Wednesday, January 12, 2011

One of my favorites...

I love using Titanpad with classes!  Titanpad allows students to work on the same document at the same time.  It doesn't even require users to have login, which as a teacher I love.  I created an account for myself using my classroom as my source.  Having an account allows me to create as many Titanpads as I want!  Plus I can control the security of them by making them public, but requiring a password that I set.  Then, I share the link and password with my students to allow them to work together on one document.
The only downfall is that there is a chat feature on the side.  My students LOVE using the chat feature to write about ridiculous things.  My creating titanpads for smaller groups, rather than the whole class, it eliminates some of this.  Also, by setting guidelines about what can be chatted about helps as well - give them a purpose to focus their chats on.
Another feature I love is the export feature to a word document.  It makes it super easy to use and save!  They are super fast to set up and in just a few minutes you can be up and running with the document.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Wikis in Action...

So we are off and running with wikis so far!
The students seem to like it and we've had only one override issue, but with the student accounts we can go back and look to see if the student actually posted and then see how it got overridden.  Fantastic!
One student commented that they thought it was like facebook, but for education.  I'm not sure if I completely agree with that, but they have been eager to try and use the wiki.  I think I will continue the use of the wiki for the rest of the year and see how it goes!  I definitely like the option of not having a stack of papers to lug back and for with me and that I can see everything from my laptop!

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

wikis

So, I'm playing around with implementing wikis in my class for our next unit.  I feel a bit like I'm in uncharted territory.  I ran into several problems the last time I used wikis.  For example, several times students would override others work by being on the same page at the same time.
This time, I received a free educator account and set up student logins and passwords.  Hopefully this way I can try to track changes easier.  I'm also working to create a wikinetwork of pages so not everyone will be working on the same page.  I'm thinking about expanding on this idea of a network to include not only wikisites, but also my blogger, my school's google site, twitter, and perhaps titanpad for student collaboration.
I'm imagining that the google site is the central resource start place.  Students are already used to going to this site.  From there I want the blogger and wikis to work hand-in-hand.  The blogger to be a place to detail class assignments and the wikis to be a place for students to work and collaborate.  The twitter can be a place to give shout-outs for good work and homework reminders.  I really like the titanpad as a source for students to do some collaborative writing in real time.  We'll see how it works together!

Friday, December 10, 2010

ITEC 2010

Here are some goodies I learned about from the ITEC 2010 conference.

Vicki Davis - Keynote speaker's website

Doug Johnson - Keynote speaker

ITEC wiki with handouts from presenters

Iowa City Van Allen - Smartboard teachers

Ning network - social network

Classroom Tools -a bunch of different idea

Comments4kids - a way to read a comment on other students work

Edumodo - secure, free social learning network

Class Chats - connecting to classrooms around the world

A site to schedule meetings

Netvibes -create a dashboard about any topic
Leslie Fisher - web 2.0 presentation

So COOL!  Real time collaboration!  Everyone is a different color!!!!

Web 2.0, Mastercard, and more

Photo peach - create a slide show with text and have a quiz at the end!
Great idea maybe for solar system unit

Soshiku- a online way for kids to keep track of homework

ITEC 2009

Below are some great sites I learned about at the 2009 ITEC Conference.

http://www.diigo.com/ - good way to collect information from the web

http://tagcrowd.com/ - creating a word cloud from text

storybird - creating children's books through images



http://www.toondoo.com/ - create comic strips

http://activeweb20.wikispaces.com/personallearningnetworks - Wikispace on Personal Learning Networks

http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/StoryTools - good collection of storytelling tools online

http://blabberize.com/ - an interesting site to create talking pictures, voices can be recorded to any uploaded pics

http://www.xtranormal.com/ - text to movie program

http://www.go2web20.net/ - Misc Web 2.0 applications

From the Media Specialist

Great Websites from the media specialist

1.       http://www.tagxedo.com/  --it creates word clouds in shapes…haven’t played with it a lot…but it looks amazing!!
2.       http://learningscience.org/index.htm  --This website offering free science resources was developed by learningscience.org, an organization dedicated to sharing the emerging tools of science education: real-time data collection, simulations, inquiry based lessons, interactive web lessons, micro-worlds, and imaging. Click on categories including Science Inquiry, Life Science, Earth and Space, The History and Nature of Science, Tools to do Science and more. Read the student and teacher comment page, and add one of your own.
3.       http://www.lessonopoly.org/svef/?q=node/9086 --science and the Olympics
5.       http://www.onlinecollege.org/2009/11/11/100-excellent-open-access-journals-for-educators/ --This is a great compilation of free online, open access journals.  Excellent resources in a wide variety of educational curricular areas.
6.        http://www.edheads.org/
7.        http://burcuakyol.com/?p=605 -This is a great blog written by an English teacher in Istanbul, Turkey.  In this post she tells her favorite 10 widgets for her blog.  Great suggestions and professional links to a wide variety of resources.  Interesting…on many levels
8.       http://allmyfaves.com
12.    http://k12onlineconference.org/  -- a free online conference with tons of info
13.   http://www.pbwiki.com/ - a free wiki site



One of my daily favorites...

Diigo!
I have signed up for the educator daily updates and look forward to reading through them every day!
Each day, I find something that I have to bookmark, read later, or forward onto colleagues.  I also have the Diigo toolbar added so that I can highlight websites, post notes, or bookmark from any computer.
I have created an educator account for myself, but am not quite sure how to implement it in the classroom yet.  I think it can be a great way for students to share information, I'm just not sure how to teach them how to use it.