Thing 23: You Made It!

This has been an outstanding course. I feel much more confident in exploring and using these tools to help me in my professional and personal life, as well as model the use of these web 2.0 tools during professional development opportunities that I help lead at Kent ISD. I felt before the class and feel even stronger now, that we need to help educators understand the importance of using web 2.0 technologies with our students. I have been shocked at how many schools and teachers ban or refuse to embrace these technology tools for their own PLN and for student use. We know that students are using these tools outside of class, but view school (K-12 and Universities) as behind the times in using these digital tools to create, communicate, share, and swap learning with one another. As educational leaders it is our job to help inform/teach all levels of educators to stop blocking and banning these technologies, rather we need to embrace them in order to truly prepare students with the 21st century skills needed to compete in the global economy. Students need to demonstrate creativity, teamwork, communication skills, understand how to find information, synthesize it, and ultimately create global connections. Web 2.0 digital tools will help them achieve the 21st century skills needed for the jobs of tomorrow.

I received the highest compliment this past week from my daughter who is a senior at NMU. Amanda shared how impressed she is with how much I know about web 2.0 technologies. In fact, she stated that I knew more than most people “my age or generation”. I took this as a compliment and hope to share my passion of using web 2.0 technologies to reach and teach teachers and students in our classrooms today.

Thing 22: Online Video

I took the time to explore these sites for dual purposes. I explore these sites for this class as well as searching these sites for some valuable podcasts and videos to embed in the online course I will be teaching beginning in January. I personally love embedding videos and podcast to give different perspectives on the topic of study. One reason I encourage the use of video is to meet the different modalities of the learners. Videos and podcast help learners understand or reinforce a concept being studied. I also love the ability to stop or replay a video or podcast as I take notes on the information. I also love to use humor throughout my presentations and I can always find something short, but relevant, to embedded within presentations. We just recently began creating podcast and videos as a part of our professional development. By doing this, it allows the groups who came on different days to deepen their learning by listening or viewing podcasts/videos from other sessions of the same professional development.

At work, when hard wired in, I can access teachertube, youtube, etc., but I cannot get to the sites through the public or wireless access. I can attest to the fact that this has caused me some major frustration early on, but have learned how to work around the blocks to ensure that I can access everything I need during a professional development session. It is important to plan ahead when using sites such as these in a school setting. It is worth finding the alternative routes to accessing these valuable learning tools.

Thing 21: Your Heart Will be All a Twitter

Ron, your more in-depth overview of twitter was very informative for “thing 20”. Thank you for adding this to the available resources. I signed up for a twitter account and we will see how it goes. I am still not sure how I will use it, except that I will begin by following a few people I know. I want to use twitter for gaining professional information not to know when someone is going to a movie. I am hoping that by following people I know and respect and those who have been on twitter for a while that I can learn from them. Twitter is another way to get quick information and connect with others to continuously build additional learning networks.


http://twitter.com/Tportice

Thing 19 & 20: Introduction to Social Bookmarking and Bookmarking with Del.icio.us

I set up a del.icio.us account about a year ago. I love having all my favorite websites in one space without having to worry about which computer I am logged into. Many times when I added another link into my bookmarking account, I would not take the time to actually tag the items. So, as a part of Thing 19 & 20 I went back and tagged all the links within my account. I think the tags will add efficiency to my searches especially when looking at other del.icio.us accounts based on the similar tags. Tags add efficiency to sorting and searching making me more productive. It is important to think about the types of tags to use before beginning the tagging process. Otherwise you will not find other people who have tagged similar links, which is the benefit of assigning tags to links/websites. My account can be found at: http://delicious.com/tportice/

Thing 18: Building Your Professional Learning Community

I find it rewarding to be a part of different professional learning networks. I love learning from those I know and from other professionals who have great ideas but are not a part of my “work community”. I am trying hard to exhibit technology leadership through the professional learning communities that I am involved in throughout Kent County. As a Kent ISD Teaching and Learning team, we try to model and set up learning communities through the use of wiki’s, Google Docs, Moodle Courses, and Nings. Each time we set up and model these tools we also take time during professional development sessions to brainstorm how these tools could be used in the building with colleagues or in the classroom with students. Our leadership goal is to help educators across the county begin to use these tools and different local/global learning communities to expand their own learning and networks.

I am also going to facilitate my first online course starting in January. I am a bit nervous, but I have to start sometime. It is easy to let fear (of failure) get in the way of ever trying something new. I am gathering ideas from my daughter about what she liked and didn’t like with her online courses. I will also be tapping into my colleagues for help and support. Time will tell . . . I am sure it will be a learning opportunity for everyone involved!

Thing 17: More Web 2.0 Tools

There are so many social networking and information processing tools to choose from, sometimes it seems overwhelming. We don’t know which ones will be here in the future, but we know that these types of tools are not going away. As educators we need to embrace theses tools and use them to our benefit.

