Reflections on PSD 23 Things

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

The puzzle maker from a picture was one of my favorite discoveries. Exploring online applications that I had never heard of and trying to see how they might be used in an educational setting.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

I was aware that there were podcasts available but I had not really explored this area and I think that I will continue to explore it for lifelong learning as it is another tool for my toolbox.


Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

I think I may work on blogging more since I created the one I did for this class.


If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate?

Yes I’m always interested in what is new and may be useful to my endeavors.

Audiobooks

I discovered NetLibrary at the FCPL web site last spring. I was hoping that I would find some picture audio books that my students would be able to listen to as they looked at the book. Even though much of the story is available in the pictures some of our students need someone to read to them and I thought that we could download them to the in class computers and let them listen as they looked at the pictures. . I guess the concept hasn’t occurred to NetLibrary, since there are very few books that would fall into that category available.
I downloaded one of the Jungle Book stories by Kipling and discovered that if I didn’t have time to listen to the whole thing at my computer I would have to start all over from the beginning to listen to it. I couldn’t figure out a way to stop it and restart it at the place I left off. I decided I needed a portable solution and I went to the page that told what players worked best with NetLibrary. As a result I purchased a “Creative Zen” mp3 player and have downloaded books from the Audible.com site that advertised one free book. Now I am hooked I guess.

Podcasting

I went to both Podcast Alley and Odeo. The different language podcasts were alluring, but I didn't decide to go that way for my educational podcast. I tried to get the Hubblecast vodcast to show a couple of times, but was too impatient to wait until it completed the loading process as it seemed to be stuck very close to the end and not progressing any further. I also tried Ed Tech, but decided their openings were far too long, if I was impatient with it wouldn't others be? I finally settled on Our Ocean World that is just a podcast and got down to brass tacks almost immediately. The one I have linked to is about a sea squirt, but they also have podcasts on Seals, whales and other ocean stories.

You Tube

I've watched several YouTube videos in the past year, but I like this one I found tonight and decided to add it to my post.

PlayingForChange
October 31, 2008


The power of music to bring hope and inspiration is more than evident in this clip (cover of Tracy Chapman's song, "Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution") from the township outside of Cape Town where we just...
The power of music to bring hope and inspiration is more than evident in this clip (cover of Tracy Chapman's song, "Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution") from the township outside of Cape Town where we just built our first connected music school. Join the Movement to help build and connect more schools and students...www.playingforchange.com

VuFind from Villanova University

Web 2.0 Awards 3rd place winner VuFind is an open source program that works with the Online Catalog for libraries. It is designed to be user friendly and customizable for each library. This allows the individual library to add widgets and create new ways for patrons to access and chose resources. It won the 3rd place category for Books the winner was a self publishing site. I like the concept. It allows users to tag the item they want to keep like bookmarking and gives them the option of finding out more information about the author by clicking on the author's name. It also accesses reviews from Amazon.com. I actually didn't see anything I didn't like in this site.

Blog Update

I almost feel like I'm cheating on this one.  I've been using Zoho to collaborate with students in my Master's degree classes since June this year.  I've used Zoho Writer, Zoho Show and Zoho Notebook and Zoho Chat. My first attempt at the Notebook application wasn't pretty, but I sort of got the hang of it.  My first use was for a Pathfinder project that I had to do for a group project.    

PB Wiki

I signed up on PB wiki and tried looking several different ways for the Helen Blowers pbwiki but only found it after reading Connie’s Capers and her reference to plcmclearning. I added a favorite book and favorite leisure time activity. That’s how I discovered the rockymountain23things as well. I tried to request an invitation to the Rocky Mountain 23 Things but the web site was taking too long to respond.

Wikis

I like the idea of using wiki’s to review books and have various opinions on books which could extend to any form of media. I also can see the down side of allowing everyone to write and rewrite an area that people may have (probably will) strong feelings about. I can also see it as a way to provide information about navigating the library, media center. I could see using a wiki as a tutorial for example: searching a database. Opening it to others will allow input from different perspectives, as we all seem to have different ways of going about doing things. Having multiple ways available may confuse the tutorial, but may be just what one person needs.

Learning 2.0

I am excited about the possibilities that computers, YouTube and other applications provide for students and adults to express themselves in creative ways. It is exciting that we can literally post our ideas so that anyone with access to a computer can see them. I’ve added David Warwick’s 2cents blog to my RSS. I understand that we have technology that was undreamed of when I was in the K-12 school system. I really enjoy discovering new applications and what they can do, but when all is said and done, not all students have equal access to computers, cameras and camcorders. Yes, every school day I walk down hallways to see students with their iPods, mp3 players, and camera phones. And yes, there are probably more students that have these then don’t, but what about the students in many of the low income areas that don’t have these products.

I know many students are tech savvy but what do we mean by tech savvy? They can set up a multimedia projector? They can create a PowerPoint? They can take pictures or video and create a project? Does it have meaning? Does it solve or suggest a solution to a problem? Does it show critical thinking? Are we creating value?

