06.30.08

Thing 12 – Visual Literacy Will RockYou(.com)

Posted in K12 Learning 2.0 tagged , , at 8:29 am by sblovett

Here is an example of how I might turn some Creative Commons images into a slideshow to introduce the digital camera project I discussed in my Thing 11 post to a group of students.

Slideshow Photo Credit

06.29.08

Thing 11 – Flickr Frenzy

Posted in K12 Learning 2.0 tagged , , at 3:54 pm by sblovett

What I Like About Flickr:

  • Tagging; one photo can serve many purposes (i.e. winter, snow, cold, beautiful, outdoors, etc.).
  • You can associate photos with locations on a map; this would be great for classroom geotours, fun spring break or summer vacation assignments, etc.
  • You can set the photos you upload to a private or public setting.
  • You can send photos directly to a blog or a del.icio.us page.
  • There are millions of Creative Commons photos for classroom use.
  • I didn’t run across one inappropriate photo in the two hours that I played on site.
  • You can comment on and tag others’ photos.
  • CDs and DVDs eventually corrupt; Flickr is a great way to store precious memories in a safe place.
  • I can upload photos to my Flickr account from my cell phone and even through email.

What I’m Getting Used to

  • Flickr doesn’t support posting directly to an Edublogs blog (at least when I tried to; can someone prove me wrong?)
  • Tagging can be tough because it’s entirely subjective; what I tag as “trash” might be tagged as “paper” by someone else. This makes searching interesting.
  • With a free account, I am only allowed 100MB of upload space per month; I can upgrade to a pro account for $25 for a year or $48 for 2 years. With all the free Web 2.0 tools out there, I am resistant to spend any money..

For some reason, grammatical and spelling errors seem to jump out at me as I float through my daily life. I find them in the books I read, hear them on the radio, see them on billboards, and find them in restaurant menus. These kinds of errors irritate me and I think people should be more careful about the text that they make public (I have my fingers crossed that I’ve done a good job editing previous posts!) So, in true editor form, I searched through the Creative Commons section of Flickr for photos documenting misspellings seen out and about in the world. It was amazing what showed up! There was even a group pool of photos labeled “Public Spelling Errors.” Can you see the error “set in stone” in the photo below?

I thought it might be fun to encourage a group of students to experiment with digital cameras in a similar way sometime next year. Some questions we might investigate could be: How many errors are we able to find in the world? Where do the most errors appear? What are the most common errors we find? What do these errors say about us? What are the implications of such errors? Why is careful editing so important? It would be interesting to post our findings on a class wiki and solicit responses from our parents, other teachers, or students in our school. I’m excited about the possibilities!

photo by sylvar

Flickr Photo Page

Thing 10 Stretch – OER Commons

Posted in K12 Learning 2.0 tagged , , at 12:35 pm by sblovett

I took a few minutes to browse through some of the offerings available at the OER Commons website, and this resource excited me as much as Discovery’s United Streaming site when I first discovered it. At OER, anyone can share coursework, learning modules, teaching resources, blogs and wikis, articles, and other kinds of documents with anyone who is interested: teachers, students, self-learners, etc. Topics range from global rainfall to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and tools are available from the primary through the post-secondary level.

I found an applicable resource offered through The Library of Congress that provided a significant amount of information about the Age of Exploration, Christopher Columbus, Native Americans, etc. In my grade level we use a social studies curriculum based around Joy Hakim’s A History of Us textbooks, and we are constantly looking for primary sources and differing viewpoints with which to supplement our social studies teaching. My favorite thing about this “exhibit,” as it was called, was that it included images from several Library of Congress divisions, including the Rare Book and Special Collections Division and the Geography and Map Division.

Through the OER website, you can review and comment others’ contributions, create your own portfolio of resources to share with the OER community, save items to use repeatedly, and subscribe to a specific topic or grade level’s contributions (for example, I could subscribe to the list of resources for the Primary grade level and receive each new contribution in my Google Reader account.)

Go play!

Thing 10 – Conclusions about CC

Posted in K12 Learning 2.0 tagged , , , at 11:06 am by sblovett

Wow, I am really behind the eight ball! Did anyone else not realize that the moment you finish a painting, click the final “save” on a document, or send an iMovie to burn you have a copyrighted product? For as many documents as I’ve created over the last two years to support teaching and learning in my classroom, I feel like I should have come up with a creative logo to signal that the work was mine!

