Here is my one minute video, be sure to read my BP9 for more information and my rational for using Twitter. Enjoy!
Monday, January 25, 2010
BP9_2010013_Web2.0Tool3
In this day and age, it’s a constant struggle for educators to effectively reach students. An age and interest gap between teachers and students already exist. If there is also a digital and technological gap, your job as an educator will become virtually impossible.
One of the main problems with education today is that people are constantly trying to invent, create or mold it. There will never be an universal mold that will accurately reach every child. Education is ever changing just like us. As time passes, time also dictates what adjustments education needs to make. Remember that education depend on its’ students not the other way around. Would you teach a man who lives by the sea how to lay bricks or would you teach him how to fish?
I will introduce Twitter as a Web 2.0 tool today. What is Twitter? “Twitter is an online application that is part blog, part social net¬working site, part cell phone/IM tool, designed to let users answer the question, what are you doing?” (Educause, 2007) As an educator, I have noticed that students between the ages of twelve and seventeen make clear distinctions between school and everything else, almost as if the education is not intertwined with everything else.
Simple take home task such as study and homework are usually not done because of how separated these two worlds are. Text messaging and Instant Messaging is a big part of our students’ life. So how about we bring education to their world. Twitter can assist us with just that.
Stay with me here!
What is the number piece of technology that all your students have or at least the majority of them use regularly? Wait for it! Yeah, you guessed it, the cell phone. My thirteen-year-old nephew sends about three thousand text messages a month. That is insane! Whether it’s a Blackberry, iPhone or a droid phone, most of your students have one. Most of those phones offer a twitter application for free. Setting up a twitter account is easy, just go to www.twitter.com create one then have your students and their parents set one up as well. You will be surprised as to how many of your students already have an account. Ask that their parents as well as them follow you for homework, test reminders and any school updates such as closings and or emergencies.
Reference:
EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2007). 7 Things you should know about Twitter. Retrieved January 15, 2010, http://web20teach.blogspot.com/
One of the main problems with education today is that people are constantly trying to invent, create or mold it. There will never be an universal mold that will accurately reach every child. Education is ever changing just like us. As time passes, time also dictates what adjustments education needs to make. Remember that education depend on its’ students not the other way around. Would you teach a man who lives by the sea how to lay bricks or would you teach him how to fish?
I will introduce Twitter as a Web 2.0 tool today. What is Twitter? “Twitter is an online application that is part blog, part social net¬working site, part cell phone/IM tool, designed to let users answer the question, what are you doing?” (Educause, 2007) As an educator, I have noticed that students between the ages of twelve and seventeen make clear distinctions between school and everything else, almost as if the education is not intertwined with everything else.
Simple take home task such as study and homework are usually not done because of how separated these two worlds are. Text messaging and Instant Messaging is a big part of our students’ life. So how about we bring education to their world. Twitter can assist us with just that.
Stay with me here!
What is the number piece of technology that all your students have or at least the majority of them use regularly? Wait for it! Yeah, you guessed it, the cell phone. My thirteen-year-old nephew sends about three thousand text messages a month. That is insane! Whether it’s a Blackberry, iPhone or a droid phone, most of your students have one. Most of those phones offer a twitter application for free. Setting up a twitter account is easy, just go to www.twitter.com create one then have your students and their parents set one up as well. You will be surprised as to how many of your students already have an account. Ask that their parents as well as them follow you for homework, test reminders and any school updates such as closings and or emergencies.
Reference:
EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2007). 7 Things you should know about Twitter. Retrieved January 15, 2010, http://web20teach.blogspot.com/
Monday, January 18, 2010
BP8_2010012_One Minute Message - #1
Hope you enjoy the Video.
Click on the link below for an example of what wordia.com does.
Define captivate
Click on the link below for an example of what wordia.com does.
