Week 8/Thing #19

As I have been exploring Google Earth I was basically thinking this was a science or geography resource until I clicked on googlelittrips.org - awesome! There is a page for Young Readers and I went through some of the examples - all I can say is wow! This is amazing. I looked at Make Way For Ducklings and it had photos and questions to answer. Then there is one created by 1st grade students - The Yellow Balloon. It has facts in the placemark balloons. Paddle To The Sea is different to the others because it has a ton of information in the placemark balloon- plot summary, discussion question, links to website, and more.

I can also see this tool as a resource for history as well and a way of intergrating topics/content.

This is definitely something I would like to explore further and possibly create one using one of the books I will be using with my students about habitats.

Google Earth Placemarks

I did it!!!!!!!!! I didn't understand the KML spreadsheet description and was very confused. As it turns out, I downloaded Google Earth 5.0 onto my computer and you mark places using a different method. This is the video I watched instead. It was much simpler.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB1EseH7jzs

I followed the instructions and marked two places with descriptions in the balloons. My daughter is getting married in May in Connecticut and I thought it would be fun to practice marking the places for the reception and cermony. It was very easy with the exception of editing the dialog box. I am sure there is an easy way but I had to delete and do it over.

There were instructions on the video on how to email the placemarks and I tried to do that but it was difficult because I do not have a gmail account so it was complicated to set up sending the email another way so I abandoned the task.

I could definitely see this as a valuable tool for a project in upper grades.

Week 8/Thing #18

I have finally been able to find time to practice placemarks on Google Earth. I think I will have to watch the video several times before I can actually practice doing one. I think this will take a while.

Google Earth/Ocean

OK.....................so I haven't got to the video about the balloons on Google maps but I did discover Google Earth/Oceans. Again, an incredible resource. I checked out most of the tools and I was really impressed with the BBC short films which are also on Youtube. What I liked about the videos was how they showed you where in the ocean the video was taken so you could get a sense of where in the world it was. I think I could use this even with Kindergarten students and they could associate the visual with the geographical location which is a powerful learning tool for students. I could have the images projected onto a smart board with a projector from my computer while the class/small group watched. I am not sure how I would plan to have them explore the site individually. We have a unit about "habitats" and I could use this to show "real" pictures of different habitats in the world and the animals that inhabit them. I am excited.

More Google Earth

Well, I have not learned how to do the balloons yet because I discovered that you can not only visit places on earth you can visit the moon!!!!!!!!!!!! They have a marvelous video on the Apollo 11 mission. There are also photos of the moon. I can see this being a fabulous resource for students to use in the classroom/computer lab. I also explored the content on the site to "visit" Mars as well as the stars. It would be a great resource for an astronomy class. Amazing!

Google Earth

I am absolutely blown away by the Google Earth web site. I am only on the tour tools and it is amazing. I went to my mom's house in Scotland and saw all of the houses we lived in - Florida, Virginia, and Ohio, as well as my mother-in-law's house in Connecticut. It was incredible to see the houses at street level. It did take some time to get used to the tools and how to use them but it would not take as long as you get used to them. I am going to try doing the balloons on the maps.

Week 8/Thing #18

I have finally found time during the winter break to finish up my online time for web 2.0. It is not that I didn't want to put in more time blogging, it is finding time to blog. I am finding that to be the case for a lot of the content for web 2.0. I know that it is valuable but where in my hectic schedule do I find the time?
I have been updating my wiki and asking parents to visit it but I have not had much response. I will send out email invitations as well as enter the addresses of the parents on the wiki so that if they do want to visit the wiki it will be easier for them. Again, that takes time!!!!!

Week 8/Thing #19

Wow! Placemarks! Oh my gosh! All I can say is that it is really cool but a little complicated. I will need to try it when I have more time.

Week 8/Google Earth

I LOVE Google Earth. Unfortunately, I am on my home computer and it is not loaded on this one yet. It is really fun. There used to be a program like this but I forget what it is called. You could access the weather/traffic cameras all over the world. When I taught second grade they used it to explore weather in other parts of the world and compared it to the weather we were having at that time. It was absolutely fascinating and the students were totally engaged.

Week 8/Thing #18

Once again, I have signed up for something. I can see that this web 2.0 stuff requires you to be on the computer A LOT! In addition, it also requires remembering passwords and user names. Maybe someone will think of a way to store those on some web site!!!!!!!!!!!

