BL18_Change-Access to Web 2.0 in the Classroom_Final Project_2009114

BL17_2009113_Reflective Media Asset

Greetings from a great new site I found to be able to create flashcards, puzzles, word searches, jig saws with words that you chose. You can produce your own quizzes, scramble them, grade them! Think of it you no longer have to bring your computer with you!! Check it out www.proprofs.com

BL16_2009113_Researching and Blogging about Web 2.0 tools

sunday, november 15, 2009

BP15_20091115_ReflectiveMedia

Click on the link above to view the movie

A web burglar introduces you to a new Web 2.0 website.

BL15_2009113_Researching and Blogging about Web 2.0 tools

I had a great time looking at everyone's sites but was really excited at some new Web 2.0 sites I found.  You will need to check this site out because it has numerous creative aspects to use in your classroom.  I can not wait to use this for a lesson next week. I will create it this weekend to help me teach my students. This site is called "Proprofs" - click on the link so that you can explore http://www.proprofs.com/ I zeroed in on the flashcard part of this site so that I can teach Web 2.0 vocabulary to my students. http://www.proprofs.com/flashcards  

Many sites are blocked at our school but I want to introduce my students to the vocabulary so they can check things out at home. My sixth grade students love flashcards that they can play with on their computer screen and work at their own pace. Since we do not have programs at school the students can use I will be able to type in my own definitions and terminology to customize for my classroom usage.  There are also different flashcards that are premade by others in many different subjects to choose from. By picking a premade set you can customize them to fit your class. This site also has a way to create and customize quizzes as well.  The quiz section allows you to shuffle your quiz, add images to your quizzes and also have two-way feedback. ProProfs provides free knowledge sharing tools and free online education. It also has blogs, wikis and a webschool.  Let me know what you think!

BL14_2009113_Researching and Blogging about Web 2.0 tools

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2009

McKinley_Megan_Researching and Blogging about Web 2.0 Tools 3

http://www.zinepal.com/ is this amazing Web 2.0 site where you can turn your blogs into a printable magazine. This is exciting because after this class I could go back and take all the blogs I have written for this class and turn them into a professional looking magazine that I could take along with my on job interviews to show my media background. It would be a great site to use with students as well because you could have them blog on literature as they were reading novels in your English class, and then have them turn all of their blogs into a really exciting magazine as their final projects. This would be a great lesson that would really engage the "whole brain" learning approach, as it involves critical thinking skills, as well as creativity. Students could upload photos or graphics to make their magazines more visually exciting and it would be something they could take away from class and add to their own professional portfolios. I am definitely going to try this site once I am done with this class, so that I could have a paper version of all the hard work I have done in this class. I think students would also get a sense of accomplishment from having their very own magazine to have at the end of my classes. I also think I could use this site in my Journalism class to show students the differences between Newspapers and Magazine layouts. I am really excited to try out this tool both in my own life and in my classes.

Zinepal Solutions Inc. (2008-2009). Zinepal. Now you are the editor. Retrieved November 8, 2009, from http://www.zinepal.com/

BL13_2009113_Researching and Blogging about Web 2.0 tools

Click below to link out to Hardy's video 

I wanted everyone to see it!!

BP10_2009118_Reflective Media Asset

couple of quick reasons on why www.yacapaca.com is used in my classroom.

BL12_2009113_Researching and Blogging about Web 2.0 tools

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2009

BP07_20091108_Researching Web 2.0 Tools

There are so many Web 2.0 tools to choose from that it makes it really difficult to narrow the search. Here are three that I have had the chance to play around with and would like to work them into using in my music classroom:





Voki is a program created by Oddcast that gives you a chance to create your own speaking avatar that can be added to profiles and other web environments. The avatar can be personalized using drag and drop interfaces. You can record your own voice by using the phone, a mic, or by using text to speech or text to sing. There are also built-in voice choices and effects. You have your choice of characters including people, animals, and even vehicles, along with different themes and accessories. I wanted an avatar to represent me to use in preparing media presentations to be used in my classroom as well as on my web page and this tool shows a lot of promise. I am going to create a music room mascot or maybe several for different grade levels just to add another layer of fun. Pay a visit to Voki.com and enjoy!



Quizlet is a tool that can be used to create flashcards that can be used for group study and review, to introduce new material through games of matching that are timed. There is a learning mode that will keep track of scores and a test mode that allows for different question and answer formats. I see a lot of valuable uses for this tool for the six different grade levels of music classes as well as my before and after school groups. I am in the process of creating my own sets to try out for next week’s lessons using some basic music fundamentals, and also some questions related to the recorder and piano. I will update this blog and let you know how it comes out. Stop by Quizlet.com and check out all of the sets that are already available.



