Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Week 5: Things 10, 11 & 12

Thing 10: Image generator

Here's a product of my image generator 'play.'
I must say, these are really fun to create.
If it's fun for us as adults, I can see a lot of potential
for children to becoming very engaged in a lesson or
activity in which they could use a tool like this.
I saw an example in one image generator of how
students created 'national park trading cards.' I know
one of the intermediate grades usually has students 
creating a brochure of a specific state or national park.
This would be a great idea for that assignment....and they 
could attain very professional-looking results!
I have a student working on a project on Madagascar right now, as we speak, and I hope I have time to refer him to these image generating sites (if he's now already aware).

Thing 11: http://www.mangolanguages.com/

I came across this site in my scanning through topics 
on the Web 2.0 award winning site list. I selected
Brazilian/Portuguese, and spent a little time learning how to 
say a few phrases.  I was impressed with the process (talking to my computer, 
responding to a 'speaker' talking from my computer!).  It was repetitive enough to learn
a phrase, but not boring. I am interested in exploring this site further to see how I might 
use it with my bilingual students who also experience a hearing loss. I did have a little 
difficulty hearing the accurate pronunciation on my laptop, but I will try again with my ear phones and see if that makes the pronunciation clearer.

Thing 11: ning:  http://teacherlibrarian.ning.com

I have already been a member of a teacher librarian ning from our previous brain friendly libraries class.  That was my first experience with a ning, and it was a positive learning experience.  When I was in graduate school some years ago, the ten students in my cohort 
often spent much time in group study for one class or another.  The cooperative learning
was very effective for us and seemed beneficial to all involved. When I took this earlier ning class, again, I was impressed with what a positive group learning tool it was, with the added benefit of being able to connect learners from different locales for distance delivery classes.
In reviewing the nings that were available to peruse on our current '23 things list,' I chose
the 'teacher-librarian' ning because it looked like the most visually appealing and user friendly.
Admittedly, this was probably like judging a book by it's cover. I did see threads on the others that I will probably go back and read as well.  I already responded to a query/post on the one I joined with some information about training programs.

Thing 12: voice thread

Creating and using a voice thread as both a personal communication tool and a teaching strategy is a new concept for me.  It's just one I hadn't really been aware of or explored before.
While watching the initial voice thread tutorial, I immediately began to see the potential related to both areas above: personal and pedagogical. I'd love to see and hear my new 6 month old grand-nephew with his own voice thread! I'm quite excited to explore the prospect of creating a voice thread page for my students with hearing loss. Earlier, after 'playing with' the image generators and thinking back to how much fun creating things like personalized avatars and trading cards is, I began to think about the psychosocial aspects of having a disability. We see how this can affect one's self-esteem. I think having my students create avatars or trading cards or business cards to trade with other students with hearing loss could be beneficial; possibly creating their own online social network. This idea can be extended greatly with the use of a voice thread.  There's a motivation to work on speech and articulation skills!

Monday, March 30, 2009

Trading Card


Here's my (pre)-librarian trading card!

Week 4: Things 8 & 9

Thing 8: RSS feeds.  
This is relatively new information, and having just gotten started by creating a 
news reader account, I haven't used it enough to determine it's value for me....yet. I did 
a keyword search related to my field, hearing-loss education, and there were certainly many items that came up.  I think this will have some benefit for my co-workers and me. One looks like it might be a blog for students with hearing loss.  That should be worth exploring further.
I liked the explanation about RSS; it's fairly concise and clearly understandable.

Thing 9: Locating library and educational resources and blogs.  I've now added a dozen or more blogs and educational resource sites to my subscription list, including some book review sites, educational technology and literacy sites, such as e.toolbox.
I'm noticing what makes an appealing or compelling blog (that is appealing to me, that I would refer back to.  It includes both visuals and ease of visual perusal, as well as if it's in a clear format and interesting to read. I didn't like the Syndic8 search tool at all; it seemed complicated and not visually attractive. The Technorati wasn't much better. I liked the CNN one for ease of finding current info about other countries. I found a blog (teachers at risk) by a teacher who seems to have a similar voice to my way of thinking: it just seemed to 'click' so I'm subscribing to her blog. Since this is still so new, it will be interesting to see where I am in a month or more.....which initial subscription clicks I'll want to keep up with....or hit the delete button!

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Week 3: Thing 7

A technology-related topic that I think about is how to be selective in deciding which web applications to use and follow.  I guess I see a potential downside in that it's very easy to become addicted to all of the online social networks, gaming, etc,  and how this can have a potentially deleterious effect on one's real-life relationships, be it with family or academic standing. Perhaps it's akin to how we're encouraged, as teachers, to give students time to explore a new material (such as math manipulatives in the primary grades) prior to beginning instruction using those materials.  It seems that our society in general is in a major exploratory mode with regard to constant use of technology and the rapid changes in online applications and developments. We discussed this in a previous class, and there clearly isn't an easy one-size fits all answer. Anyway, I think using these tools, we need to think of ways for them to have an additive value rather than a subtractive value. The amount of time that children are engaged with some technological device or another is key to my concern.  I need to realize that people are still connecting; it's just a different vehicle. I do sometimes miss the more personal, face-to-face connections of old, however. Would I have lamented the replacement of the horse and carriage for the Model T?!

Week 3: Things 5 & 6


Flickr..... Like most folks, I imagine, I've had experience e.mailing or uploading photos to various sites, but I had not yet joined Flickr--until now! It was very easy to register on Flickr, and since I have a few photos on my laptop, I was easily able to create an avatar and upload my first photo.
No difficulties. Since I am an avid photographer, I imagine this is a web 2.0 'tool' that I will enjoy and continue to use outside of class.  I even found one friend on Flickr already!
This was really fun.  I tried to upload my image (at least twice) but it did not work, so I will continue that effort until I succeed.... stay tuned.

I also enjoyed creating a 'librarian trading card,' in the 'mash-ups' part of this activity.
It really is helpful to see the examples that others have created.  Having spontaneous or instantaneous visual references accessible via these interactive web applications is great!

Week 1: Things 1 & 2

I have read about the class, and really liked the easy-read FAQs about the class design.  It's an easy reference to refer back to as needed.  I'm taking the class because I'm able to make my way around technology in kind of a surface way, but I need to learn to use the interactive 'tools' that my students, my spouse and my own children (young adult and adolescent) are using on a daily basis.  I need to jump on the bandwagon! I do enjoy using technology, but sometimes find myself stymied by it, and then I get frustrated. 
The habits of a lifelong learner were not new concepts for me.  My spouse and I wrote continuing education into our wedding vows over 25 years ago. The two habits that are probably the most difficult for me:  
1) use of ever advancing technology (staying current, and using it for more than word or photo processing), and 
2) turning challenges and obstacles into positive learning experiences. Sometimes you don't realize what you learned from a class or an experience until after a span of time has passed and you're able to reflect and reevaluate the situation and realize that what may have seemed a negative at the time, actually had positive consequences after all.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Week 2: Thing 3 & 4: Avatar posted

Success! I really like my avatar and it was fun to create
interactively on the computer.
It actually matches my pink coat!

First time

Week 2:  Things 3 & 4

I've been working on creating my first blog page.
I had fun playing with the Yahoo Avatar page.  That felt like play. 
Now if only I could figure out how to transfer the avatar onto this page!
I am trying to stick with the self-learning mode and pace, although
admittedly am running into some frustration.  The templates are
helpful, but sometimes it feels like too many forced choices, like
having to 'stay in the box' rather than think outside the box. Hopefully
that's only a formatting issue, and I'll get the hang of this soon.