So.........I explored slideshare and found a wonderful slide show of.................you guessed it..........Scotland! These are beautiful photographs and made me feel really homesick!!!!!!!

http://www.slideshare.net/Nubiagroup/scotland-by-roelof-van-den-berg

Now this I could use in Kindergarten. I do use power point presentations on several topics and this would make my life so much easier if it was already done for me. Yeah!!!!!

Week 6/Thing #14

I wasn't sure if we were to blog about this week since we completed these activities in class. I thought voicethread was a really neat idea and I could see the potential in some activities for the older grades. I do imagine I would use it a great deal. I think it might be one of the neat ideas that you could easily forget is out there if you don't use it very much.

Week 7/Thing #17

I love podcasts. I download them to my iTouch to learn languages, listen to books, and many other things. I did find one about Scotland. It is The Wilderness World of Cameron McNeish where is has podcasts on his walks in Scotland. Go to the podcasts that have "Ben" in front of them because a "Ben" is the Scottish word for mountain. Enjoy!

This is the main site.
http://www.podcasting-station.com/rss2html.php?XMLFILE=http://cameronmcneish.co.uk/feed

One of my favorite ones is:
http://www.cameronmcneish.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ben-sgriol.mp4
It takes a while to load but it is worth it!!!!!!!!!!

Week 7/Thing #16

Funny Youtube video about the book and having to contact the help desk. I preferred the German version to the English one. Here is the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pyjRj3UMRM

Week 5

I am still working on my Wiki. I think this a fabulous way to communicate with parents and students. I would like to give the Wiki address to my parents but I am not sure when we can do that. I showed the work in progress to my teammate and she thought it was fabulous too! It is very user friendly!

Week 4/Thing #11

Wordle and Text Cloud................................yikes!!!!!!!! I am sure there is a use for them. It is kind of cool but I am not seeing all the possiblities. Maybe in high school. I have done poems with my second grade students in the shape of snowflakes using vocabulary associated with winter. I have also done other shapes - football, snowman, raindrops, etc when the students go through books to choose words to put in the poems..................love those! I could see this could be a good activity to do with students to improve vocabulary as well word associations.

I did do a wordle cloud using all the words for planning my daughter's wedding. It looked really good. I had a lot of trouble trying to save it to put into my blog. I read all the FAQ to help but it looks like it is easier to do on a MAC than a PC. I also wasn't sure how to put it into the Delicious place. I will work on it.

Also did a text cloud using the same text. I prefer the wordle format - more options and more fun! I saved the tag to the Delicious site but it only bookmarked the page.

Flip Camera

I think the flip camera is awesome. I was really impressed with how easy it is to use...............even a Kindergartener could use it. I need to practice the editing process especially adding music to it. I must admit I am quite overwhelmed with all the information about the web 2.0 applications and uses.

Week 4/Thing #10

If I wasn't completely overwhelmed..................I am officially overwhelmed now!!!!!!!!! Social bookmarking.........who thinks these things up!!!!!!!!!! The slogan is weird too - "The tastiest bookmarking on the web!"

I think I need to use this several times to appreciate the benefit of it. I guess I don't work on my computer enough to see the need for this. I suppose it would save time, but I don't think my Kindergarteners will have need of this tool for a while.

Week 3/Thing #9

I was on Twitter for about 3 seconds and I was following 20 people! I also had 2 people following me - no, I am not that popular!!!!!! It seems that Twitter adds people automatically and other people somehow follow anyone who joins! I have now learned how to unfollow people and block people. I did check the tweachers web page and added some of those people to my list. I also looked on Nancy's Twitter page and added some of those to my list. Still not sold on this form of communication. It seems like busy work to me!

Week 3/Thing #9

OK...........not sure what this Twitter thing is all about but I have signed up for an account. I am not sure if there is value in get short messages from people I don't really know or whose opinion I may not want. Anyway, I will follow the tweets and see what I think after a week.

Week3/Thing #8

Not sure how to leave a blog on another site. I am also being distracted by some fabulous information on one of the blogs about web 4.0. I thought I was catching up learning web 2.0 - not! There is a great you tube video called "Did you know 4.0" you should watch it if you get the chance.

Anyway, back to leaving a blog on someone else site! I decided to leave a comment on the site about the web 4.0.

http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2009/09/25/did-you-know-4-0-the-mobile-revolution-is-here/comment-page-1/#comment-98798

I forgot to leave my link to this blog and I am not sure I want to do another post to leave my link.

