Last Thing!

I would like to thank you for setting up the 23 things that I experienced. This class should be a requirement for every teacher in the district. I am surprised that it is not. I learned many great tools that I had no idea existed. If I did know about them, I did not know how to use them and this class taught me that. It seemed like every other day I was going into the family room and showing my elementary aged boys these new tricks of the trade. I cannot thank you enough for that and the knowledge I have passed on to them. Awesome experience!

Thing #23

The classroom 2.0 was interesting. I would like to see the people listed become more compartmentalized by subject. Science, elementary ed, math, etc... I think it might make the site easier to gather information from a specific group on a specific area of study. I think the possibility for idea exchange is boundless. Often teachers seem to hold tightly their ideas on teaching nuggets and they don't share with fellow teachers as much as you might think. This may give all of us a forum that would open that sharing up. Teaching is becoming more competitive with our individual TAKS scores becoming more public knowledge throughout the school and district.

Thing #22

Where should I start with facebook? I have used it recently and most often to connect with friends that I just do not see much. I have not become enveloped in the "farming" and "gift giving" that many people have turned into an enjoyable hobby it seems. I honestly do not have the time to devote to the activity of "watering my crops." I have been fortunate enough to work at a number of different school and I have used facebook to connect with teachers that I knew at those schools and that I respected in the classroom. This social aspect has allowed be to re-connect and I think that re-connection will become a valuable trade of ideas that we have grown to develop over the years. That information will have a drastic impact on my classroom because I respect the source that the new ideas come from based on my working experience with these fantastic educators.

7B

The latest and greatest job reports continues to pound my reader. This hits close to home for me because of family members and long time friends that have lost jobs because of the recession. I think most everyone knows a family member of friend that is struggling to make ends meet. The reader has made me more aware of the crisis that continues to affect families across our country. I live in a state that has been least affected by the crisis. When you look at our country nationally, you see that states like Michigan have received the greatest impact by our economic downturns in the past few year. The reader has made me more aware and it reminds me that there is still a major problem even though the mainstream media chooses to move on at times.

Thing #21

The first tool I played with was Google Earth which was fantastic. My own kids at home are caught up in it. They enjoy traveling to places hey have never experienced. It's not obviously the same as traveling there, but you do get a sense of what the places look like when you work down to ground level and pull a couple of different camera angles up. I cannot wait to show my students. Many of them are not sure if the edge of the earth stops at Mesquite or not. The second tool I played with was developing an athletic website specific for West Mesquite Football. I had trouble finding a template that was football related. I only found ones that related to soccer. Can anyone give me some direction on this one or do you think I need to do some major overall in the editing process? I started the West Mesquite Wranglers site but hit problems trying to change the graphics.

Thing #20

I wasn't really sure if I did this correctly or not? I sent the doc through email just in case it didn't work. This was probably the least interesting of the 23 things for me. I see the functional part of not having to keep up with the flash or emailing the doc to have record of it, but I do not know how much I will use this in my classroom. I could see me using it to put the info I use for other teachers in my department to access. This is not any different than what we use it for already in MISD for docushare, which has proved to be much more accessible than the way we used to share information through the district server.

Thing #19

I will use the VTs to allow students to teach the class. In order to teach any subject you need to understand the information that you are teaching. Take the body systems for example in biology. You have the digestive, nervous, skeletal, etc.... I will use the voice threads for a group of 3-4 students to explain along with a visual representation the digestive system. Each student in the group will type or teach their section of the digestive processes that take place within the system. In this process every student will get to hear and comment on the VTs to add information to the taught lesson. It could be a VT "wiki" over the next several days.

Thing #18

This is an experiment that we used during a TAKS lock science "lock in" to catch the students' interest. There are many experiments that I watched and marked on Teacher Tube that we do in our biology classes. I am going to use some of them as quick demos prior to doing the actual experiment in my class. This will provide my students with a visual representation of the direction I want them to work towards.

Thing #17

It didn't take long for me to learn something that I didn't even know was possible. I subscribed to all of the science podcasts that were listed and the first one I listened to was 60 seconds science. It gave me a brief, hence 60 seconds, blip of a new scientific discovery that involved sound recording using your clothing. Yes clothing fibers that actually record sound. The chemical make-up of the clothing fibers are able to trap & detect sound waves and magnetic waves. This mean that you will be able to produce a shirt that records the bodies blood pressure, heartbeat, etc. whenever you wear it. Crazy to think about I know. Hats that detect brain activity increases? Shirts that can detect decreased arterial blood flow that would indicate a heart attack? Genius. Podcasting as far as I can tell, really creates a more convenient way to get information without having to DVR it. The subscription takes care of it and I can watch it anywhere. I can then take those that are science appropriate of just "warm-up" like and show the class. I think that the organization of the list will be easy to use throughout the year when we enter a related subject.

