Wow! My head is spinning from all of the content swimming around in there. This has been a good experience. My only regret is that I was not able to go about doing the things at a nice steady pace. Life happened and all of a sudden it was Thanksgiving. Then it was Christmas break. I crammed the last 19 things in starting at around Christmas break.
It has been hard for me to do many of the 23 things. I am not a person who likes change and I just experienced many things that could change the way I do things. Through this class I found out how limited I am in my personal taste. Some of the applications and sites we looked at in Thing 17 are not my style. I could not believe that people actually enjoyed some of the applications. Also, the content I teach (math) does not lend itself very easily to many of the applications we explored. Sometimes I had to make a stretch just to do something with my content.
The applications I liked were Delicious, RSS feeds, Picnik, the mashups, some of the Podcasting, and the videos. I can see myself using these things in both my personal life and professional life. I already have been able to use these and benefit from these. I know that I really want to know about more Web 2.0 applications. If there were another 23 things class where more was explored I would be interested in taking that class.
The biggest thing is to use these things and refer back to the 23 things website to refresh myself with the different tools. I will not be able to do everything and I know that if I go back once in awhile I will be reminded of the different things I can do to make my class a better learning experience. I have many ideas for my classes. I want to start implementing them soon so that when school starts next year I will have had some experience so that implementation will not be a hard thing to do.
Thank you for the experience. I learned a lot. I hope that the posts I posted and the comments I have made have been something worth reading. I tried not to post the first thoughts that popped into my head. I made sure that I constantly reread each comment and each post. I have a blog that I am keeping up for my classes and I will try to get the wiki up and running smoothly. If you want to see how I am doing please visit. (Right now both need some updating. I have been very busy with this blog.)
As a closing statement I will modify my favorite quote a little. “It is not enough to have a good blog (or wiki). The main thing is to use it well.”
I created a wiki on wikispaces. To get to my wiki click here. The process for creating the wiki was not hard. Putting content into the wiki is also easy. The toughest part is figuring out what to do with the wiki. I am not quite sure what I want to do with this wiki. I teach algebra 1, algebra 2 and geometry. If you have an idea for the wiki please comment on this post. I am open to almost anything. I want to have my students be a part of contributing to the wiki.
The wiki is a good idea if I want the students to take ownership of the information. My blog on the other hand only allows the students to comment on content, not change content. If my purpose is for students to comment on a topic, then a blog is my answer. If my purpose is for the students to create something and be able to edit their creation as they need, then a wiki is my answer.
I think that a normal website (information only) has its place in the classroom. A blog (interactive through posts and comments) also has its place in the classroom. I also think that a wiki (ownership and responsibility for the content) has its place in the classroom. I am not sure if all three need to be a part of the classroom all of the time. It will be interesting for me to see if I can get my blog running like I want and my wiki running like I want. I hope that the hard work that is put into both of these will pay off.
As I was looking at wikis I noticed that they are a lot like Googledocs in that things can be updated and changed by almost anybody. I think that I will be using wikipedia off and on. I have heard good things and bad things about wikipedia. Many people do not put much trust in the information given at wikipedia. I have found the information there quite useful. It at least gives a place to start looking if I am doing any research.
While looking over the different wikis I did a search for math wikis and found Math Wiki. This site is a site where the information is supplied mostly by high school students. I thought it would be good for my students to see how other students their age explained things. This might give the students some urge to write things for this wiki or start a wiki of our own.
As I was looking at YouTube during Thing #19 I was keeping an eye out for some videos that I thought I might want to let my readers know about. I have found a few, but I will be embedding one of them. I ran across this video a few years ago and loved it I hope you will too.
If you cannot see the video click here to view it at YouTube.
I was also able to download a video using the keepvid site. Of the choices I thought that keepvid was the easiest.
I have watched many videos on YouTube in the past. Some of the videos that were suggested on the Thing #19 site I have seen before. These reminded me of many more videos that I have seen and loved. Even though I have been aware of YouTube for a few years now, I have never registered on the site before. I am not sure the benefits to registering, but I’m sure I will find out sometime. I have found many different videos to show my students. Some have been for their educational enhancement and some were just for fun. I will be using YouTube more and more in class, even though YouTube is blocked for the students, and not for the teachers.