Week 3/Thing #7

I now know what a web-based aggregator is! I signed up for Google Reader and have started the process of adding subscriptions. The link to the first video tour for Google Reader doesn't work but #2 link did work and was very good.

I loved the David Warlick blog about ways to manage the information which I think would quickly become overwhelming.

I did subscribe to the Gazette newspaper feed in Google Reader and am interested to see what will come through. I am also adding feeds from the recommended sites and will try to find some on my own.

Week 3/thing #7

OK................I had to play the psychedelic video of part 2 of the PLN tutorial several times to take it all in. I did, however, click on it accidently and found out it plays while minimized in the taskbar................nice!

After reading about RSS...................I love it! It is a bit like going out to the store versus shopping online - one you have to go out and bring the items back and the other gets delivered to you! Now the problem is I have to go out and search to see who I want to send me information. Once again, it is the same old problem of how much time I have to do it!

Week 3/Thing #7

Just a thought as I get deeper into this world of glogging, blogging, and other things........... I feel like I am entering a new world. It feels a bit like I have opened Pandora's box. I only wish there was some sort of time warp where I can spend four hours on the computer in the world of glogging, blogging and PLN's and when I returned only 4 minutes had passed. Now that would be an invention............ Well, back to learning about PLN's!!!!

Week 2/Thing #6

Had trouble with the Glogster site. I am not sure if it was my computer or the web site. I got the pink doughnut going round and round forever! After three tries I got to the page. Wasn't sure what I was doing and I think it will take some time to figure it out to have any benefit. I am not sure if anyone else had this problem, but when I tried to view the different choices for text, wall, etc. I could not see the thumbnails of the items but if I clicked on the blank squares and I could see them in the preview window at the side. I could see that this would be valuable for students and teachers, but it could take a lot of time.

For what is is worth, here is the link to my page:
http://dvozz.edu.glogster.com/glog-6972/

Week 2/Thing #5

Uploading to Flickr was a fairly simple process for me because I have uploaded photos to Wal Mart and Shutterfly.com. I just wanted to try to see if it is as user friendly as the others and it is. It didn't take too long, but I only had four photos to upload. Also, it is good to SAVE so that you don't have to do it twice!!!!

I wonder how long it takes to upload videos and if that is a simple as uploading photos?

I did have trouble figuring out how to rotate the photos. You have to put them in a batch and then apply the changes.

Here is the link (I think) http://www.flickr.com/photos/42391669@N03/3927305099/

On a different subject - I was surprised at the number of photos of children's faces in the Flickr groups, etc. I know we have fairly strict guidelines about posting student photos. I guess other places have different guidelines. I am not sure how I feel about that since it is available to the rest of the world.

Week2/Thing #5

I tried the Trading Card maker.................it wasn't that hard to do but the choices are limited. I wasn't sure what the icons meant. I also tried the magazine cover which was more fun that the trading card. The Hockneyizer is very interesting and rather strange. My favorite was the jigsaw maker (you can order a real puzzle, too!). They are fun tools and there are lots of them!

Week 2/Thing #4

OK, I have to admit that I thought having a good look round Flickr was not going to be that difficult. Well.............I was quite overwhelmed with the number of results that came up on the first search. I typed in "Kindergarten" and there were almost 60,000 photos, 321 groups, and 94 people. I think this will take some time to be able to navigate it better. I love old photos and I did find a very interesting post about a 1905 photo album with photos of a school and Kindergarten. If you look on the right you can go through the album pages. Here is the link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23366371@N08/2343461113/

When I checked this link I had trouble with it so I am not sure I did it right. Let me know if you are not able to go to the page and I will try and fix it.

You Tube Fair Use - Week 1/Thing #3

I have used some You Tube videos in my classroom, but have not create any videos yet. Fair Use is not something I am too familiar with. I think I will have to work on a project before I can wrap my head around understanding Fair Use.

Copyright - Week1/Thing #3

I have a new insight into copyright material now. I have always worried when doing searches for resources like photos and clip art to use in the classroom that I might accidently use something that was copyrighted. I loved the usage rights filter in advanced search options in Google Image Search because it will only show images that are "labeled for reuse" which will save me time!!!!! Love that!!!!!!! Anything that saves me time is always awesome!

First time for everything!

I think a first blog is kind of like the first blank page in a journal. You are not sure what to write but you want to write something. This first entry may not be meaningful or insightful but at least it is done!