.  The example Richards gave of the grade 5 teacher that streams the entire class seemed very intrusive to me.  As to date, the use that I came up with for Ustream was having the students possibly shoot and record cooking demonstrations for my class.  I have wanted to have the students create short demonstration videos with partners for a couple of years now, and I am wondering if I now have a way to incorporate this.  I know that a handful of students have IPhones on IPods in my class and would simply need to add the free app to their phone.  With our school granting the students access to Wi-Fi very soon this could become a viable option.

TeacherTube

I really like the idea of TeacherTube and did a little bit of exploration.  I would like to be able to use it in my class as an alternative to YouTube.  But once I start exploring I was less then impressed.  I find the home page to be way too cluttered and overwhelming!  This almost turned my off the site before further exploration.  There were so many different icons, colours, and videos.

Super cluttered homepage

I then encountered that when I found a video that I might actually show, I was blocked out by advertisements which I had to close.  Then when I switched to full screen mode the same ads came back again!!!

ADS!!!

Once I began watching the video, I watched a cooking demonstration on blanching that was totally inaccurate and I was done!

Terrible blanching demonstration

Photo Sharing

Flickr

My first photo sharing exploration was with Flickr.  I found it a bit annoying that I needed a Yahoo account, but somehow remembered my password from when I was a teenager and predominantly used Yahoo.  I started by uploading some pictures to the site, and this was all very easy to access and straightforward.  I also thought that the searching within the site was accurate and I found a lot of really cool pictures just playing around with my searches a little bit.  I was able to find an awesome picture of Fenway Park that is now the wallpaper on my home laptop (oddly enough the picture was taken on a day when I was in the park, so sometimes I search to see if I can find myself in the photo).

Uploaded photos

Uploaded photos

I also liked how I could find great photos and add them to my favourites list.  I am assuming that there are copy writes for the photos that are uploaded to Flickr as those that I was adding to my ‘favourites,’ I was unable to use as my personal ‘icon’ on the website, or as my group icon.  I tried to find specifics on the site about copy write rules, but all I did find were copy write rules for Yahoo Canada, but not specifically Flickr.  Since I was unable to set photos that I put into my favourites as my personal and/or group icon, I attributed to possible copy write issues.

My Flickr Favourites

My initial thought was that I could upload photos taken in my foods class, that the students could then have access to and include in a bi-weekly review/critique blog about the food we made and how it turned out.  The idea being that the students could include a picture of their food into the blog and make comments on how it turned out and their presentation of the meal.  I liked how I was able to set up a group and keep the pictures private and individually invite the students to have access to the group.  The students will already require an email address to have a blog, so this would be an easy transition.  I was also really impressed with the way you can add notes and descriptions over top of the pictures in Flickr.  This would work very well for students describing and critiquing their food, as they could add notes over their own food creations which would be really useful.  I would also be able to send photos via email to an account that would upload them automatically to Flickr.  I didn’t test this out but managed to set it up on the website.

Email Uploading via Flickr

I did find that the group options within Flickr were quite confusing.  I am not a tech wiz, but can figure out most technologies, and I was having troubles navigating the group section of Flickr.  There are so many great features in Flickr, and definitely some possibilities for use in my class, but the structure and layout of the page was a bit confusing.  I found that I was constantly clicking headings, and then subheadings, and then subheadings for those subheadings.  I also found that I had troubles remembering how to repeat an action I had just completed.  The layout isn’t as intuitive as I believe it could be.  I find that it is quite ironic that this photo/graphic sharing site relies so heavily on text in their headings, menus, and sub-menus.

My group page on Flickr

Flickr really impressed me with by allowing me to write a blog post while still in the Flickr website.  When I clicked on blog I had my WordPress account show up on the top third of the screen.  I thought this would be very useful, especially if I started posting pictures from my class to Flickr.  The students would be able to pick the photo they want to use and are one click away from accessing their blogs, and would be able to post while still within Flickr.  The RSS feed would also serve as a way for me to monitor when the students have posted something, and allow me to avoid having to check back all the time to see if any work had been completed.  I also started to wonder if I could use the ‘group discussion’ component on the group page to stimulate conversations within a Flickr group that I would create for my class.

Use WordPress within Flickr

The other huge, huge problem that I have is that my school has some sort of block on Yahoo.  The sites associated with Yahoo all work, but do not display any pictures and the text is way off making it next to impossible to navigate.  This makes it pretty useless for how I had planned to use it, as the students (and even me) wouldn’t have the patience to deal with a site that looks this way.  When I talked this over with our school’s tech teacher he told me that he has been trying for a couple of years to figure out how to remove this block left from the previous computer tech but is yet to solve the problem.

How Yahoo sites appear on school computers

How Yahoo sites appear on school computers

Unfortunately, until this Yahoo block issue is dealt with, I will have to put my Flickr plans on hold.

Tumblr

I then decided to try and learn how to use Tumblr.  I am not sure if this would be considered a full out ‘photo sharing’ site, but since I often see students at school checking out all sorts of photos on Tumblr I thought it would be beneficial for me to learn how to use this site.  I thought that if I use a site that students might be familiar with already, the learning curve would be minimized and students would be able to teach other students how to use it.  From my experience with Tumblr, uploading pictures is super easy.  I also like how the blogging is just as easy and straightforward.  I found that I was able to get a blog started and posted in less time that it takes with WordPress.  When I have used WordPress before with students, I often find that they post to the wrong location, or that they click ‘New Post’ and complete their blog and then post, but it doesn’t end up attaching to their blog page.  I feel like Tumblr may be an even easier and simplified form of blogging than WordPress.  The addition of photos is also more intuitive than that of WordPress, which would simplify the students’ task of adding photos to a blog.

My Tumblr Home Screen

Tumblr additionally grants access to an amazing amount of photos and much like with Flickr, I would be able to easily share all the photos I take of the food with my students.  For me, the best feature would be that I can follow their pages on Tumblr and the photos/write ups that they add to their page would be automatically posted on to mine for simplified grading.  By following their page, I wouldn’t have to go to individual sites for each student to see if they have or have not updated their blog.  My streamlining their posts to my page I would avoid the collection of individual sites that I currently have to do when I use WordPress.

I was also thinking that I could post photos of the meals they create to Tumblr and rather than have all the students create their own pages, just have the students each add to one collective page.  This would promote possible discussion, if students were willing to make comments about previously posted comments and might be an avenue for me to create more ‘discussion.’  I’m not sure how it would exactly function, but I do really like the idea of a collaborative piece that they all work together on!

Invite others to collaborate on a single page