Thing 14 - not that delicious

I am on the fence on how I feel about delicious.com.   Being told to just add was not something I enjoyed, since I could not think of anything to add.  I tried looking for links, but I was not inspired.  I did put in some generic links and added in some stuff from my folders on my personal computer (here is my delicious page: http://www.delicious.com/msbeem.  What I do like about delicious is the tagging aspect.  I like being able to add tags so I know all the uses of the link and why I actually tagged it in the first place.  However, I prefer using Google to search and maybe just add to delicious.  
I think the longer I play with delicious and add/tag, the more I will come to like it.  I can see great potential for it with education.  Using delicious to add/tag educational websites and articles I stumbleupon could help students and other teachers locate resources they might be interested in.  It is a great way to share resources instead of trying to remember that website to other teachers, or tell your students about all the great websites out there.  Add/tag them, so anyone can come to your page and see what you are reading/into these days.   I also like the choice of making some links private, so I can keep up with links that are associated with my personal life that my colleagues or students may not be interested in.  I think the more I play with delicious.com and use it both at home and work, the more I am sure it will grow on me.  Right now, it is okay...

Thing 12 - Fun and Scary Photos!

I made a decision to pick one type of tool and explore how it works on multiple sites, so I went on an adventure with dumper.net, befunky.com, and picnik.com using photos from my childhood. Well I am in love with all three now! dumper.net allowed me to showcase my photo in a different way, like putting it in a jigsaw puzzle or rubix cube. I chose to display my brother Chris and I at the petting zoo in a musuem.

Now all those fake people can forever observe our cuteness!

I must say that I had the most fun with befunky.com!  It has more editing options that the user can control besides just putting the image in different sceneraios.  befunky allows you change the style of the image (cartoon, pointillism) and color of the image.  The image below is of my brother and I playing as youngins (I  used Holgaart for the effect, with some color changes and a different border).  I am calling it "An Out of Body Experience."

This is my favorite image out of all of the ones I tried!  I even sent it to my brother and he would like a framed copy for his birthday! :)

The last free photo editor website I went to was picnik.com.  I had heard of it before, but I had never gone exploring before.  This site was very similar to befunky, but had slightly different choices.  This time I chose to auto-fix the photo (it is from the 80's...need some help!), crop it,  and to make it look like it was taken at night with the Night Vision effect.  I also changed the photo slightly by making it look like it was taken with a Polaroid camera.  I am calling this one "The Haunting of an embarassed 6 year old."

I showed all these images to my mother and she now thinks I watch too many horror movies!  I had a blast and think that all family photos will be turned into fun soon!

I have not had many lightbulb ideas on how to use these websites in my classroom.  They will make a nice addition to projects, but I cannot think of something that would spot light them.  I do not really need a scary photo of matter for my lessons.  I do think the students will like them and have fun, but it is not a crucial part of their education.  The basic features of cropping and red eye could come in handy though.  I could assign a photo project of the different types of matter and the students could take the pictures and then edit them any way they want...hmmmm.

Since I would not be using these as a whole group activity, the management of the tools would be quite simple.  I had no problem figuring out how they worked, so a basic demonstration of how each website works and is different would be needed, but then the kids could go out on their own to explore.  The only website that would be difficult is picnik.com since they promonately display their upgrade options (from free to fee), but having a discussion about how you do not need to pay for what is already free could help out.  All three sites are accessible from school, so we could all do this in the computer lab together, which could help with the management of the tools.  I think until I come up with a solid use for these sites in my classroom, I will not fully understand what I am getting myself into.  Hopefully the lightbulb moment will come soon because I had way too much fun!

HTML Code...fun fun fun!

I was extremely hesitant to learn code.  It has never interested me or ever really been a tiny thought bubble in my head.  However, I was told that I was going to be learning code, so I did.  And I actually enjoyed the process of learning it! It was exciting to type a few keys and see my work appear on a blank webpage.  Yes, I only learned the very basic code possible and I Googled the rest to make my page pink, but I still tried my hardest and I am giving myself a pat on the back!


