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.