Class: The finale... 11/10

Well, we have reached the end.  I won't lie and say I'm not relieved... I am .  It's hard to lose a night each week to a class.  But, I really will miss this class.  It's been such a great resource for me and I've really enjoyed each week.  Even I, who uses so much technology in class already, got a ton out of this class... it really shows how much there is out there.  I hope that I can continue to explore the tools out there for use in the classroom.

Tonight's class featured:

• Diane Ready: Really great lesson about bringing the non-living to life... through characterizations and stories.  Great use of screencasts, youtube, a wiki, Photopeach, podcasts, and Wordles.  Really interesting and looks like a lot of fun to work with!

• Annette Kahn-Arcangeli: Really nice use of Web 2.0 tools in smaller lesson components.  Use of Prezis, Photopeach, Today's Meet, Voki, and creating an interactive Word template.  Really cool ideas!

• Cindy Karalekas: Cindy had a great presentation that discussed the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.  For the lesson/unit, she used Screenr, Voki, youtube, Prezi, and Slide Share (one of my favorite tools!).  Great work, Cindy!

• Mitzi Bramble: Mitzi had some great ideas about teaching her students about digital citizenship and functioning within an online community.  She used Voki, Animoto, Photopeach, youtube, Glogster, video links, and use of a blog.  I love how connected Mitzi is to her blogging!  :)

• Shannon Wasilewski: Ok, so I was next.  My "lesson" was actually the creation of a resource for my students while writing their secondary source critical analysis papers.  I primarily used Screen-Cast-O-Matic and I also used (and loved!!) Slide Share.  Love it!

• Abbie Grant: Abbie's lesson was a wonderful resource for her students!  It was a resource for her Civil Rights unit and used Prezi, youtube, Flickr, Glogster, Scrapblog, and a discussion section on the wiki.  Great tools and a great resource!

• Ann Marie Piscitelli:  Great lesson on Fraction and Decimal Equivalents.  So many great Web 2.0 tools in this lesson, including youtube, Screenr, Toondoo, Mathtrain.tv, Wordle, and a discussion section on the wiki for text/worksheet questions.  Really great ideas here!

• Alicia Campellone:  Alicia redesigned a lesson on earthquakes- and what a fabulous lesson!  So many wonderful tools that students could get very excited about using... all while learning about earthquakes.  I especially liked that there was so much "local" and "real world" data about earthquakes- really cool!  Alicia used Wallwisher, RSS feeds for local earthquakes, links to the USGS site, youtube, Glogster, video, and Xtranormal.  Very, very cool stuff here!

• Cathy Robbins:  I loved Cathy's presentation, because you could just tell that she was thrilled with everything that she had learned in the class... and was excited by everything that she put together.  And deservedly so... there were so many great tools here!  Her lesson was on the novel Where the Red Fern Grows.  She used Photopeach, videos, Prezi, youtube, Pixton, Voki, Glogster, Storybird (so cool!), and a discussion section on the wiki.  Great work!

• Julie Grant:  Julie had a challenge as she is a technology teacher... how does one create a lesson about technology using technology?  But she did just that... and beautifully.  She created a resource which showed examples of all of the Web 2.0 tools and the assignment was for students to experience the examples and then choose one with which to work.  Great stuff here, including Blabberize, Voki, Capzles, Xtranormal, Photopeach, Pixton, Creaza, podcasts, Prezi, Jing, and Screenr.  Cool!

• Sue Forrest: Great lesson on Literal vs Figurative Language, specifically focusing on similes and metaphors.  There were great tools here, such as Prezi, Screenr (my favorite of all of her tools!), Storybird, Quia, and acrostic poems.  I really enjoyed the use of MS Word to create the screencasts- being able to see the poem analysis being modeled before attempting it would be so helpful for students!  Great job!

So... that's all.  Again, I will miss this class, although I am happy to have my Thursday nights back!  ;)  Thanks Keri!

Class Presentations: The First Half (11/3)

Today we saw:

Alan Scharman

• Very cool math lesson about perfect squares utilizing all different Web 2.0 tools, including: screencasts, comics, videos, a wiki, etc

Jackie Buckner

• Lesson about Expected v Unexpected Behavior using MS Movie Maker, Voki, etc

Sarah Sykes

• A comprehensive lesson about the different features of nonfiction vs fiction books.  Uses Voki, Wordles, and Voice Thread. I wasn't aware of Voice Thread, so it was cool to see it in action.  I'll definitely check it out further.

Linda Lorman 

• A lesson about Chinese culture, especially about how to make a Chinese coil pot.  This lesson used a very cool Powerpoint, which was automated and narrated using Jing.  So very cool.

Janette Witschel

•  An intriguing Spanish lesson about Hispanic Heritage Month, utilizing Youtube, Voki, Vocaroo, Screenr, Photopeach, TeacherTube, and Zooburst.  Very neat activities for the students!

Maureen Brawley

• Another Spanish lesson- this time about verbs.  This lesson features Flickr, Prezi, and Audioboo.  I wasn't aware of Audioboo, so this was an introduction for me- I like it.

Leigh Ricci-Williams

•  A French lesson about favorite meals (hard to sit through this close to dinner!).  :)  This used many tools, including Prezi, Pixton, Flickr, Photopeach, Audioboo, and Youtube.  I loved that the annotation feature of Flickr was used!