I am not really sure how I am going to use my new found knowledge of code in my classroom though.  The only thing I can think of is when my class blog acts up, I can attempt to solve the problem.  I do not think I am going to be building any websites from scratch any time soon...or ever!  I shall always use websites that come with templates, so all the hard work is already done for me.  All I will have to do is pick some cute background and color scheme and add my content.  I will most likely use Google Sites for my portfolio, but will be keeping my eyes open for another resource that I have not used before so I can go on another adventure!

Thing 11 - Let the show begin!

I chose to not use my Thing 10 photos to create a slideshow. I wanted to experiment creating a simple story of energy transfers throughout the day and a life of Albert the Pig, so I found different images.  His day starts with a hearty breakfast, followed by frolicking in the mud with his brothers, teasing the chickens behind the barn, and ending in a much needed nap.  I really enjoyed using slide.com!  The only downside I came across was my need to use lots of words does not work with the captions.  There is only limited space, so I had to do quite a few re-writes!!!  Please see all attributions below the show, which includes links to the original image and author's page.  I used all images that could be adapted, just in case the captions fell into that category.  I hope I did not mess up the Creative Commons on the images! 

Photo 1 (eat breakfast): Photo by Brandi Jordan at http://www.flickr.com/photos/brandijordan/4692094380/in/gallery-59548637@N06-72157625926674213/

Photo 2 (exercise): Photo by garethjmsaunders at http://www.flickr.com/photos/garethjmsaunders/2172048556/

Photo 3 (cluck): Photo by johnmuk at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jm999uk/187980686/

Photo 4 (nap): Photo by ceiling at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ceiling/394167440/in/gallery-59548637@N06-72157625926674213/

Thing 10 - Flickr this!

I usually use Google to search for images I need for lessons or other purposes, but Flickr is working its way into my heart! At first, I tried to take my journey with Flickr seriously and only look up good solid school content.  That quickly turned into me finding things I just wanted to see!  I decided to look up places and find photos associated with them with Flickr maps.  http://www.flickr.com/map/  I looked up the town where most of my family lives and was shocked to see that most of the pictures were not actually of the town or near the town.  I can only assume that people tagged the town so they would get more views.  However, I was impressed to see a photo of my cousin’s bar!  The person who took it also gave the history of the bar, which I only knew in small snippets. 

I realize that not all photographers will include the history behind their photos, but it did make for an interesting history lesson.  The map feature would be a great way to learn the geography of places that the students are studying.  Another way that Flickr could be utilized in the classroom is through helping students make collages or finding real world application photos for what we are studying (using the Creative Commons search of course!!!).  Math students could find real world math in photos (ie. parabolas, ellipse, etc.) or Science students could identify photos that depict simple machines.  What is currently floating around in my head is to have my students create a story using photos that depicts energy transformations.  I think my mind is stuck on energy!!!

After my playtime was over and my gears were pumping with thoughts of how to use this in my class, I got serious about searching for a theme that I could share with others.  I chose to link my wiki theme to the current unit of study I am teaching.  So…my photo collage below shows the types of energy so the students can associate the vocabulary words with a real life image they are familiar with. 

Chemical Energy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jst1cam/4188226843/

By  Photography By: Matthew A. Zick

Electrical Energy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ricardodiaz/3956168977/

By ricardodiaz11

 Light Energy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spigoo/2099231/

By Spigoo

Sound Energy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/renneville/3358544222/

By Fey Ilyes

Thermal Energy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewvenn/366986755/

By matthewvenn

Nuclear Energy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/heyrocker/3224917444/

By HeyRocker

Thing 9 – I should be locked up in jail

I shall admit it…I break copyright quite often and should be ashamed.  I am ashamed, but it has yet to stop me.  I do try to teach my students about plagiarism and copyright, but then I do not always follow my own lectures.  I post PowerPoints to my website that are not always my words, but sometimes the textbook’s words and images.  I also use pictures from Google searches that I am sure are not Creative Commons allowed.  Now that I know about other ways to ensure that I am a law abiding citizen (not a pun on the movie…I do not kill people or plan on it!), I should practice what I preach and be a good little teacher. 

