Hmmmm, the final thing. Hmmmm, has this been a challenging course? Yes! Have I made some discoveries about online courses? Yes! I have discovered that the very most important part of an online course is being consistent!!
I think it is funny, because we all knew this was a 30 hour course but I wonder how many of us really thought it would take THIRTY HOURS?!!!!! Well, it did and it was worth every minute!
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Thank you Jerri for your hard work and encouragement along the way. You did a fantastic job facilitating and sharing your enthusiasm for continued learning. I look forward to other online courses and hope to participate. Here’s to wishing everyone forward motion!!
Well, as I commented on the discussion page, I saw value in NING in education but unfortunately it became one of the blocked tools in our district. (I understand this due to the fact that although NING has a fine network of educators, they also had a network of porn fans.)
That said, I believe there is a place for social networking in education.
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Our students have been socially networking since the world of Xanga showed up on my radar when my kids were in middle school, they progressed to MySpace and then to Facebook, which I have recently added to my tools. Our challenge as educators is to harness the POWER of networking and educate our students on responsible networking. Think of how many things we have shared with each other during the 22 things we have explored together. Collectively we know so much more than alone. This is one of the cases where I believe the pain is worth the gain! (and believe me as your district opens up to web 2.0, there will be a little pain!)
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I have used several different “mashups” including igoogle,netvibes and Pageflakes. I have preferred netvibes for personal use and igoogle for work. Pageflakes has been used very successfully by several of our media specialist in the county for their pathfinders. Here is afabulous link to just one by our very own Buffy Hamilton, media specialist at Creekview HS. (Be sure to click across the top tabs for special areas like Environmental Science.)
I have soo many flagged posts from my readers that I may never catch up. Technology changes are coming at a fast and furious pace, almost more than I can absorb. I am now reading my feeds daily from my iphone which is at least consistent. I email myself the more important posts that are important to work. The rest get “flagged.”(hopefully one day I will return to them..)
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I found this post pretty timely, Chris Lehmanns “Practical Theory” blog is often controversial but I have to agree with these thoughts. “Expectations of Student Behavior” In this post he discusses expectations of students that teachers themselves would have a difficult time meeting. One of the comments made “”Every teacher has high expectations for kids. The best teachers have high expectations for themselves,” really hit a nerve with me. Over the past couple of years, I have seen so many of our teachers really reach out of the box and MAKE A DIFFERENCE! They have truly revolutionized the way they teach and interact with their students. Sadly, there are still those who miss the mark. One can only hope that these words of the blog sneak out and touch some who impact our young minds.
Perfect timing for this assignment. I have been exploring Google Docs for my upcoming class. I can think of so many ways to use these apps with students.
How many times do students not have access to the Office suite at home? Google Docs allow any student with internet access to create and edit documents AND share with their teachers. Another bonus is the ability to revise and review documents for improved writing skills.
Also, how about those GROUP PROJECTS!! The project can be collaborated on as a group with everyone being invited to work together from home or at school. With the online chat feature, students can communicate as they are working which is very cool. Here is a link to a sample form that I created in a couple of minutes! Also here is a link to a blog with lesson plans on writing and revision with Google Docs.
School Tube, Teacher Tube, God Tube, Science Tube and THE TUBE, YOUTUBE have revolutionized everything from politics to the classroom.
President Elect Obama posted over 1800 videos to YouTube during the course of his run for Presidency. Since the election he has posted 2 “State of the Union” addresses on YouTube. No doubt this tool played a huge part in his election. Remember there was no YouTube for the last election!!!
Students at the Ron Clark Academy were videoed at a Coca Cola Leadership event and posted on You Tube. The next day it had received over 25,000 hits, CNN, Fox news, Good Morning America and Larry King had them on their shows to perform “You Can Vote Anyway that You Like .”
There are literally thousands of education videos by teachers, students, coaches and administrators performing, teaching and encouraging in every genre or subject you could imagine. Here is a sample video on Solving an Algebra Inequality with DRUMS!! Go figure!
I have recently taken up pottery and subscribe to a series of videos by a Potter in Spain named Simon Leach who share his techniques with the world. His personal style and over 350 instructional videos make it like having an instructor in your home!!
What a fantastic world it is that anyone can be a star, ask a question, make a point, share a smile, learn to do anything from cooking a perfect souffle to learning to play guitar or even become President of the United States for FREE on the big old World Wide Web……
Podcasting has a special place in my heart! It was podcasting that drew my attention to the world of web 2.0 and it was podcasting that really excited me about all the amazing possibilities in education. When I first started teaching podcasting, I thought more about teacher recording lessons, ideas, project instructions, welcome to the new year…yada yada. As the class went on, I realized the POWER of the podcast was when the students PODCAST!!
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The learning that takes place in the planning, the scripting, the research, the edit and finally the “performance” is amazing. The students LOVE knowing that they are going to have an authentic audience. When they first hear themselves on iTUNES!!!! Wooo hooooo they can’t wait to do it again.
This has been such an exciting process to share. I love love love PODCASTING!!
OKAY!! Library Thing is a new tool for me. I have heard Buffy Hamilton and Kris Woods talk about it. Now I get it!! I set up my account and started searching for the books that are laying next to my bed and POOF there they appeared in a nice little library.
Then I got the SOCIAL part of the Library Thing when I saw the other people who had the same books in THEIR library and I click on THEIR library to see what they had been reading. I found some more really cool
books about clay and pottery and added them to my list and then CLICK!!! added them to my One Click order for AMAZON!!!! Yikes!!! This could become very dangerous!!
I then tried out the Group tab and because my friend Freda is turning us all into TEA NUTS, chose the TEA discussion group where they were all talking about what kind of TEA they are drinking. CRAZY!! I could see so many ways students could use Library Thing as a springboard for finding similar books to their favorites and expand their “libraries” Who knew?!!!! PS I also spent some time on the LIBRARY THING BLOG and added the feed to my READER!!
I have to confess, I have been a fan on delicious for almost 2 years. I am including the EXPLODING link of sites that I have collected. If this is your first foray into social bookmarking, it will take you a while to get used to clicking TAG and not your Favorites Center! But as you get the knack of accurately tagging and saving your your favorite sites you will LOVE it. I use it any time I am organizing a class, a project and even seasonal or personal items. EVERY NOW AND THEN, I will go in a trim the list down a little bit. BUT there is no reason to worry about running out of space and I can ALWAYS access my favorites no matter which computer in the world I am at. I EVEN have a delicious app on my iphone!!!
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I KNOW IT IS CRAAAAAAZY!!! but oh so YUMMY!
Here is the link to my delicious web 2.0 tags!
Perfect timing for this assignment. I have been exploring Google Docs for my upcoming class. I can think of so many ways to use these apps with students. 
OKAY!! Library Thing is a new tool for me. I have heard Buffy Hamilton and Kris Woods talk about it. Now I get it!! I set up my account and started searching for the books that are laying next to my bed and POOF there they appeared in a nice little library.