I understand and appreciate the concept of Creative Commons, and I feel like thanking each person who opens the use of their products and materials up to the general public through Creative Commons licensing. However, I feel like I still need some clarification. Most of the searching my students and I do for Web content revolves around finding images for projects that we do throughout the year. I understand that we can use Creative Commons to find works that can be used or remixed, but what is the deal when we do a simple Google Image Search instead of working through Creative Commons? For example, I used the search term “flower” through Google Image Search and the first hit was a photo of a beautiful orange flower posted through About.com. What do I assume about that photo since I couldn’t locate copyright information? Can my students use it in a Keynote presentation for science class? Can I use it for a vocabulary lesson in Smart Notebook?

In my classroom, we’re comfortable with tools like flickr, net Trekker, and Web Feet for image searching, but Google seems to be our gray area, and oftentimes it is our preferred search engine. I noticed that Creative Commons has a Google tab, so I’m thinking that it’s up to the individual user to locate the acceptable use policy for each image they come across through Google before they put it into a project. I think it would be a smart idea for individual schools–and maybe even departments–to review Creative Commons and acceptable use policies at the beginning of each school year. The amount of information about copyright out there is overwhelming, and I want to feel like I am following the rules.

Thing 9 – A Quicki Wiki

Posted in K12 Learning 2.0 tagged , at 10:21 am by sblovett

As part of this K12 Learning 2.0 course, I created a wiki, something I’m pretty excited about because I can now see many uses for this type of tool in the classroom. Take a look!

06.24.08

Thing 8 Stretch – You Say Potato…

Posted in K12 Learning 2.0 tagged , , at 8:26 am by sblovett

My stretch visit to Wikipedia stemmed from a friendly, but ongoing argument that my husband and I were having about potatoes. I believe that the phrase “new potatoes” refers to a manner of preparing the vegetable, but my husband claims that “new potatoes” are actually a type of potato grown and harvested, not just a dish. Who is correct? I decided to solve the problem once and for all by consulting The World Potato Congress, The British Potato Council, The European Cultivated Potato Database, and The Potato Museum through Wikipedia (yes, I found this entry to be extensive, well-written, informative, etc.). Wikipedia also suggested that for additional information about the veggie, I visit the Wikibooks Cookbook entry about potatoes. I did, and there the answer stood, glaring me in the face:

“The term new potato is most frequently used to describe those potatoes freshly harvested and marketed during the late winter or early spring. The name is also widely used in later crop producing areas to designate freshly dug potatoes which are not fully matured. The best uses for new potatoes are boiling or mashing.”  (see page here.)

Enjoy this hunny: You were right, I was wrong.

Oh, and by the way: Happy Year of the Potato!

Thing 8 – How Do You Say “Cool” in Hawaiian?

Posted in K12 Learning 2.0 tagged , , , , at 7:58 am by sblovett

Because I haven’t had much experience with wikis, the possibilities I could imagine for wiki use in my classroom amounted only to kid-created, collaborative glossaries (perhaps around book clubs or social studies units of study), weekly newsletters, or book club discussion forums. But after looking at several great examples of some education-based wikis that are out there, I realize that a wiki is not a forum or a simple place to share ideas. Yes, ideas are exchanged through wikis, but more importantly, ideas are changed: expanded on, reflected on, switched, reversed, reconsidered, edited, made more meaningful, empowered. What happens on a wiki is up to the editor(s)!

My favorite thing I came across while trying to better understand wikis, their uses, and their organization was Mr. Monson’s Thousands Project. I tried to imagine the sense of community, involvement, excitement, and empowerment my class from last year might have felt if they had witnessed people from all over the world submitting their thoughts about the monthly questions posed. And get this: one purpose of the wiki was to learn more about geography! What a great cross-curricular goal! I was excited to contribute to the May, June, July, and August post: What are things you are going to do over the summer months? Maybe someone over in India somewhere is interested in the pleasure reading that an Atlanta teacher has planned for her summer!

Another wiki that caught my attention came from my own backyard. A fifth grade class at Woodward Academy used their wiki to share their thoughts about Turn Homeward, Hannalee by Patricia Beatty. This wiki helped me envision what a book club-type wiki might look like. I liked how each component of this wiki was categorized on the left-hand side for easy access, and I LOVED hearing actual student voices as they engaged in reader’s theater podcasts straight from the book. What a great way for students to share thinking with one another, with parents and other teachers, and with new wiki users like myself! In the past I have had my students record their conversations to practice reading fluency and strong discussion skills, but then I always struggled with what to do with their recordings once I had them. Uploading them to a wiki seems like a smart way to show students that their thoughts matter and that they have an audience.