Thing #16

I really enjoy reading, but prior to picking out a book tat I am interested in, it always seems like I purchase the book based on bestseller ratings or one recommendation. The Library Thing give me a much better resource for feedback from a better group of critics. A recently spent my money on a book about the life of Michael Phelps. I really did not enjoy the format or the book and the constant discussions about time trials was, well, boring to me. He could sell a gazillion of them and I still did not care for it. If I had this resource I could avoid the countless wastes of time and money over the years of my pursuit for reading material that is of interest to me. This will be in my toolbox from now until there is a better way.

Thing #15

I have some experience previously with a delicious account in another tech related class, but honestly the teacher didn't explain the process as well as I have used it here. Therefor I haven't used it much. I am tired of bookmarking each computer with the same stuff. It's a redundant waste of time and organizational nightmare. I also see how tagging can work to my advantage along with the social aspects of the process.

Thing #7a

It has been interesting to follow the immigration debate and to see how the information that pours in on a daily basis shifts and flows from one hot topic to another. I have a number of different political viewpoints from Fox News to MSNBC that have very different angles, "The Left" and "The Right" on how they have attacked this debate in Arizona and abroad. The each put their own spin on the same news and it's easier to see their discrepancies in reporting. The RSS feeds have allowed me to keep up with these differences and decide for myself where I stand on the issue. Where do you stand?

Thing #14

I liked playing with the jigsaw puzzles in JigZone. Great mind warm-up that would introduce a new section prior to telling the class what the new material is going to be about. It would creat a little suspense and surprise moments for any age students. My high school students would have fun with it. You could even have separate groups have similar but different puzzles that lead to the same new theme. The groups would have to collaborate to figure out what the similarities are and formulate some conclusions. I like the change up it creates.

Thing #13

I decided to take some photos and play with them using a pop art poster design company called Big Huge Labs. This site takes your normal photos and re-designs them into distorted-color images. It is really simple. Just choose a photo from your computer. It needs to be a jpeg file. Click on create and here you have it. It is really simple and easy to change up the look of your photos.
On the first day of school the Happy Face Generator would be an enhancer to present the classroom rules in a "lighter" manner without compromising the message.

Thing #12

1 .Lion by Lincoln Park Zoo
2. English Bulldog by Gomez the Great
3. Pup on Ice by Frank Hurley
4. Jumping Horse by National Library of Scotland
5. Cubs by Netherlands National Archive
6. Griz by Lincoln Park Zoo
7. Little Girl & Scottish Terrier by Sam Hood
8. Leopard by Teri Litick

I could definitely see myself incorporating these slide shows into album with pictures of the family. This is will be another useful tool. I could use a slide show like this in my biology class to introduce mammals. It's simple and it grabs the students attention.

Thing #11

Once again I have learned something new. I did not realize that imbedding a picture could be so easy. I will practice this newly found tool in the future. The search tip that I used most was the "underscore" key to limit my search results. At times this was a little frustrating, because I received many "no results found" and I new that I would need to broaden my search and just look through the photos(which takes more time). This photo is from the national archive in the Netherlands, beeldbank.nationaalarchief.nl/na:col1:dat109279. I found the photo searching for the term mammal, which I will relate to my biology classes during the school year.

Thing #10

In my self incrimination I should plead the 5th but I won't. The Creative Commons are a great way to work past the red tape involved in Google images. I, like millions of others, have copied and pasted images that worked with a project or powerpoint. The tool of creative commons puts the power of working together back into the hands of the users. To test the newly learned freedom, I decided to search images on Flickr. It was not as simple as Google images but it was legal. I found that I had to search through more images in order to find what I was looking for and that this process of search took a little more time. On the other hand, I did not have the guilty feeling I usually felt. I will share this alternative method of image gathering in the process of educating my students on the laws governing copyright theft.

Thing #9

More fun...I look forward to playing with the wiki we created within the network of 23 things. I had some problems with creating my table of contents. I did not realize that two brackets had to surround the [[toc]] in order to get it to work. I tried a number of different combination of bracket types before I looked at the reference cheat sheet pdf file. Once I typed that reference pages description in I was set. I also looked at a number of other teachers sites which are really good. I am very impressed at what some of you came up with on your wiki sites. That was probably the part I enjoyed the most with this lesson.