Define captivate
BP5_2010012_Web2.0_T2-Wordia
http://www.wordia.com
Have you ever asked your students to look something up? They go and get the heavy dictionary, look up the word in question, read the definition out loud and copy it down. After all that work you ask them one simple question, “Can you explain what the word means,” they still reply, “no.” this actually happens to me more often than I wish to share, that’s is at least until I came across Wordia.com. Wordia.com is a visual dictionary. So instead of looking up a word in a traditional dictionary, where you may not be familiar with some of the words used to define the original word, you can access Wordia.com. Where you will get a full video explanation of the word that you are looking for. Complete with examples, different definitions, usage and some jokes. This tool has proven to be useful not just in expanding your students’ vocabulary but also in assisting them in owning the words and language that they read.
Although Wordia.com is a great tool for the classroom it is fairly new and still has many missing visual definitions, in which case they still provide you with the written definition. This visual dictionary also allows you to upload short videos or skits of your interpretation or definition of a word.
This can easily be turned into a class project or a simple lesson for your class. Have your students take pride and ownership of their education and have them record, define and explain a word that they know and love. Most students today are becoming visual learners already and having access to a tool like Wordia.com can proof to be a step in the right direction for education.
Have you ever asked your students to look something up? They go and get the heavy dictionary, look up the word in question, read the definition out loud and copy it down. After all that work you ask them one simple question, “Can you explain what the word means,” they still reply, “no.” this actually happens to me more often than I wish to share, that’s is at least until I came across Wordia.com. Wordia.com is a visual dictionary. So instead of looking up a word in a traditional dictionary, where you may not be familiar with some of the words used to define the original word, you can access Wordia.com. Where you will get a full video explanation of the word that you are looking for. Complete with examples, different definitions, usage and some jokes. This tool has proven to be useful not just in expanding your students’ vocabulary but also in assisting them in owning the words and language that they read.
Although Wordia.com is a great tool for the classroom it is fairly new and still has many missing visual definitions, in which case they still provide you with the written definition. This visual dictionary also allows you to upload short videos or skits of your interpretation or definition of a word.
This can easily be turned into a class project or a simple lesson for your class. Have your students take pride and ownership of their education and have them record, define and explain a word that they know and love. Most students today are becoming visual learners already and having access to a tool like Wordia.com can proof to be a step in the right direction for education.
Monday, January 11, 2010
BP4_2010011_RSS Feeds
RSS Feed Selections
Education: News & Videos about Education – CNN.com:
With all the turmoil that is going on in New Jersey with issues about teachers, budget cuts and job cuts, this RSS feed will help me stay on top of things.
Elearnspace:
This RSS Feed will keep me up to date with what is going on in the world of education and how the internet is changing it.
AllHipHop.com:
One thing that I have come to understand, first as a student and now as a teacher, is that students tend to listen more to teachers that know a bit about their student’s culture and interest. This RSS feed will help keep up with that.
LEGO Mindstorms:
In our school we have about a dozen different LEGO Mindstorm kits, this year, for the Science and Technology fare we are planning to built and program one of the LEGO’s Mindstorm robots. This RSS feed will help me stay up-to-date with any updates.
Serious Eats:
If you read my profile for FSO, you would know how much I love to eat, coincidently I love to cook as well. This will help me indulge in one of my favorite pastimes.
BP3_2010011_Web 2.0 T1- Tikatok
Web 2.0 tools are extremely helpful and useful but www.go2web20.net, just had too many to choose from. After hours of searching and testing, my pain vain started to protrude on the left side of my forehead. More often than not the Internet causes me pain. That’s when I came across www.tikatok.com, Tikatok is an online platform where parents or teacher and their children or students can write, illustrate, and publish original stories into a professional-quality hardcover, paperback books or eBooks. I was thoroughly impressed with this tool but I was still a bit perplexed on how to fully utilize this site’s potential. Until, I realized that eventually I was going to post, what I was currently writing, on a blog.
My idea is basically to cross utilize two web 2.0 tools, Blogger to write and Tikatok to create. Students will write blog entries based on writing prompts that will guide their writing. Eventually all their blog entries will be gathered and organize in order to convert them into short stories. At the end of the marking cycle or school year there will be a final class project where students will work collaboratively in order to create a book that will contain a collection of short stories. The cool part about this process is that the students, not Tikatok, will still own all the copyrights to the stories and illustrations submitted.
