Here are the presentations/discussions that I attended/ participated in during the first half of this afternoon.
A Plan for Wiki Adoption by Ken Pruitt
Ken’s presentation was an adaptation of Stewart Mader’s Wikipatterns. Ken shared suggested strategies for implementing the use of wikis at all levels.
Educational Technology and the Law facilitated by Jon Becker and Scott McLeod
While preparing for the Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0 seminar I’ve realized how important it is that I become more knowledgeable about copyright, intellectual property, plagiarism, and related topics. I especially liked how they were able to pose existing IRL analogies for the virtual situations under discussion.
I’m off to the the much anticipated (at least by me) poster presentation of the ISTE Classroom Observation Tool. I plan to share what I learn soon.
I’ve spent most of today participating in the following sessions and meeting online friends in the Bloggers’ Cafe. I’m looking forward to the presentation of the ISTE Classroom Observation Instrument (ICOT) later today. I’m curious to see how it stacks up against similar instruments like LoTi. Perhaps I’ll get a chance to post my thoughts about it. For now, here’s what I’ve attended to day.
Diigo: A Swiss Army Knife for Your Browser by Maggie Tsai, Diigo Co-Founder
Maggie gave a crash course in the basic features and use of Diigo. After her presentation she asked to interview me on camera and I reluctantly agreed. I shared some of the most common ways that Diigo is being used by my students, teachers with whom I mentor in professional development, and by me. She also asked me to share ways that I thought their technology could be improved and I reiterated ideas that I’d previously shared on Miguel’s discussions (here and here) related to this topic. I was pleased with her responses to my technical and design suggestions (She even contacted the engineers about one of the issues while we were talking.) and she provided Diigo’s rationale for why the ads, for now, will continue to exist throughout the tool. She assured me that they are indeed considering
Creating a Ning Network from Scratch by Steve Hargadon
If you want to learn about setting up your own Ning you might as well learn from the master. I’m comfortable using this “tool” but Steve provided useful insight regarding design and implementation which I found valuable.
Using Understanding by Design (UbD) to Create Technology Rich, Deep Learning Unit Plans by Chris Lehmann and Marcie Hull
There are oodles of similar models out there but I found this one to be practical but thorough. I’m going to take another look at Understanding by Design when I return home.
Alternative to the term Web 2.0 is the Read, Write Web
Teacher education and professional development that effectively helps teachers better integrate technology with teaching and learning
Allow the teachers to select their own goals and help them reach them
Online social networks can more easily provide the in-time assistance, coaching, mentoring, etc. that individuals during development/learning, but teachers often don’t think about using the networks
How do we prepare teachers to teach in the 1-to-1 environment?
The emphasis should change from "teaching" to designing learning that engages the students.
I’ll be updating this post throughout the day to alert you of things happening here at EBC San Antonio. The full list of sessions is here. I’ll be sharing information form the sessions that I’m attending. The session titles are in bold.
An atmosphere promoting risk-taking is imperative.
Teachers know what they want to learn. Professional development should be tailored around them rather requiring them to attend PD in which they had no say.
Teachers in the room are using Ning, Elgg, and several private online communities.
Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis updated us about the Flat Classroom and the Horizon Project.
How important are digital citizenship and pedagogy in these decisions?
If someone says a curse word in the classroom do we close the school? If there’s a fight at recess do we quit having recess? Why do we over react to these problems in online spaces?
What do a stranded alien race and microeconomics have in common? You just have to see this to believe it!!!
Here are some random thoughts that I’d very quickly like to share.
This is a good example of an educational video game rather than a COTS game that has been adapted for/integrated into teaching and learning.
Learners will need to use their imaginations. That’s always a very good thing.
I can see curricular connections with math and science (time, space, measurement, money/budgeting), social studies and geography (historic relevance, how would the game be different when set in different time periods, travel), and language arts (critique, parts of a story, journaling and reflective exercises, and more).
I suspect we’ll be seeing more and more of this in the near future. Teachers and others with expertise in instructional design need to be heavily involved in such endeavors.
Why wasn’t my microeconomics class like this?! Why weren’t any of my classes like this?! I’m not a gamer AT ALL (ask my son or DC) but this looks interesting to me.