Thing #8

This will definitely be a part of my classroom and extracurricular responsibilities. The example video Plain English was a simple, direct explanation of how we could all use this tool in our everyday lives. I am in the middle of planning a trip with old friends that are located around the country and this tool is going into action right away. The email connection is not the best way to coordinate the trip. We could edit and finalize plans much easier on a Wiki devoted to our planning process.

The examples gave me organizational ideas on how to set my wiki for class. I liked how Salute to Seuss was organized. It was very user friendly, especially the activities section. I tried it out on my 8 year old and he liked this wiki's set-up the best. I also enjoyed Code Blue. When I start my wiki for my biology classes, I will follow it as a guide to building my own class wiki. I specifically liked how the body systems were organized and linked. I think this would be a great way to intro my body systems teaching sessions.

Thing #7

I must admit that posting comments on other's sacred space was a cautious event. Having a one on one about the same material is much more open and less documented. I am sure that becoming more comfortable with making the comments through this process will begin to loosen reigns eventually. With most of the comments that I made, I was very reserved. I was always thinking about how the comment would effect the person who put it out there. I am wondering if that feeling of uneasy writing subsides. Based on what I have read from other blog sites outside of our bubble, the reign will loosen and some thought provoking comments will prevail. Many I will like and some, well, not so much. Either way they will open up ideas for people to read and for me to mull over. It will at least be interesting.

Thing #6

Awesome tool! It's one thing to have the technology and certainly another thing to know how it fits information together. I'm early in the stages of understanding all that I need to know, but the lights are turned on. I am beginning to appreciated to RSS feeds. It saves me so much time and it is so much more convenient than searching out each website that I want to look at everyday. This is making life easier. One of the feeds I have enjoyed thus far is the 2 Cents Worth which has chronicled a visit to the ISTE 10 expo in Denver. As I have read through his posts, I have a better understanding of the new devices that are developing for the classroom. He has given great feedback on the expo and relates his own experiences to the information he is receiving at the conference. Great information to read through.

Thing #5

I recently received a feed from the ny times discussing the events that led up to the blunders in the gulf oil disaster. In reading through the article, regulation and which governmental agency is responsible for overseeing the conditions of the equipment used in drilling. The United States Chemical Safety Board is the agency that checks, regulates, and fines the companies when they are not in compliance with regulations. In the report, the safety board investigated an BP explosion on March 23, 2005 that killed 15 workers and injured another 170 workers. The government agency sited over 300 safety violations and 21 million dollars in fines were paid. Prior to the accident BP had little history of violations. This reactionary, not proactive approach to regulation is not producing successful results. Our presidential administration must look at revamping or extending the ability of US Chemical Safety Board to regulate this industry with greater effectiveness.

Thing #4

Children on the playground today are not so different from the way they were forty years ago. They still enjoy being pushed in a swing, playing dodge ball, and shooting hoops. On the negative side, children still engage in teasing and bullying just like they have always done in the past. In today’s technologically advanced society, the playground bullying does not escalate into a scuffle between boys or a group of girls giving yesterday’s best friend the cold shoulder. The fights end up in an explicit text message or a humiliating post on their MySpace and Facebook page. Cyberbullying can escalate into an adolescent viciousness that extends beyond the playground, with few options for policing the electronic infighting that ensues.

The online bullying ranges from a bombardment of disturbing text messages to sexually harassing group sites. The question is eventually asked, “who should shoulder the responsibility or authority to regulate student activity off campus?” Parents are looking to schools to employ a set of rules that provide justice and protection to students who experience the blast of harassment. Of the 44 states that have bullying laws, less than half offer instruction to schools relating to the intervention of electronic communication with the intent to harm. Some states instruct local governments to develop prevention programs to combat the problem, but the states offer no direction with the implementation of discipline.

Can a student record and post a video that demeans another student? Can a teacher or principal take up and search through a student’s cell phone that is suspected of cyberbullying? These actions become unclear because of the students right to free speech and invasion of personal property. If school personnel can police cyberbullying, what is the standard protocol for correction? Should principals suspend students from school or issue a ticket to pay a fine? The issue continues to move it’s way through state and federal court, but contradictory rulings at each level have produced unclear results.

The questions of should, what, or how will continue to linger until the issue escalates into a crises. Until then, schools should take control of their jurisdiction. Any inappropriate text or messaging that occurs on school district grounds must receive disciplined by the school authorities. Cyberbullying that occurs off school district property must be turned over to the police if appropriate. The school’s authority stops once the incidents occur on non-school related property.