DoInk.com provides a tool for creating and sharing animations and I thought my students might enjoy seeing them in various media assets as well as having the chance to create their own and share with others, maybe to add to a song they have created or a sound story. Being in a fine arts magnet school, we enjoy the artwork of our students among their many other talents and I think this would be another way of them being able to express themselves and still use it with a musical connection.

BL11_2009112_Researching and Blogging about Web 2.0 tools

Google Earth     http://www.google.com/educators/index.html This is a great site to use in the classroom for teachers. I need to tell you that the Google Earth Pro site costs $400 but last year when I joined it was free for Educators.  I had to contact Google Earth and tell them I was an educator and would be using their product in the classroom.  I had to give specific examples of how I would use this in the class.  They also required a letter from my principal verifying my authenticity as an Educator.  I did not care because the product and the time was well worth it for the product.  Our district provided us with specific training on how to use the product in the classroom.  This year they now have Explore the Moon, Explore the Ocean, Mars 3D and historical imagery.  You can create a trip and save it.   By being able to save the trip you can adapt it from year to year, show it to your class each hour without recreating it each time.  I was teaching American History last year and created a Historical Battle Sites lesson that was great.  There are also lessons on Google created and shared by other teachers. You can use them or adapt them for your class.  Teaching sixth grade we study Africa and the Middle East so you can show the students the terrain, mountains, etc.  Have fun with it, the students love it.  It also has 3-dimensional available and you can add the state lines,  and roads.  Many of my students have never been outside the state of Florida so after the Presidential election teaching Government I was surprised at how many eighth grade students thought that the Vice President lived in the White House with the President of the United States!  I took them on a trip and showed them where the White House was and where the Vice Presidents lived.  I could even show the students the Masonic Star in Washington, D.C., zoom into Philadelphia and Interdependence Hall.  Too cool!

BL10_2009112_Reasearching and Blogging about Web 2.0 tools

Google Books This another new site that is great that Google has.  http://www.google.com/books Apparently book publishers filed a class action suit against Google for having books available to read on line.  Google has come to an agreement with the publishers and now has a site that you can read many books on line or preview them. This is a great opportunity to be able to let your students sample different books and authors without ever leaving the classroom, while under your direction and guidance. This lets the student explore different genres for their pleasure as well as different authors.  As we know students are more willing to read and engage with a computer screen than with actual published text.  Wish I had this site available when I taught reading. You could even let them read to you to check their fluency on the book because they are in class with you.  I can not wait to see if I can use this site at school. Try it out www.books.google.com. Sounds to me that this is better than e-books. I would like to know how many of you have Web 2.0 tools you have available to access at your school sites.  If you could post and let me know what city and state you are from I would be very interested to know.

Some how  lost my extra post about this site.  www.artpad.art.com  It is an interactive site where students can engage and play with art skills and when you are done it will show you all of the strokes and things you did to complete the picture.  You can paint, splash paint on, etc.  You can view the gallery and share your pictures as well. Try it you will love it !!  http://artpad.art.com/artpad/painter/

I can post but not comment

Does any one have an idea as to why I can not comment to any blog including my own? Seems to me it must be a setting. HELP!

Test for me

Can I post to my own blog? Can't post any where else.

BL9_2009112_Researching and Blogging about Web 2.0 Tools

Glitterfly.com   I found this great new fun site to use with my students.  As you can see the students can really be creative with this site and images.  The can really change up their projects with this.  My students do a projects called "All About Me" that begins with them not even being able to create a Power Point to a full movie with sound and narration.  This site can perk up the most dull Power Point project and give them a chance to expand it beyond a regular project.

The site also gives you a url like this to link http://www.glitterfly.com/ to many different places. There are so many possibilities to use this site with projects that students can really be creative with. I love to create different things and know that this saves as a gif extension. I am still learning many of these things so my question of the day is can you import this into iMovie and keep the glitters and flitters available?  It was so cool to just click on the

icon and your sparkle picture is posted to your blog!

The chart above has some other Web 2.0 tools that I had taken the time to explore but then there are many sites that I have never heard of like Black Planer, Multiply, H5. This page also has links to be able to create your own layouts, fun backgrounds. You can also link and add pictures to your own websites as well. Think that I will try to add this picture to my iWeb site as well. So many toys, so little time to play with them!

