wiki-wiki

I was surprised today as i read about wikipedia and learned about how the entry on the 2004 tsunami came to be.  I saw it as an entry into a class project where the group has the ability to create an entry with humble beginnings that grows into something MUCH greater and MORE powerful then any one individual could ever create.  I want to explore our own school's entry as a project and see what we can do to add to it.  

Self evaluation

It really is amazing how much information is on the net when I start to dig. As I find some good sources and take the time to read, I am starting to think about aspects of my teaching in new ways or at least get reminded of some ideas I havehad in the past that I had forgotten/put aside temporarily. Dina's post, "My Report Card" is one such item. Though the report card may look different for me, I feel that taking the time to reflect and making the further effort to write my thoughts down, knowing that they were going to be read by someone else, would tend to result in some sort of positive action. Reading her list also got me thinking about how much time teachers spend outside of the classroom, beyond the regular day, thinking about and developing their craft. How much of their summer? Hmmm.

Phones in class

I've been exploring blogs this morning, learning how to subscribe to interesting ones, how to use an RSS reader (Bloglines: any other suggestions?) and how to modify delivery.

I came across an interesting one today that challenges our notion of what is appropriate use of technology in the classroom, specifically the iPod and the cel phone or maybe the ipod that is a celphone.  Have a read.

27 things pt 5

So I'm hooked on this 27 things program so please bear/bare with me as I teach myself about these sites. Now I'm trying flickr. I just uploaded a photo. Can you guess where it was taken? I see myself trying to make sense of a map of a foreign land. It looks cool (I love maps) but the symbols don't make sense until ..... You fill in the blanks.

27 Things

In an earlier post I made mentioned 23 Things on a stick.  While listening to a short video on that site, I heard someone mention 27 things so I thought I would look that up as well.  Sure enough, KCLS had a similar program last year that they hosted for their librarians.  It seems like the idea was to get people exploring, playing and having fun with the technology while learning about it.  This may be a delivery style worth exploring for our own staff???  27 Things.  I wonder if our library systems are offering something similar?  Surely school districts are doing this as well?

Making it mine?

Adding content to the page is the next thing.  How do I do this?  Are there ways to make it AUTOMATIC?  I do not want to have to carve out massive amounts of time to keep this up but I don't mind the learning curve.

One of the parts of Will Richardson's book that struck me early on was that even if we don't use the tools to their fullest with our students, we should use them for ourselves.  So I am looking at this from the point of view of what I can gain and am trusting that with that increased skill and comfort will come an understanding of what I can offer the students and what i can do to take advantage of what they are already doing.

Blogs, wikis, podcasts

So I got the book on the 17th and got right into it that day. I started logging the pages I was reading, underlining what I found relevant and so on and now, 2 weeks later, I'm on Chapter 2!

Holidays are a wonderful thing! I did read another good book in the interim, for those of you that followed the Tour de France, "Lance Armstrong's War" by Daniel Coyle. A great insight into how the tour works and how Lance worked the tour.

But I digress. So far I'm liking the book. It's an easy read but it takes a fair bit of time to get through because I'm constantly going to the net to check things out or to try something, like this BLOG.

One of the things I have discovered is 23 things on a stick, out of Minnesota. Now If I can only figure out how to add a link for it...http://23thingsonastick.blogspot.com// That was easy! Take a look. It might me a road to explore if we do some tech focussed proD. I haven't explored it all so I may retract at a later date.

I'm also experimenting with how to get this out to other readers of the book.