Thing 23: Where to go from here?

For the rest of the school year, I am going to continue to build my delicious bookmarks and try to get a good set of resources together for next year. I have already been discussing using delicious with my department in an order to share math resources. I am also going to work on getting my wiki/blog ready for next year. I think it is going to be a great tool. As the at-risk teacher, it is important that I keep parent up to date on assignments and offer my students extra resource they can access at home. Finally, I am going to start making mathcasts for some basic topics I know my students struggle with (fractions, decimals, percents and intgers). I might try to get a few of my students this year to make some for me!

I will be using Flickr to share pics with family and friends. I will also continue to explore the sites I have been exposed to in this class and revisit how I can use it to challenge my students to go make their learning their own (mathcasts, podcasts, wikis). I am lucky to have an administration that really values technology. We are already planning to attend a seminar on using technology to teach math. I have also decided to get my Masters degreee in Educational Technology. Hopefully this class has given my a head start!

I think I will become a cheerleader for web 2.0 in my building. My position allows me to talk and share information with a wide range of teachers. I will continue to share my ideas with them and hopefully a few will take this class as well. Maybe we can start a staff message board or at least all join delicious. We already use google docs for staff surveys and sharing information. Hopefully this is only the beginning.

thing 22 Online PD

I have been exposed to the Michigan Learnport during PD days at school. They look great in theory. There are a lot of choices of classes, anyone should be able to find something of interest. Unfortunatly, I am motivated by deadlines and don't do so well with unstructured coarses. Like this class (I am doing the last 5 things the night before they are due) I would probably drag my feet on getting things done. The amount of time spent on the online classes I have taken at the Graduate level (and this class) seem to be more time consuming than just driving to campus. I prefer the human face to face connection and seeing the people I am conversing with. Also, this class had a lot of information, I could have spent 10-15 hours on each "thing." I feel a little overwhelmed by all of it and am afraid I will forget what and where all the great ideas were. I would probably take another online class if it had more of a timeline with regular due dates. A hybrid might be best for me where I could meet with the group every so often and complete most of the lessons on line. I would love to take any math, science or best practices classes to continue to improve my teaching.

Thing 21: Vidoes

I have already talked about videos in a few of my other blogs. I have used them in my classes and it is time consuming to search the endless list of rubble to get to the good stuff. I would love to spend the summer sorting through the numerous videos and compile a list either on delicious (which I have started to do) or on a wiki of its own. Again, I have a few technical issue at school as far as ease of use in the classroom. But, my students do seem to benefit from the videos, so I will keep using them. Also, it is a great tool for parents to "refresh" their memory on concepts they may not have used in several years.

Thing 20: Podcasts

Most of my students enjoy listening to and finding podcasts and videocasts to help with our math lessons. It is good to let them look at a few and see which one they can relate to and understand best. This is often different from one student to another. I have found several good casts on youtube, teachertube and math24/7.

I think most of my students would love to hear themselve online. This would be a great activity for ice breakers at the beginning of the year. Each student could interview another and even upload their picture on yudio. It was easy using my cell phone! We could also make casts on study skills and mathcasts for test review.

I have just scratched the surface of what is out there in the podcast world. I think I need some more time to really explore this technology.

Yodio - Thing 20: podcasts

Thing 19: Podcasts

Wow this is sooo neat! I went to several different sites:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrpearlharbor.htm
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkcubanmissilecrisis.html
Great speeches- better way to teach history, it really brings them to life.
http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=sugar-rinse-raises-performance-09-04-16
60 second science news- great openers, topic discussions or journal prompts
http://www.mathgrad.com/shownotes.html
math topics in everyday life- great openers, topic discussions or journal prompts
http://sciencehack.com/videos/category/10
video on math and science- trick for multiplying 3 digit numbers

I found the vidoe sites much more useful and I regularly use youtube and other sources to reteach math concepts to my students. It is nice to be able to pause and rewind the teacher when a student gets confused. The audio only clips are nice, but my students like to see something so this might not reach every student. I have had the opportunity to use Mathcasts in my class and now have a tablet so I can create my own. I think this will be a great addition to my class wiki as additional support for both parents and students. Interested in Mathcasts, http://math247.pbwiki.com/ is a good place to start!

The downside to this may be the technology in my school. We struggle with bandwidth during the day and this makes videos and podcasts hit or miss at times. Also, since I travel from class to class throughout the day, it is sometimes hard to find speakers and projectors. Set up time can be an issue. But I think the benefits outway the setbacks and I definitely think it is one more tool worth using.

Thing 17 Wiki vs. Blogs

When I think of Blogging, I think of opinions, ideas and discussions. This is more personal than perhaps a Wiki. Although, with a blog, the blogger has control as to weather to post a comment or not (one person is in control). This can skew the discussion. This could be good or bad from an educaitonal pespective. I like having a heads-up on where the discussion goes, but at the same time my students would want to know why their comments were not posted (if that is the case). For my classes, blogging would be best used to post and discuss daily assignments or projects. I would you it as a support tool for homework and parents.

Wiki's offer more of a finished piece, an opportunity for students to work together to produce a product. Students can work at the same time and edit the page individually. This might work better for long term or group projects. I can see students arguing over changes one member of the group has made that they do not agree with. Also, students will have to monitor each other to assure the information is accurate. To avoid these issues, students must have a strict set of guidelines to follow when working on a Wiki page together, if not the teacher will spent all her time playing judge and jury.