Tried to import this to my iWeb site but was unable to get it to work. I think one of my followers would have the knowledge of how to do this. If you know post the answer so we can all see!

BL8_2009112_Researching and Blogging post

BL7_2009112_Social Bookmarking

This was quite an interesting assignment to see how many ways social bookmarking could contribute to the learner and the educator.I just completed teaching sixth grade students what research is and how to do it.I did this in conjunction with a science teacher at my school.I never new about any of this until this class with Rena and thankful to not only see how to use it my classroom but to also apply to my learning. Forbes (2204), talked about in her article how she went into a computer lab to see the students with all kinds of yellow post-it notes for doing their computer research.My experience was not quite as bad because they listed all their information on one page.The problems arose with the students not having their research with them at school each day because parents were helping them at home.If I had been able to use "Delicious" in the classroom I could have shared with the librarian and we could have created tags and tag clouds for this project.We could have control of the site to use in the library and classroom and would also be able to refine it as we went through the project.Since we do this project each year we would not have to recreate the project each time.We also could have created a learning community for this project so the students could share and talk about what they have learned.Taught them how to embed hyperlinks into the blogs to share and/or connect them through the the "Delicious" site.There are so many possibilities for classroom use.Watch my commercial I created to promote the use of Web 2.0 technology in the classroom.The articles below had some very interesting ideas to expand on what I wrote.

Forbes, L. (2004). Using web-based bookmarks in K-8 settings: Linking the Internet to Instruction. Reading Teacher, 58(2), 148-153. Retrieved from ERIC database on November 7, 2009.

Oravec, J. (2002). Bookmarking the world: weblog applications in education. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 45(7), 616. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database on November 8, 2009.

Tagging & social bookmarking (2007). Library Technology Reports, 43(5), 58-61. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database on November 8, 2009.

BP6_2009112_ReflectiveMediaAsset

Please click on the BP title for the link to my video.  Did anyone else have a problem uploading the movie?  It told me it failed because it did not recognize the format.  It stated on the instruction page it accepted mpeg format which is how my movie was saved but it failed the six time I tried to upload so I uploaded to You Tube so it would work.  Hope you had an easier go of it.

BL5_2009112_Flickr

I would like to create a lesson using FlickR for my classroom for Science by gathering pictures about natural historical landmarks that show signs of weathering and erosion for the students to use to create a trifold publication to show what weathering and erosion is doing to these landmarks and what is being done to preserve the landmarks.

There were also some good free sites trying to start a blog to create lessons by the month. I found this lesson that could be adapted to your class. http://www.interfacemagazine.co.nz/lesson_plans.cfm - click on my BL5 title to get to this site.  I am still learning about all of our new Web 2.0 tools and trying different things with them.

Here is another specific site:  http://www.interfacemagazine.co.nz/downloads
http://INTERFACE%20Lesson%20Plan%2042%20-%20Five%20Card%20Flickr%20Story.pdf

Free tools if you go to this site:  http://www.interfacemagazine.co.nz/links.cfm

Free sites for lessons and printables for teachers: http://www.sitesforteachers.com/index.html

I enjoyed looking at the photos beginning on the ETC flickr page.  There are some interesting pictures!!

BL4_2009111_ResearchingandbloggingaboutWeb2.0tools

There were many interesting sites that seemed great to use in the classroom but many that I checked looked like they were free but really not. Many sites had a free trial period before you had to pay.These would not be acceptable for most teachers as we know there is no money for this school budgets. Some sites will let the subscriber use the site but will not remember what was done as Typing-Web. To subscribe for a meaning tool in the classroom it would be around $900 + . Not sure if this was for a year or you own the program for that fee.

Found another cool looking site that seemed to be a great classroom site called "EkoLoko" http://play.ekoloko.com/ekoloko/index.html. This was an Ecological Virtual tour of the Environment for Kids as well as being interactive about friendship, nature and the world "at risk". It really had great ideas to help the students with critical thinking skills and to help the world around us but the characters in the "environment" were smoking pipes or cigarettes and blowing smoke!! Turns out this site is from Israel and it must be acceptable to smoke in front of the students. Sad they had to ruin a great site.

