Tool # 6

I have been using Delicious to organize my bookmarks (learned in tool #2). Now i am going to use Diigo because it has the ability to add sticky notes and annotate articles found on the web. You can also take a snapshot of the page and use as a picture.

I just used Poll Everywhere. You do not need to sign up for a membership. I am going to practice using this tomorrow in class. I am going to put the poll on this page a couple of different ways. If you get a chance answer the poll. Thanks appreciate your feedback.

Make a live audience poll at Poll Everywhere

Here is a second way to do the same poll.

Build television sms voting polls at Poll Everywhere

Student Searches

I saw this web 2.0 tool for students. It is a search engine that has been vetted by educators. I was thinking of using it on my students next internet based project.
Here is the widget.

Tool #5

The first Web 2.0 tool i used was Prezi. It was fairly easy to make a quick presentation. I want to explore it more to try to embed differnt items like you tube or brain pop into the prezi. It really is just another way to show something to my students.
Here is my Prezi


I then used storybird to develop a comic strip about scientific method. This was really fun and i could see the kids using this to show their learning on various topics.
Here is my StoryBird
Slimey and the Scientific Method on Storybird

Please send me some comments on my prezi or storyboard.

Tool #4

1. I had begun to use google doc's a few weeks ago after having been to a training by Ken Jones. I can see a lot of use for this when creating documents. I created a test a few days ago and would usually attach to an email for all my team to look at and make corrections or add any changes. Now we can all make corrections/changes in real time and have a finished document much faster. All without making and hard copies. We Need To Save Trees.
2. I created a form yesterday and sent out a question to get feedback on How Many Hours Do You Spend doing non instructional hours each week. I have gotten three responses for 7-10 hours a week. Very interesting. I need to figure out if i can see who responded to what?
3.  Briefly discuss how you can use the tools in Google Apps with your team or department..See comment from #1 above. How can you incorporate Google Apps as a tool in your classroom? Well i think the easiest way to do this would be to have my students complete their team labs in google docs so they can all add to the document and i can comment on it as well before they submit to me.
Which tools are you excited about using with students? Google doc's has a lot of potential. We need to be able to train the students on how use google doc's and they need to have access to this technology.

Tool #3

I visited a few sites...You Tube, Teacher Tube, School Tube and Blinkx. I really liked the idea of Blix, being able to search for videos that would be appropriate for school in one place. It would cut down on searching different sites. I don't think it searches discovery education that we have access too. I am attaching a hyperlink for a video i found on Blinkx, see below.
Nervous System Video


The picture below is of a professional video on the nervous system i found on YouTube. It is really cool how you can look at the videos without leaving this blog just by clicking on the insert video button above. You can view as many as you like and when you find the one that works just click the share button and it gets embedded in your blog.

As far as the copyright information... I was pretty familiar with it since i have done so many science lab reports. The one thing i do like to stress is that if you are using most information in a closed system, ie like on our network you can show most things without worry of copyright infringement since it is for use in education.

Finally i enjoyed going to the Picasa website to browse pictures. I saw a few of the nervous system i wanted to use but when i tried to download the site/sbisd kept timing out.
I did open a dropbox account. I have saved some documents on human body and our next tests. I don't see much difference between it and our network or live binders. I guess it is a similar tool for getting to your information. Dropbox would be useful when you are tying to share documents with your students.

My thoughts on PLN's

Well so far not many teachers from Spring Forest are up an running with a blog. I am going to start looking at blogs that will help with student behavior in the classroom. Here is one blog that i enjoyed. I saved it using delicious.
http://www.nassp.org/Portals/0/content/59587.pdf

Tool #2

I have visited 5 blog sites on 21st century learning.
Educators PLN
Classroom 2.0
The Fischbowl
Always Leaning
Technology in the Middle
I am slowly getting up to speed on google reader. There are so many tools it is hard to keep from forgetting which ones do what. I am sure there will be a easy way to keep them...i guess bookmark for future use. Some of the names of these web tools is a little annoying because they do not help to describe what the site exactly does.
I think that there is so much to learn sometime it seems a little overwhelming. I am going to look and see whether i want to add a diigo or delicious account for keeping track of favorite bookmarks.
Tell me what do you think of all the new initiatives. how do you as a teacher keep from getting overwhelmed?

I am Blogging

It was easy to set up my blog. Voki took a while due to having to download a lot of other software. I am just finishing up and have spent 1/5 hours.