Thing #16 Library Thing

I checked out the different aspects of Library Thing. I'm already using the Visual Bookshelf on Facebook. They are similar in that both allow you to keep track of your books and read other people's reviews. I like the VB because it is simple and I can see what my friends are reading quickly. Library Thing has a lot more functionality with the tag clouds, and recommendations. I like following a tag to see what other books in that category are out there. I usually do that through lists on Amazon. The book suggester didn't work for me. It just brought up the book I entered.

For work, I could see creating a group to explore books on science. It could be a way of doing a book study for staff development.

Thing #15 My First Wiki

Tyrissa Wiki is my very first wiki. This is definitely just in time staff development. I need to create a wiki for a geology class I'm taking that starts on Saturday. So, I was very motivated to learn how to do this. I need the wiki for my class because my team will be creating virtual field trips for our assigned locations and we'll need a space to work in collaboratively. We'll be working on the virtual field trip while we are on the trip but we'll need to finish it when we get back. Since the participants live all over TX, a wiki is perfect for this purpose.

I thought the instructions were straight forward and I would whip this thing out. Like normal, I was wrong. I seemed to have to try everything a couple of times before I could get it to work. I don't know if it is really that hard or if it is just part of the whole no sleep thing. One of the hardest things for me to do was to get my layout to save correctly. It would all be lined up right in the edit mode but when I selected save, the pictures and text would move about. I finally got them to stay in line by putting many rows between each picture and each section. Then when I selected save, everything stayed where it belonged.

Thing #14 Exploring Wikis

I enjoyed reading Vicki Davis' blog on Wiki Wiki Teaching. I think it is really cool when kids get excited about a project and take over ownership like that. I checked out some of the study guides that the students put together. The real value in something like that is for the students creating it and the ones reading and adding or editing it. However, it wasn't easy to figure out the dates for what I was looking at. I had to go back to look at the history to figure out that it was from 2005. It made me think about all that data out there. I wonder if students from the next year figured the wheel had already been created so they could just use the existing page? Would they learn as much? Should the old ones be taken down? It made me also think about the geology class that I'm taking this summer. The preparation for the field portion is being done through a website, blogs and a Facebook group. Last year's website is still out there too and a teacher that was just added to the class found it and ended up confused about what we will be doing this year. She thought she was looking at the page for this year. Just something to think about when leaving everything out there.

I also checked out 1001 Flat World Tales. I loved the idea of have students from around the world collaborate on writing. I found the site confusing though and it looks like it has been abandoned. It would be nice if the creator posted something about that so you weren't left hanging.

I found the SalutetoSeuss site very satisfying. The purpose of the site was very clearly stated and it had a beginning and ending date posted. Students were to create wiki, blog or other product about a Dr. Seuss book. It was easy to find the student work also.

Code Blue was a creative way to combine having students learn about different medical careers while also having to show that they understand how a body system works.

Most of the wiki pages I looked at seemed to be organized by having links to the different pages on the left sidebar.

I'll be creating and using a couple of wikis. I'll create one wiki for the Science Resource Center. It will have delivery schedules, inventory sheets, FAQ's, and other resources dealing with science materials and equipment. It will be a restricted wiki though because not everyone will be able to make changes on it. Another wiki I will be creating is for my virtual field trip team for the geology class I'm taking this summer. That wiki will serve as a place for us to continue to collaborate after the field portion of the class. We'll be needing to produce a product and we live all over the state. I might also create a wiki for the Regional Science Fair committee members so we can make sure we all have the same information.

Thing #13 Using Delicious

Using Delicious to keep all my bookmarks in a central place accessible from any computer is a no-brainer for me. I love the idea of having access to other people's bookmarks too. Patty suggested we start a district science account on Delicious. I think that is a great idea. While writing curriculum last week, I kept saying, "Remember that link I emailed out?" Everyone would then start searching their email archives to find the link to the website we needed. If they had been saved in a science delicious account, we could have saved all that time!