Last weekend, I was exploring the 2.0 winners short list for this assignment and had the opportunity to ask my own college age children about some of these tools. I was amazed how many of these 2.0 winners they use on a regular basis. Some of these tools were things that really helped them gain information for a specific purpose, while others were used for fun. My daughter shared that one of the favorite pastimes when they are board at school is to explore “stumbleupon” and mystery Google. She said that they spend hours just stumbling upon things . . . learning some really cool facts. I actually got on the site and found it as addicting as they do. Some were quick stumbles while other sites that I stumbled upon a great deal of time was spent exploring it.

I printed the 2.0 winners and sent the information to some colleagues who are not in the class as well as to my daughter for her future use. This assignment allowed me to see how many of the winning web 2.0 tools were tools that I currently use for work and pleasure. It also allowed me some time to explore some of the top sites that I had never heard about. I really enjoyed exploring these sites and plan on spending more time over the Christmas break.

Thing 16: Teach Digital

What powerful messages that was sent through these videos. Each video brought a slightly different slant or viewpoint to the topic, yet all three had a common theme. We need to see the power of creativity in individuals and allow that creativity to shape the learning and future of our students. Two quotes really hit home for me. The first was from the Digital Students in Analog Schools: “Teachers are teaching today using yesterdays tools”. The second was from the video No Future Left Behind: “You can’t create my future with your tools of yesterday. Let the future in, let us create, discover, explore, discover and share”. Another point I thought was worth capturing was the comment from Sir Ken Robinson, “Creativity should be viewed as important as literacy is in schools today”.

We as educators need to get out and see the real world, experience what is being expected of students entering the work force today and be in touch of what is coming in the future. Without knowing this, we will continue to value only high academic scores as means of intelligence, rather than seeing intelligence as diverse, dynamic, and distinct. As we hear in the news every day, industrial or rote jobs are easy to outsource. It is the creative . . . thinking outside of the box that is our future. So, what are we doing in schools to let the future in, to let students create, share, explore, and to try again? As educators, the tools we are learning in this course will allow us to begin to meet the students where they are at and allow them to shape their own future, not limiting them by ours.

Thing 15: How to Use Podcasts in Schools

Podcasts are growing in number and how they are being used in all aspects of life. I think that we need to help other educators find ways to help their students have more than one learning opportunity to gain the concepts and skills required of the course. Part of our job is to help educate teachers, administrators, superintendents, as well as parents and students about the value of the web 2.0 tools. The more we educate others the less pushback may come from building or district level administrators. I also believe that student motivation will increase when the technology they live by can be used to make school and learning more interesting and/or convenient.

There is always a learning curve when learning something new. The same is true for creating podcast; but the time spent will be a huge benefit to students and fellow colleagues. Teachers need to understand that they do not have to create all their own podcasts. The EPN site allows educators to find premade podcast that can be used for their own learnin as well as for their students.  The podcasts can be used or downloaded for future use. I also believe that there is value in having students create podcast of their learning. These can then be made available to other students to extent or enhance the previous learning. Once you start making or using podcasts, the addiction only grows.

Thing 14: Learn about Podcasting

This "thing 14" has been fun to explore for this course, but more exciting to explore as an extension to the SMART Goals professional development we offered last week to our middle school math teachers across the county.  I wanted to comment on some of the information I gained through exploring podcasts and reading the article about university students and podcasts.  The findings of the research only makes sense to me.  If podcasts are available, it allows the participants to listen to the same material more than once or to hear something similar by another person/group.  Either way, this repeated learning will help cement the learning into place.  We know that learning does not occur just by hearing something once.  We might be able to repeat what was said, but deep learning comes from repeated learning around the same topic as well as collaborative discussions about the specific topic.  Podcast also allow participants to catch-up on a missed session or to hear a podcast that could not be viewed during the online streaming of the session.  I currently listen to Superintendent Flannigan's monthly podcast as a way to keep up on the latest topics he is sharing. 

I have to say that I was really impressed with the work that Wayne RESA has done and hope that the work we are beginning to do at Kent will allow our local districts to gain the same level of web 2.0 learning in the near future.  If you are interested, here ar some great enhanced podcast links your you to visit:

SMART Goals UDL Pillar I Dec. 14, 2009

SMART Goals UDL Pillar 2 Dec.14, 2009

SMART Goals UDL Pillar 3 Dec. 14, 2009

http://mistreamnet.com/videtail.php?who=TTG100  (Wayne County RESA's and MISTREAMNET have a awesome video overview of podcasts)

Thing 13: Share Your Vision

As a part of this "thing" I played around with a couple of the tools in Zoho.  I created a notebook for this task.  Inside I created a short note and embedded a couple of links from a previous Professional Development we offered at Kent ISD for Middle School Math SMART Goals Teams in mid December.  The information you will find in this link will provide you with some general information about portions of the UDL guidelines.  Enjoy. 