While I have seen some really great videos on YouTube, I have also seen that there are some really dreadful ones that I wouldn’t want to admit I made. Blogs and videos give access to pretty much anyone with the knowledge of how to type or take video to put their ideas out in the world to be seen. I suspect less than 50% is actually seen by the majority of the www public.

Is Learning 2.0 a force for learning, yes! Is everyone going to utilize it? Not so sure. It seems like teachers that aren’t recent graduates (within the last 5 years) are still struggling with how to implement the new technology. I’m not faulting anyone; I know that it takes time and experimenting to learn how to use anything new. We all find ourselves just trying to keep up with the work we already know how to teach. So I guess that leaves me with more questions then answers.

Technorati

I've played with Technorati and could probably spend hours on the site looking at different blogs. I did notice a difference in what was brought up on Learning 2.0 but not a huge diference. I found an education blog by using a tag on environment. This isn't what I expected, but I added it to Del.icio.us so I can go back to it in the future.

Del.icio.us

I like Del.icio.us and use it for bookmarking pages I want to come back to. I often don't do much with tags or comments and until this class had not tried to click on any of the tags to see who else might be on it. I know that it's considered a social bookmark site, but my main concern was keeping track of sites I wanted to go back to. Today I explored and discovered some other sites via tag that I wanted to add. I didn't see many comments on the tags I checked. My user name is cattale.

Rollyo

I went to the web site and created a profile, with the reference being JD's Scribbles but I don't seem to understand how to use it. I followed instructions to drag it to to my tool bar and I now have something called a RollBar posted on it that when I click on it opens up on any web page I happen to be on. But I don't get the impression it is only looking in the web sites I set up. It seems to look at the web in general. I could see that it might used to create a search engine to get students to use specific web sites for research rather than relying on using Google, Yahoo or any of the common web search engines.

Library Thing and me

I set up a LibraryThing account in June and after waiting forever to try to add Three Cups of Tea, I pretty much abandoned the site as not worth my time. So I was a bit reluctant to go back, but I did and even added all of Robert Jordan's Eye of the World series books before I again had terminal waiting happen. After deciding I had had enough I x'd out for the night. The next day it wouldn't let me log back in on a different computer and even wouldn't let me back in on the same computer, it wouldn't let me ask for my password and totally frustrated me to the nth degree. Well tonight I finally managed to get my password situation resolved and I tried to add 3 cups of tea again and low and behold terminal waiting. I know many people are enjoying their LibraryThing accounts, but I think I'll stick with just knowing what I have at home by looking through my bookshelves.

Indian Paintbrush

Indian Paintbrush, originally uploaded by jdsteven.

Tried several different toys before I finally figured out how to get one to my blog. This is it.

What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?

I like RSS because it allows me to put news feeds I am interested in into one place to view them when I have the time.

How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life?

I can use them by subscribing to news feeds to keep up with technology and ideas for working with students.

How can schools/classrooms/libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?

A classroom teacher could subscribe to news feeds that relate to units of study for students to use for assignments on current events. Libraries could have a link on their web site to a newsreader for students to check on latest political news, weather, and other subjects pertinent to students’ field of study that quarter.

Technology

One of the changes in technology I have been observing lately is the introduction of online applications that allow several users to collaborate on one web site. Wikis, I think, were the first online collaboration, but now we have Google Docs to share word processing (and they have added a spreadsheet, presentation and have templates for resumes as well as other features) and Zoho.com that has a word processor, spreadsheet program, slide show program, notebook and several other work together programs to allow people across the country and the world to collaborate and edit one product. Each of these has a free component, but there is also the upgrade that you can pay extra for. With the new mobile phones that surf the internet you could probably view any changes to a document you were co-editing and make changes on your phone. I'm not sure where this is all leading but it's a much different world from the one I grew up in.

Flickr

I’ve been using Flickr since June. I’ve uploaded photos to share and photos only for family and friends. I like that I can upload a photo and then delete it from the SD card in my camera so that I can keep taking pictures. I also like the edit feature to crop photos.

I added this picture from Flickr tagged psd23things.

Cub Lake Hike

I finally made it to see the Fall colors. I took some pictures and created a Zoho Notebook with them so show Judy what I had been talking about on the drive up to Rocky Mountain National Park. There were cars and people everywhere, we were fortunate to find a parking spot near the trail head so we could do our fall hike to Cub Lake. Lots of color, but many Aspen still had green leaves. On our way past Beaver Meadows we didn't see any elk, but as we left about 2:30 we began to see some elk. We did enjoy seeing some chipmunks, a couple of young ducks swimming on Cub Lake and a few Stellar's Jays.

Beautiful Fall Day

It's fall the leaves are turning and I'm not enjoying the beautiful day. I need to at least go for a walk before the sun is down. .... I did go for a walk and took some pictures of the sky, birds, and bugs. On the way back from the store the sun was behind the mountains reflecting rose and orange highlights on the clouds above. Absolutely gorgeous.