Thing #7a Update from the RSS Feed

Gladwell Calls out Insipid Digital Utopia caught my eye because I'm interested in all things Gladwellian. Gladwell reviewed Chris Anderson's, Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Anderson believes that digital information will eventually all be free. Gladwell contends that this is wishful thinking. He compares this thinking to claims in the 50's that nuclear power would be free. The people in the 50's were wrong because they didn't consider the cost of infrastucture, distribution, waste disposal etc... and Anderson is wrong too because he can't begin to consider all aspects of digital distribution. Gladwell concludes by saying, "The only iron law here is the one too obvious to write a book about, which is that the digital age has so transformed the ways in which things are made and sold that there are no iron laws."

Thing # 12 Discovering Web 2.0 Tools

I used Blabberize to create the talking photo. However, when I saved it the mouth didn't move anymore. I tried a couple of times without success. Not sure how to use this efficiently in the classroom. You could just shoot video to begin with or do a voice over. Maybe you could use it to have the organisms in a food web explain their positions. It takes a while to get the mouth selected so it moves correctly and then of course you would have to see if it works in the end. This site is open to comments so it has a social aspect in that way.

I created a to-do list in Ta Da and I checked out 30boxes but I would never use them. I already have a to-do list and calendar in Outlook and I'm trying to simplify my life not complicate it. I need everything in one place.

I created a poll in Poll Daddy but can't get it to post here. I use polls and surveys all the time in my job to find out what teachers need or want. I can definitely see using them in the classroom also. You could do a pre-class and post-class science attitude survey. I'll probably stick to using the survey option in Goggle Docs though unless I need a different type of functionality.

I thought Gliffy was going to be a homerun since collaborative concept maps are a standard in science instruction. It only has a 30 day free trial though and then you have to subscribe. So, it is out.

I really like Wordle. I can see having students come up with terms that relate to science and then having to defend their choices. They could print their final product to decorate the cover of their science notebook. I could not get this to post here though using the html so I had to print it to pdf and then convert the pdf to a jpg file and upload it as an image.

I think Weebly has possibilities too. I need to have a website for the Science Resource Center. Right now we are talking about putting up a wiki for it in the district wiki site. I don't know if that is what we really need though. Wiki's are for collaboration and for the SRC site, I just want to post information.

Thing # 11 Using Image Generators

I created the sun image using the Visual Poetry template from ImageChef. I used the Word Mosaic template from ImageChef to create the conserve water droplet image. I liked Patty's idea of using these to have kids make an image of an element's symbol with words describing the element inside the symbol. It tried to simplify that and think of ways to use it with elementary students.

I also played around with some of the Flickr Mashups. I especially liked Colr Pickr. However, I didn't want to spend time crediting everyone so I deleted my creations. :-(

Thing #10 Embedding a Slideshow

Renewable Resources

This slide show reviews renewable natural resources as defined by TEA

in the 5th Grade Science TAKS study guide. I used slide.com to create

the slideshow. It has a music option but nothing seemed appropriate.

The slideshow was very quick and easy to create once the photos

were located. The only thing I didn't like was that the title of the

slideshow doesn't show. I had to put a label above it in the blog so that

it made sense. Having to create links to both the photo and

the photographer's photostream on Flickr was very time consuming.

Photo Credits

1. Soil by Soil-Science.info

2. Animals by law_keven

3. Water by snapr

4. Air(Oxygen) by [xinita] is Oliver Twist!

5. Plants by pusteblume

Thing #9 Using Flickr

As part of this assignment, I decided to search for pictures of renewable natural resources. I liked this cool cow picture that law_keven posted on Flickr and decided to download it. I'll use it as part of a slideshow on natural resources.

In exploring how other educators are using Flickr, I really liked how Teacher Dude used it to teach vocabulary. Students had to find pictures to illustrate words. Since having students illustrate key terms is a basic strategy for vocabulary instruction, this just adds another way of going about doing that.

Overall, Flickr isn't quite as user friendly for me as Wikimedia Commons. It seems like you have to go through more steps to find what you need. That may just be lack of familiarity on my part. It does provide me with another source of photos though. I didn't realize before that some pictures in Flickr had Creative commons licensing.