All things considered (likely resources available, instructional setting, purpose, etc.) it has nice graphics and a good user-interface.
Discussion
What is your reaction to this instructional strategy?
What other ways could this be integrated with the curriculum?
Share This has added Diigo to their list of available social web services. That means that you can add content from this blog to your Diigo bookmarks using the Share This plugin at the bottom of each post or page.
I’m still a big fan of Diigo and Twitter. My professional development has fast-forwarded at warp speed as a result of interacting with individuals with common professional interests worldwide. I’d enjoy having you join me.
Weebly is an excellent way for teachers and students to develop websites. The time investment in learning this tool is under five minutes. There’s little reason for newbies to struggle with learning Composer, Dreamweaver, or HTML. Weebly also makes it possible to seamlessly integrate a blog with your website. Unbelievable.
Zoho is another favorite online tool. While my needs do not cause me to use Zoho on a daily basis…yet…I’m amazed and impressed by their offerings. The Zoho team is quietly developing some of the most robust tools out there. I’m currently using Zoho Polls to help collect data for this discussion.
Adium works as well on a Mac as Trillian does on a PC. I’ve been a fan of Trillian for many years and have always wished I could use it on my Mac computers. I intend to make a full transition back to Mac in June, so this is a welcome discovery. The best part is that I get everything I like about the subscription version of Trillian for free with Adium.
Thank goodness for Wi-Fi. I’m sitting in the shade in the backyard watching the sunset over the lake while putting the final touches on this post. I remember the days when we had to get up and walk across the room and turn the dial on the TV to change the channel. I wonder what future innovations will bring us.
Since writing the post on the sleek online radio Pandora, Clif and I have decided to start a review series of online music applications. Next on the chopping block is the internet jukebox Songza. Again, I will provide my opinion on how the site operates and a quick tutorial of how to get your account up and running.
Songza is a free, flash based, internet jukebox. You decide exactly what songs you want to listen to and then stream the songs from other sites where they are embedded using a minimalist flash player. No costs, no ads, just the music you want to hear. At first you might be a bit discouraged that this is the only pseudo-FAQ that Songza has to offer. However, you will soon realize that it is so simple that it doesn’t really need one. Like many of the items featured on this site, Songza only does one thing, but does it extraordinarily well.
After creating an account (just your basic set-up with e-mail, password, etc) you will see the incredibly simple front page. Using the one outstanding feature, the large centrally located search bar, enter an artist or song and click search. Songza’s cute little loading square will flip around for just a moment and then an extensive list of songs will appear down the left hand side. One thing that I really like about Songza is this right here. You are not given one choice for the song you are trying to find; you are given a whole bunch. Aside from the album version, some may be live versions, acoustics sets, or remixes. In fact, I have already discovered a multitude of covers of songs I have searched for that I may otherwise never have been aware existed. So while you have to actively search out individual songs (that’s why it is a jukebox and not a radio) you still may find new songs.
The interface is one of the easiest imaginable to navigate. After searching for a song and selecting one from the list, clicking on the title will pop up a little compass inspired menu with four options: Play, Share, Rate, and Add to Playlist. Subsequently selecting one of these does exactly what you think they would do. The Share option allows you to link to the song, embed it on a site, send to Twitter, or email to a friend. Rating is used for rating the quality of the recording more so than if whether or not you like the song, like with Pandora. The better the quality rating, the higher that specific song appears in search lists. Rating effectively reduces the amount of time you spend trudging through versions that are of poor quality.
The Playlist is where you will find my only complaint with Songza. Right now, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but I can find no way of creating additional playlists. So while you can save every song you find, they are all lumped together under a single playlist. The small saving grace of this is that you can quickly and easily change the order or your playlist. So you can group your music as you would want to hear it in succession. Aside from sharing individual songs with friends, you can also navigate to someone’s Songza profile page and access their full playlist from there. You can check out my profile and playlist here.
One of the really nifty things about Songza is while a song is playing you have the ability to Watch the Video when it is available, Buy the Song via Google Products or Amazon, or check out the Discography. It should be said that the video sometimes seems like a randomly picked Youtube video, which isn’t always the artist’s actual music video. Viewer beware.