I found Creative Commons fascinating!  I have never noticed the CC logo before and I have still not seen it know that I know what it is, but that does not mean I will not see it.  I am just not a very observant person!!!  If I ever did see it, I probably just thought…well nothing of it.  It is the non-observant part in me!  I believe that Creative Commons just showed student work a new interesting route.  CC can allow students to use images and content that might not be ordinarily available to them.  Last year, I did a story creation with the science standards.  I had the students draw their own photos so as not to risk using any plagiarized images since we used LINK to create them.  Now, I can send the students on a search for CC so they can incorporate Creative Commons images instead of painfully drawing them (I am painfully trying to decipher them!).  However, CC also has some downsides that concern me.  There are different levels to Creative Commons and it is hard to keep them straight.  I know that it will take time, but now that I know about CC I do not want to mess up!  I did notice that sometimes that I was searching under Creative Commons, it would revert back to a normal search and it took me awhile to notice!  I want to make sure that I respect the original work and its creator, so I do not want to do anything that is not allowed.  I also do not want my students to do something they should not.  Creative Commons requires a lot of vigilance that will take practice looking for…I know that I am not very observant and neither are my students.  We will need to practice, practice, practice!   Hopefully now that I am aware of Creative Commons, I will stop breaking the law by ignoring copyright…well maybe not hopefully, but definitely!!!

Thing 8 - Wiki Adventure

Here is the link to my adventure wiki:  
http://instructionaltechadventure.pbworks.com/w/page/36153834/FrontPage
ENJOY!

Thing 7 - Wiki Wiki What?

Being completely honest, Wiki’s may not be in my near future.  I have done lots of wiki research and I am still slightly confused.  I understand the benefits of wikis.  I love the collaboration part of wiki.  However, 1^st, they are not aesthetically pleasing to me (I am sure I can change this but the ones I looked at were grey and more grey); 2^nd, a lot of the wikis were hard to navigate and it took a lot of guess/click to find anything to look at it; and 3^rd, I am still unsure on how to assess them, but I guess that will come with using them.  

I looked at one wiki (Mr. Lindsay) where it was mostly used as classroom website.  It was well organized, but the wiki part was limited to professional development.  He had a wiki page where he has a q and a session for educators that is available to anyone to ask/answer.  It was interesting, but did not make me jump for joy to use wikis with my kids.  I am not sure if he uses his wiki with his kids, but he did get me thinking about wikis outside of my students.   It did make me realize that I do like wikis for professional purposes.  It seems like a great way to share resources and ideas between teachers.  I know that my amazing grad school/co-worker buddy Andrea and I have talked about suggesting a wiki to our technology specialist instead of her sending out all the emails that link to resources she has found.  She should build a wiki and that way the teachers can also add their 2-cents. 

I did find some really cool wikis that started my brain wheels a-turnin’ and I will probably attempt a wiki at some point, but they are not high on my list of new toys to play with.  I found Schools Then interesting. It was very simple and user friendly since there were not many pages or extra stuff associated with it.  It is just the main page.  I liked the use of a wiki as an interview tool.  It is friendly for all ages and could be used for many purposes. The people that have participated with the wiki have left valuable information that I can only assume has helped the first graders get a big picture of how school was through the years.  I can see my students setting up wikis asking questions to experts that are not normally available to them.  They could find people in the work force to help them learn science and maybe expand the science standards past what I am capable of. 

I really enjoyed Great Debate of 2008!  It was well-organized, amazing content, and clearly showed what the students needed to do.  The wiki showed some amazing work and I would have loved to have participated (even though I am not a student and it was for the 2008 Presidential Election).  This wiki also took measures to protect the wiki by only allowing edits by those who were approved to participate.  This wiki made me really start thinking about how wikis can be used in my class and I came up with an idea (light bulb!).  My advance Physical Science classes did energy debates last year (they were not that great though, but I tried something new and am ready to try again with changes!) and a wiki could be a good place to hold them this year (maybe with all my students…even though my on-level students have problems accessing the Internet unlike my advance students).   A wiki would allow for some great collaboration with the students, even outside of their class period.  I would want to use a similar format like Great Debate of 2008, but on a much smaller scale.  Now…I must produce!  So I guess wikis are in my near future.   Hopefully.  We are currently in the Energy unit now, so this will need to be created quickly (or just done next year...)!