I decided to look at Slideshare. There are a lot of different presentations on this site. I liked the presentation named “Amazing Math Trick“. This presentation has 21 different math “tricks”. I enjoyed this because these math tricks are based on algebra and I have 21 math tricks at my finger tips to show my students. I will most likely use this site to find resources for school. I do not see me using this site for home.
To be honest, when I looked at the list of the different Web 2.0 applications we had to choose from I rolled my eyes. I did not see anything that I would actually use. Then I took a look at five or six applications, hoping I would find something I would use.
The first application I tried out was bubbl.us. It makes a brainstorming type map. I tried it out. I liked how easy to use it was. I could see me using this if I was an English teacher or history teacher or maybe even a science teacher. I do not see me using this as a math teacher. I know that many people would yell “wait a minute!” You could do _______ (insert anything you want). My reaction is “Yes I could do _______, but this application is not the place to do it.” Most of the illustrations with this type of map that I would use are more complicated than what I could do with bubbl.us. Basic brainstorming activities would work nicely here. I just don’t see me using it.
I tried out a couple more applications and then settled for writing about Writeboard. This application is a very basic form of Googledocs. The comparison is what Notepad is to Microsoft Word. If you are creating something that does not need to have pizazz or special symbols then this might be something you could utilize. It is a document creating program. You can author something on your own or include different people to make this document a collaboration. The nice thing about this application is that it saves every modification and allows you to compare different versions. This is nice so that if different people are authoring the same document you can see who made what changes. I liked this application. For basic documents this is a great tool.
I have never heard of creative commons before this “thing”. I think I need to read and understand copyright law and creative commons, especially for my job as a teacher. I am constantly looking for and using good teaching items online and off-line. I know that as I have been looking for things on the internet I did not know to look for the CC logo. Now when I am on line I will be keeping an eye out for it. I do not have my students do anything online, but I if I did I would be sure to have my students informed about copyright and creative commons. On my other blog for my classes I make sure not to post anything that I did not create myself. I will have to look into the creative commons so that my creations can be used as I wish them to be. This “thing” has been interesting. I now have some investigating to do.
I looked at the two different podcast directories and found that the Education Podcast Network did not have much on mathematics. (Since I am a math teacher I look for things that might be relevant to my students.) Many of the links did not work. I was disappointed that I kept getting non-working links. I tried different topics and still found many links not working. I left EPN disappointed.
I then tried Podcast Alley. I thought that might be a better experience. That was not the case. I was glad there was an education topic, even though it wasn’t easy to find. It was overwhelming trying to see what was in this site. It was like going to the filing cabinet where I throw in everything. It was hard to find what I needed. I even searched for some specific topics and came up with a load of garbage. It was hard to sift through. It was then that I appreciated how EPN had educational topics and some filters for the junk.
As I am typing this out and rereading my writings it looks as if I am against the podcast directories. I am not against them. I just had a hard time maneuvering through the sites to get to what I wanted and I got frustrated. I did not find anything I liked. I could give you links to some of the podcasts I listened to but that would be a waste of our time.
The iTunes store is where I found the most help and the least frustration. I was able to find a lot of stuff. Some of the same podcasts that I “bumped” into at EPN were at the iTunes store.
I want to do more with podcasts. I certainly want to find interesting places to go and listen to. I even want to try my hand at creating podcasts. Overall I think that podcasts are a great invention.
Today I spent a lot of time trying to view the videos on “Great Educational Podcasts”. It took me an hour, or so, to finally figure out that the QuickTime videos were not going to play directly from the Wayne RESA website. Once I was able to view the videos I was intrigued by the idea of podcasts and podcasting. I found a few websites where I thought the podcasts were worth listening to. The problem I kept bumping into was that it took a long time to go through each of the podcasts that I did listen to. My head was swimming from all of the information I heard during the past couple of hours.
Of the podcasts I listened to I think the one with Michigan’s Superintendent, Mike Flanagan, about what he thinks the next step for the education system in Michigan was of the greatest interest. The podcast I listened to can be accessed here. I also found that the website learningmatters.tv had some interesting podcasts. The two I listened to were the opposite sides of the new government program called Race to the Top. Race to the Top is basically a competition between states who are competing for government funds that go towards education. The podcast that is for the new program can be accessed here. The podcast that is against the new program can be accessed here.
Overall I think that podcasting can be a valuable resource, whether I find others’ work or I create my own. I can see that podcasting will change how ideas are presented.