This assignment is a great way to merge two worlds into one. Physical books are slowly becoming obsolete, with the use or eBooks and eReaders becoming more popular. This lesson will, hopefully spark a love for the physical written word and maybe inspire a child or two to eventually become a world known author.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
BP2_2010011_EduUses4Blogs
Education by definition means, “the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.” What is education today? It has a whole different definition. First lets think about what is the purpose of education. It’s my understanding that the overall purpose of education is to create a productive member of society. At the pace that education is moving and tools and skills necessary for the up and coming generations to succeed; schools, education and society are no longer one in the same. School is no longer limited to a classroom; education is no longer traditional or conventional. Our conventional teaching methods must evolve in order for our craft and profession to survive.
Blogs are one of the web 2.0 tools that appear to be molding and shaping the new wave of students. In fact, I use a blog for the all the classes I teach as a way for students to turn in assignments. Blogs by definition are an online diaries and or journals; a chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page. When you have a class of students that all hate to physically write things down, and you see instant change with something as simple as a blog, as an educator you will want to be part of this movement. “It’s been almost 40 years since the teaching of writing in schools had its last major shift, a move to an emphasis on the “writing process,” which still holds sway in most classrooms today. But with the advent of Web-based social networking tools like blogs and wikis, YouTube and Facebook, it may be that the next revision of writing pedagogy is upon us, one that emphasizes digital spaces, multimedia texts, global audiences and linked conversations among passionate readers.” (Pascopella & Richardson, 2009) I have seen instant change in writing immediately when I offered blog as an option to my students. The only problem that I saw was that the quality of the writing remained the same, as when they were writing on paper, but you know what they say, practice makes perfect. I would rather be exposed to more writing than no writing.
While reading this blog look at education not as a landmark in the story that is your life, but more like a vehicle that will help you get to where you are going.
Last point I would like to make is that although I love technology and where it’s taking us I feel that many of these social networking tools are actually making us less social. All of these social networking tools are causing human contact to be optional and sporadic. Human beings, by nature, are social creatures, but social networking is encouraging us to be the opposite.
References
Pascopella, A., & amp; Richardson, W. (2009). The New writing Pedagogy. District Administration, 45(10/11), 44-50. Retrieved from Academic
Blogs are one of the web 2.0 tools that appear to be molding and shaping the new wave of students. In fact, I use a blog for the all the classes I teach as a way for students to turn in assignments. Blogs by definition are an online diaries and or journals; a chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page. When you have a class of students that all hate to physically write things down, and you see instant change with something as simple as a blog, as an educator you will want to be part of this movement. “It’s been almost 40 years since the teaching of writing in schools had its last major shift, a move to an emphasis on the “writing process,” which still holds sway in most classrooms today. But with the advent of Web-based social networking tools like blogs and wikis, YouTube and Facebook, it may be that the next revision of writing pedagogy is upon us, one that emphasizes digital spaces, multimedia texts, global audiences and linked conversations among passionate readers.” (Pascopella & Richardson, 2009) I have seen instant change in writing immediately when I offered blog as an option to my students. The only problem that I saw was that the quality of the writing remained the same, as when they were writing on paper, but you know what they say, practice makes perfect. I would rather be exposed to more writing than no writing.
While reading this blog look at education not as a landmark in the story that is your life, but more like a vehicle that will help you get to where you are going.
Last point I would like to make is that although I love technology and where it’s taking us I feel that many of these social networking tools are actually making us less social. All of these social networking tools are causing human contact to be optional and sporadic. Human beings, by nature, are social creatures, but social networking is encouraging us to be the opposite.
References
Pascopella, A., & amp; Richardson, W. (2009). The New writing Pedagogy. District Administration, 45(10/11), 44-50. Retrieved from Academic
Friday, January 8, 2010
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