Another great site that I found was PB works, formerly PB wiki. The new site is https://pbworks.com. Before we knew about all of the iGoogle products my colleague created a wiki site to collaborate with at http://fullsailjuly09.pbworks.com/. This is also one that our school district has been working with for us to use in the classroom that is gated. The teacher would have control of it. You could get students to collaborate on projects together, put videos on it for tutorials so they could view at home, etc. Another great thing to implement for your students. Mine from last year was http://mumlttcadreorr.pbworks.com/  You can add video, images, links, etc. while you are monitor.

The next item I thought to use to teach my students was a skill they need to know since so many of them are into video taping and photography was about sizing and resizing images. Students many times want to email or use images for different reasons but do not understand that different cameras and media devices save images in many different sizes. Most students do not realize that when they are unable to upload a picture to the email it is because of the large size and how much memory it can use. I found a site called "Re-sizer" that will take a large image (3264 X 2448 - 960 KB) and size it in usable form to 200 X 150 but putting through the re-sizer. The site is http://resizr.lord-lance.com/ and it is very useful. It does the re-size as simple as I have seen. Here is the picture that I re-sized. My colleague does not even realize how large the file for this one picture actually was.

This is a tool students need to know about for the 2.0 digital world they will be living in. Most students do not know or understand this as life long skill they need to develop. As an educator in the digital world it is my job to teach them about this.

BL3_Orr_Toni_Getting Started With Blogger

I can see the many benefits of the blog and have started to learn about them through our Action Research Blogs that were created through iWeb in our earlier classes. This is an interesting form of communication. This allows one to place their thoughts down and keep your ideas where they are easily accessible. The blogs will also help to share common information with other colleagues working on similar projects. It is a great way to get your critical friends to be involved on their own schedule but also give you input and feedback. I see why students could care less about school but care about all of the social networking. By creating assignments to connect them with each other we as educators can get them to buy in to projects since it is done on the computer.

The benefit of the Blog in the classroom is that the teacher is the author and is control of the setup and how it will be used. The use of the blog is better than the wiki because the wiki can be changed and has multiple authors, thus not under the teacher control. The articles that I read talked about using the blog to create Higher Order Thinking (HOT) skills. They can be used to promote deep conceptual understanding of core curriculum. Students buy into their learning environments because they are now apart of it. The first article sited explains the differences between wikis and blogs and different sites to use for classroom blogs.  The article gives implicit instruction on set up and use.

These articles give ideas on things to use specifically in the modern classroom environment and how students today need these skills for society today.  These are skills for the twenty-first century and we as educators need to teach, explain and guide our students where they need to go.These skills need to be monitored and led by a skilled instructor for a true constructive learning environment.

Flierl, R., & Fowler, H. (2007). Educational uses of blogs and wikis. Phi Delta Kappan, 89(3), C3. http://search.ebscohost.com

Higdon, J., & Topaz, C. (2009). Blogs and wikis as instructional tools: A social software adaptation of Just-in-Time teaching. College Teaching, 57(2), 105-110. http://search.ebscohost.com

Zawilinski, L. (2009). HOT blogging: A framework for blogging to promote higher order thinking. Reading Teacher, 62(8), 650-661. http://search.ebscohost.com

BL2_2009111_GoogleReader

I have learned other new information about what RSS feeds are and how they can really help to use as a technology teacher trying to keep up with all the latest news. By using my new Personal Learning Environment I will have everything at my finger tips without having to continuously search web pages for information. This brings newest information right to my own page so I will not be wasting valuable time. I need to see if this type of incoming information will be available at school or just from home. So much of the Web 2.0 technologies are blocked and not allowed at our school site. The feeds that I chose will help me to understand the current trends in technology use in the classroom from around the world. As I saw in the video on "Networked Students" it really tells how teachers can help students connect through these feeds to things they need for their PLE. The teacher can guide them and help them set things up in their Reader. I had never heard of any of these things before this class and I thought I was up on the latest Technology. Most people do not have any idea of what Google really is in the learning environment.

I found several great sites that I subscribed to and can not wait to find more to reinforce curriculum. I found a NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmosphere) to go with the Earth and Space Science unit we use. Also the National Hurricane Center site. Know this would have been useful the day we were at school and later that day was hit by Hurricane Charley. Did not know of the turn it took! Also several other Technology related sites to keepcurrent with technology lessons, current trends in Technology and an international Technology site to keep up with worldly Technology. Love how it gets updated without you doing it. Where have I been?? Living in nowhere ville too long!!

BP1_2009111_iGoogle_ScreenShots

Where did the post go?

Just another test - so this is test 2

My first Google Blog

1. This is just a test to get things started.
2. Will this work