Gloria Lehan

• A lesson about the novel The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.  This lesson was very comprehensive and included a wiki that was full of different resources that students could use as they explore the book.  Some of the resources utilized Prezi, Wordle, Audioboo, a screencast, Glogster, and Youtube.

All in all, such a great night of presentations.  The way that some of my classmates have utilized the different tools we have learned (and some that we haven't!) is quite mind blowing.  I'm looking forward to next week's class... although not my presentation so much.  ;)

tHURSDAY, the twenty-eighth of oCTOBER, 2011 CE

Today in class, Keri came to us full of brand new (to her AND to us) Web 2.0 tools.  There were so many different tools that I couldn't write them all down.  However, the ones I checked out were:

• Newspaper Generator (create a newspaper-type article)
• SketchFu (create or find drawings, post them, see them drawn)
• Pintrest (pinned related articles, pictures, and websites together)
• Tikatok (create a book)
• WallWisher (pin together links, videos, pictures)

Some cool stuff in those pages.  I especially liked the Newspaper Generator... I think that would be fun for students to use to create stories, reactions, and/or projects.

Keri just mentioned going upstairs to the Language Lab again to work further on screencasting.  This makes me excited, because maybe I can get some work done on my lesson redesign!  :)

Social Bookmarking: Accessing your favorite websites from anywhere at anytime... and share with other teachers.  I'm excited to get this information explained- this didn't make sense to me when I read the chapter.

• Diigo : A social bookmarking site that will keep a hold of all of the pages you want to bookmark.

Class today, the 20th of October in the year of 2011

Today we spent the class learning about screencasting.  What a great tool!  We played around with creating a screencast- the direction was to make it "fun".  And then there was a mention of prizes.  That made me crazy... because then it had to be "good".  My competitive nature getting in my way again!  :)

We were introduced to two different screencasting websites.  The first was ScreenR and the other was Screencast-O-Matic.  I tried both, but the ScreenR site was having trouble, so I gave up and moved to Screencast-O-Matic.  I loved that one and created two screencasts.

My screencast was about uploading to a wiki.  I enjoyed the process of creating it and I think it has a future in my classroom.  I am also thinking about using this tool in my Lesson Redesign assignment for class.

Great work today!

Class on October 13th, 2011

Today's class started out by checking in with the students to make sure we were all on the same page with our lesson re-design assignment.  We then made sure to record our personal wiki sites (both the fun and the lesson re-design) on the Intro to Ed Tech class wiki.

We then watched the CommonCraft video entitled 'Podcasting in Plain English'.  Podcasting allows us to record things (classes, voices, lectures, etc) and post them on the internet.  I've used podcasting in the past to record lectures from class and post them onto my class wiki for those students who needed to hear a lecture again or for students who missed class.  As my lectures and teaching style has changed, I've been less likely to record my classes.  It was a great tool for a lecture based class, but as my classes have become less lecture based, it's been less useful.

As a part of our discussion about podcasting, we were introduced to Audacity, which is software that can help you record and save podcasts.  You need to download the software and then you can spend many happy hours recording podcasts.

We had a quick break and sang Happy Birthday to AnnMarie- and ate delicious cupcakes.  It's always fun to have something to celebrate!  ;)

We spent the rest of class working on our assignments and getting things together.  Keri circulated and helped those students who needed more time.  I worked on putting together my wiki, blog, and then started creating a Prezi for my lesson redesign.  Good class!

10/6 Class

Tonight's class started with some catching up. Some students in the class still needed some clarification between blogs and wikis, and the best use for both types of technology.  It was a good refresher for everyone.

Next up on the agenda was a presentation about our lesson plan assignment that is due on November 3rd.  Keri took us to a model lesson and used it to explain what we need to do for our assignment.  Basically, the idea of the assignment is to take an old (or create a new) lesson and add Web 2.0 elements to the lesson. 

Continuing on, Keri took us to a different model lesson and used to it show us more about our lesson assignment... but also as a way to introduce Prezi, PhotoPeach, and Vocaroo.

Prezis are an online way to create presentations.  They seem to be easier to embed into wikis and blogs than a Powerpoint presentation would be.  I am already imagining how I could use this very easily.  I just made one and I like this a lot!  I will totally use this in the classroom!  I will probably incorporate this into the lesson plan I will prepare for this class.  There are so many possibilities here!  I am adding my Prezi to the blog.

Next, we are heading to PhotoPeach.  Photopeach is a way to creat eonline slideshows.  The slideshow can then be presented in a "story" format or a "spiral" format.  It also has music that can be added to the slideshow, which is a neat feature.  Photopeach seems cool, although I'm not sure how I can integrate this tool into the classroom.  It might be something that I teach to students that they can add to their own presentations.  I am adding my Photopeach slideshow to my blog.

All in all, lots of good information from class tonight.  I learned some new things, which is always good.  I love absorbing information about new technology!

Incidentally, my current favorite website is Garfield Minus Garfield.  It's hilarious.

September 29th: Class

Today's class focused on learning about RSS feeds and wikis.  I was excited to learn about RSS feeds, because I knew about them, but it's something with which I'm not terribly familar.  I was able to add a feed about my favorite EPL club, Chelsea FC. 

We also learned about wikis.  I love wikis and have been using one in my classroom for years.  I find it to be quicker and more efficient than my TeacherWeb page.  I post my assignments, handouts, study guides, and lectures on my wiki and it leaves my students with very little option but to get the work completed!

Testing out my posts...

Edited for content. Keeping the fun parts of this learning experience.

Ah, Charlie!  ;)