https://notebook.zoho.com/nb/index.do#bookId=287495000000002017 (the videos were created by Mark Raffler, Educational Consultant, Kent ISD)  ** Please note I am note sure how long it will take to open the documents since it has two large videos included in the notebook page.  ***If I should have done something differently so it doesn't take so long to open, I would love some advice.  Thanks

I found that many of the tools offered in Zoho are also offered through other providers.  I tend to use Google Docs for creating and sharing information.  I love that all these tools (including all the tools used to create the videos found in the link above) are all free resources.  This allows us to use the web 2.0 tools to our advantage and create, share, collaborate at no cost.  This is so important in today's budget crunches.  I also believe these web 2.0 tools provide an effecient and effective manner for ongoing collaboration. 

Thing 12 - Productivity Anywhere

I currently use (and love) www.shelfari.com as a tool to keep all my books (previous, currently reading, and plan to read) organized. I love this visual tool. It is easy to add books, sort them into categories, tag them, and rate then when I have finished reading them. I am an avid reader it is hard to always remember which books I have read or want to read. When friends give me a name of a “must read” book, I open my Shelfari account and add to the book to my “plan to read” bookcase. I would recommend this tool for anyone who does a great deal of reading both professionally and personally. This would be a great tool to have your students use to keep track of the books they are reading this year. You could also have them write comments about the book after it has been read. Students could also create an online book club with friends from school. Good opportunities for classroom use with this tool.

For the new exploration today, I set up an account on “Remember the Milk”. This tool allows me to create a list of the tasks for the week (or longer), share the list with colleagues and have reminders sent to me. I am a list maker, so I will try this and see how this new tool works to add to my productivity. Always looking for ways to organize myself and work smarter!

Thing 11: Online Productivity Applications

• I have had a Google account for the past couple of years. Over time, I have increased how I am using the tool for different tasks with colleagues. We have heavily relied on the Google docs as a way to create, store and share information and materials between the different Curriculum Crafter groups (administrators, consultants, manger, helpdesk, administrative assistant, programmer and sales people). Using Google docs allows your shared documents to be available at your fingertips, but more importantly we can collaborate on the materials within the documents and updates are automatically completed. These tools are great time savers. If you’re not using Google docs, make sure to start today.
• I signed up and reviewed the Zoho Writer. At this point many of its features are similar to Google documents, so I will continue to explore additional ways to promote these tools as options for both within Kent ISD as well as with teacher leaders throughout the county.
• Overall the beauty of the online Google Docs is that it doesn’t matter from which computer you work you can access and add/edit the information housed here. This helps ensure that you have the right “copy” at all times and will cut down on the “revision #34” documents taking up space on the computer. This is also a huge benefit for students who don’t have a computer at home. Google documents allow all your content to remain in one spot and you can work on it from any computer and at any time. Google Docs Rock!!

Thing 9 and Thing 10: Wiki Wiki Wiki

• Thing nine and ten have been one the easiest “things” for me in this course. I still wanted to take time to explore the websites to gain further ideas of what I could do to make the wikis that I have developed and manage more exciting or more efficient. I personally manage a few different wikis based on county wide initiatives and internal book clubs. Each of these has a little different feel but seve as a place to share ideas, materials or just network with one another. I feel that my wikis have become more sophisticated and more appealing as time goes on. If you are in Kent County and would like to see our county wide priority standards wiki, please go to https://kentisdps.pbworks.com/  Enjoy!

• I have noticed that some wikis are pretty straight forward with minimal items on the pages, while others have hyperlinks embedded into the text that take you to more specific information. For example, on The Cool Cat Teacher’s wiki, I loved how some of the links to new pages included background wallpaper with the screen that scrolled over the center of the page. The “wallpaper” was the design of a yellow memo pad with pop cans and stains of pop can rings across a math assignment. This quickly caught my attention, so I am sure it was appealing for the students as well. Once again on this same website I liked how the study for English Exam brought them deeper the review with options of cliff notes and spark notes available to the students as well as online practice quizzes. I wonder how many more students take advantage of the practice test since it is online. On The bagladies wiki, I liked how they made their sidebar hyperlinked to resources or additional pages. I have links within my text that open to new pages, I have not used my sidebars in the same way. This wiki was easy to navigate, provided lots of teaching ideas, and colorful. When reviewing the teachingeverystudent wiki I found the information to be valuable, but didn’t like all the white space. It really needed more color or graphics to keep me on the page long enough to find valuable learning resources housed here. Since there was no eye appeal, I quickly wanted to look at another wiki instead. Aesthetics of a page is important so that you can keep the “user” on the site long enough to find value added materials, resources, ideas, and networks available to them.