I wonder if anyone out there grew up feeling the way I did about math. I always felt like a math dunce and would readily admit that I “hated math.” Now, as a teacher of math, I feel like I’ve turned over a new leaf, and sharing an appreciation for math learning that wasn’t conveyed to me as a child is a personal goal each year. That’s why I was excited to come across another wiki, all about Primary Math. While this wiki did help me decide that I personally like the Wikispaces format better than the WetPaint format, I loved browsing through this site. As I looked through pictures and read about students’ practical applications of math concepts, my first thought was about how neat it would be for my students to put together a culminating wiki detailing their knowledge of a unit of study once it was completed. But wait! That defeats the purpose of a wiki, right? My students would benefit most by seeing their mathematical thinking evolve all the way across a unit of study, so why not start the wiki right off the bat? At the end, they’d still be able to compare their original thoughts to where their understanding ended up!

06.17.08

Thing 7a – “Kindle”-ing a Love of Reading?

Posted in K12 Learning 2.0 tagged , , , at 4:46 pm by sblovett

My husband spends time during the day browsing for news and information on the Web that is interesting and applicable to him (or me). A few months ago he mentioned that I might want to look into downloading and purchasing eBooks that I could load onto a gadget called the Amazon Kindle. He thought I might enjoy having multiple books stored in one handy place. I have given it some thought, and I recently came across someone else’s opinion:

Kathy Schrock seems to like her Kindle so far. She mentioned that you can even connect to the Internet and listen to MP3’s with it, two things I didn’t know. It all sounds convenient and cool, but before I romanticized the product too much, I thought about what a handheld reader meant for the “old-fashioned” reading process. I realized that with a handheld, some of my favorite parts about reading would be gone: the smell of the pages, the comforting sound of the spine creaking open for the first time, the way paperbacks get worn after the third reading, loaning favorites to friends, and the attempts made at dislodging runaway graham cracker crumbs from the book’s crease. Most importantly for me, the Kindle could never replace the feeling of satisfaction I experience from stacking the books I’ve completed neatly on my bookshelf like trophies.

Unless Apple releases an update that adds a Kindle-type reader capability to the iPhone, I’m thinking that I’ll stick to the library.

Thing 5 – That’s How I Roll

Posted in K12 Learning 2.0 tagged , , at 12:06 pm by sblovett

What has struck me about subscribing to various RSS feeds is that I have instant access to changing and updated information. How cool! A post on Vicki Davis’ Cool Cat Teacher Blog caught my eye simply because it illustrated the essence of the RSS tool:

If I had subscribed–or even known that I could subscribe–to Reuters I would have learned that Pluto was relegated from its position as the 9th planet in our solar system back in 2006. Poor Pluto. Fortunately, now that I have a Pageflakes account, the news that small sphere-shaped celestial bodies will now be called “plutoids” was delivered directly to me. At least Pluto got to keep part of its name!

News: interesting, relevant, random, and fun sent to me as often as it happens. RSS. That’s how I blog roll.

06.10.08

Thing 4 – SSR…Sure Seems Relevant!

Posted in K12 Learning 2.0 tagged , at 4:13 pm by sblovett

Mark, a 3rd grade teacher from Washington State, had some interesting insight into the SSR realm. He poses a question about whether or not daily Silent Sustained Reading can take place online with students reading their own or other’s blogs. My first reaction: Ha! Finally, a way to convince my skeptical husband that he DOES have a reading life…an online reading life! My second thought: the single, most effective way to help students improve as readers is to get them reading. No strings attached, right? In my opinion, reading motivation is one of the biggest factors in the reading equation; if kids are interested in reading other’s blogs in their free time, then isn’t that simple act of reading both improving their reading skills AND potentially, their writing skills? (not to mention their critical thinking, synthesizing, connecting, brainstorming, drafting, and reflecting skills…). This is a path I’d like to wander down next year. I still have some logistical questions such as how will the process of settling into SSR time work, how will I handle reading conferences around blogs, will I ask my students to produce anything as a result of this reading, etc. Maybe Mark can help?

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