I’ve only just begun playing with Songza and haven’t delved too deeply into sharing and embedding songs. What I see so far I really like (aside from the Playlist issue which I am hoping I am incorrect about). So if recommendation music sites like Rhapsody and Pandora don’t line up with your tastes well enough or you’re just looking to hear “that song” right now, give Songza a try.
Be sure to leave a link to your Songza profile if you comment so we can all share the music. One Love.
Throughout the years many of the preservice and in-service teachers in my classes, workshops, and presentations have requested that I start an email newsletter. They indicate that in addition to this blog they would like to receive occasional emails sharing rich resources related to technology integration. I’m excited to announce that I have answered these requests.
Clif’s Newsletter on Educational Technology focuses on the effective integration of technology with teaching and learning. Subscribers of this free service will receive occasional emails providing valuable resources and information about lesson plans, activities, technologies, research, etc., related to educational technology.
OPEN TO PUBLIC
Subscription to this newsletter is open to everyone. You are encouraged to share this with everyone with an interest in education (teachers, administrators, homeschooling families, friends, classmates, co-workers, etc.). Everyone is invited to receive this free newsletter.
PRIVACY POLICY
Your email address will never be shared with others. You may unsubscribe at anytime.
Music is one of my things, just ask anyone that knows me. I own more CDs than most people and almost always have music playing, whether I’m relaxing, working, reading, or studying. Even with all the music I own, I sometimes get bored of the same songs and artists over and over again. Thankfully, a few months ago I StumbledUpon the Music Genome Project at Pandora Radio.
Pandora has since become one of my most frequented websites. What Pandora does is allow you, with as few (or as many) clicks of your mouse as you like, to create radio stations tailored to only music you like. Also, you can create multiple stations for all the different types of music you listen to. For instance I have a radio station for my Rock side, one for my more mellow side, and then a few specific radio stations for when I’m studying. It’s all very simple to set up and can be as quick and easy as you wish or you can really dive into this thing and create the perfect music environment for yourself.
For the full “How To” check out Pandora’s FAQ page, paying particular attention to section 3 about setting up stations. But I’ll give you the quick run-down here also. After creating an account, which takes only a couple of steps, you’ll be asked about your first station. All you have to do is enter the name of a Band or a Song that you want to build your station around. Then Pandora will do it’s thing and search through it’s music database using the Music Genome Project. You can read about the MGP here, but what it does is basically compares the Band or Song you enter to thousands of other Bands and Songs and picks ones that match your taste. Then just like that, the radio station starts playing.
As songs play you have the option to give them a Thumbs Up or a Thumbs Down. These do about what you would expect, if you don’t like the song then give it a Thumbs Down and the radio will proceed to the next song and take that particular song out of your playlist for good. Thumbs Up means that song is exactly the kind of music you want on that radio station and Pandora should do it’s best to put more songs like that on your station. You can also tag specific Songs or Bands which will expand your station since the Music Genome Project will have a larger sample to compare other music against.
It is extremely simple, very rewarding, and of course completely free. There are tons of other features that you can play around with, like making a mega-station (a randomization of all your stations). And oh yeah, you can share your stations with friends. All of the more advanced features can be found in the same FAQ that I linked to earlier only check under the fourth section titled “Advanced Features.”
I’ve been using this amazing technology for just about a week and I’ve already discovered dozens of reasons (or excuses) for using it. I think it is useful for people that commute back and forth to work like I do. It integrates well with the way I use my driving time (reflecting on the day, dreaming up new plans and ideas, thinking of quick notes that I’d like to send to others, recalling things that I need to “remember,”) and I feel like my time on the road is being better spent. Previously, I’d make all these mental notes while driving home and I’d get a bit stressed trying to remember them all later. Using Jott helps me actually get things noted relieving the stress and cognitive load of keeping it all stored in my puny human memory. I encourage you to take a look at this technology. listen
As the name implies, Free Comic Book Day is a single day when participating comic book shops across North America and around the world are giving away comic books absolutely free to anyone who comes into their stores.
As the name implies, 
