Thing 23:Dancing in the End Zone

I have LOVED this class.  I put it absolutely at the top of my most fun and most informative opportunities for professional development through the years.  I’m more than a little amazed at myself for being able to accomplish every task – usually not with skill or ease, but always with sheer doggedness and absolutely with enjoyment.  That I was able to do so is a mighty tribute to Shelley and her well-planned class, to the marvelous videos and clear explanations, and to the inspiration of seeing my fellow travelers add that X to each box week by week.  A final hooray for our Schenck School librarian Patty McEwen for talking this class up and bravely coaching three of us to today’s goal post.

Thing 22: Social Networking, Classroom 2.0, Twitter

I love the concept of Classroom 2.0.  I enjoyed the tour given by Mr. Hargadon, and it’s interesting that he considers the Forum to be “the heart” of the site.  That it is, as Paul Hill describes it, “a place to ask questions and get answers from people you otherwise would have have met,” makes it seem down to earth and accessible. Paul Hill’s explanation that it differs from a Wiki in that a Wiki is more static and is more about resources while Classroom 2.0 is all about discussion.  I was struck by the ordinariness of the questions on today’s Forum: how to set up a special ed classroom, for instance.  But I was even more impressed with the respectfulness and the helpfulness of the answers.  I think this site could be very useful to teachers.   I might join it – later, when I have had time to absorb and reflect on all of this technology and begin to pick and choose what I will use.  There are simply not enough hours in the day to use all of it, not matter how fabulous it all may be.

Twitter I found appealing in its brevity.  Twitter I found appalling in its brevity.  The most relevant of the 30 ways to use Twitter in the classroom to me were the idea of using it so that students can monitor their own learning process – “it makes learning visible”  –  and the use of it as a tracking device for field trips as did the gentleman with a group of kids at Hadrian’s Wall. (Better him than me.)   The notion from the video of “plucking ideas from the stream or let them go floating by” was instructive.  Is it really, as Shirley Nussbaum-Beach enthuses, “An at-your-fingertips-professional learning community”?  Or is it bullet points of thought when thoughtful reflection and conversation are what is needed?

When I came across one Twitterer who enthused that she devotes “only” an hour each day to keep up with Twitter, my heart sank.  That kind of investment of time would be a hard sell for the incredibly busy teachers I know.  My mind is not closed, but as with Classroom 2.0, the problem is time.  The jury is still out for me, at least as a professional tool.  It might be great fun around a hobby or other interest.

Thing 7C: Response to My RSS Feed

A blog that I have enjoyed this summer is Dr. Scott McLeod’s Dangerously Irrelevant.    In a recent post, Dr. McLeod poses the question to his readers, “Should we require school employees to have RSS Readers?” and the discussion among his readers is very interesting.

In his July 23rd  blog on Instructify, Bill Ferris includes a link to the American Association of Librarians Top 25 Websites for teaching and learning – a great list.

Thing 21: Feeling Flaky

Quite honestly, being able to “get to know Pageflakes” without having to actually create one was a great gift to me, and Shelley’s bright green banner of dispensation was welcome news for sure!    Approaching the end of this wonderful class, I’m truly on digital overload, and I’m looking forward to some time to process, practice and reflect on what I have learned, rather than be given more new toys to ride around the block.

For instance, I’m not sure why a Pageflake is any different – although it is more attractive –  than giving someone my de.lic.ious list, for instance.  And how does Peek’s Page from Thing 20 differ from a Pageflake?  Is a Pageflake a glorified poster akin to the digital posters we’ve been introduced to?   The A.P. European History site seemed the most useful as a Pageflake educational tool to me; but I don’t understand how the intent and result of that page differs from a well done Wiki site.  And when would a Pageflake be preferable to a Google Doc, or to a Wiki, or to many of the other sharing tools that we have learned about and experimented with?  I’m picturing a chart with the strengths, uses, and problems of these various 2.0 tools that would help me differentiate among them and thereby better understand and use each one.

Not for the first time this summer, I find myself wishing there were a real, live person I could have asked questions of along the way, and that for one session we might have had the wonderful, real-time experience of trading ignorance, information and answers among our fellow classmates face to face.

Thing 20: Google Docs

                 I enjoyed learning about and using my very own Google Doc. It was easier for me to learn and navigate Google Docs than some of the other tools we have worked with this summer. I think it will be a wonderful tool for me to use because almost everything I do as a principal is a collaborative effort with teachers, students, parents, staff or other administrators. Often I find myself trading drafts or emails back and forth on a project, or goodness knows physically racing back and forth, trying to settle on a meeting time, reach consensus, etc. with others, when using a Google Doc would be much easier and quicker.

 
             With my sample for today’s discovery, I shared my document with my fellow principal and the school librarian. Hopefully they can offer input over the next couple of weeks and we can modify the document easily to be one that we all approve.

            Some ideas for using Google Docs collaboratively are these:
1.) Allow parents in a classroom to reserve  their most convenient times for parent conferences.
2.) Allow teachers to schedule the most convenient times for us to meet.
3.) Collaborate on the wording of letters or documents that will go to parents from the collective “school”.
4.) Gather input and events from all sources as the school calendar is assembled.
5.) Gather information and input from sources at other schools around a particular event or topic.

Thing 18: Podcasting

Whew! What a lot of time for such a tiny product. For some people, such as the Spanish teacher with the fabulous video about artichokes, creating a podcast is a valuable tool. From what I have experienced over the last couple of days, I believe I will learn a lot from the podcasts of others, but would do one of my own very infrequently.

Thing 19: YouTube and Teacher Tube

It’s hard not to drown in YouTube – whether it’s being entertained by Sarah Palin look-and-sound alikes, learning from the clear instructions on transfering photos from camera to computer, or enjoying a visit with Frederick Buechner by his fireside in New England  - it’s amazing stuff.  I can imagine the how-to material being useful in a classroom and the plethora of experts being ready-made for easy professional development opportunities. 

      TeacherTube felt like drowning as well, but I was drowning in ads and pop ups rather than information and entertainment.  It was not instructive or enjoyable to browse there.

        You will neither be inspired nor instructed should you decide to watch this video, but you will gasp, be horrified and hope you were never that young.

Thing 17: iTunes and Podcasts

What fun!  What a wealth of entertainment and information this has introduced me to, as well as giving me a way to enjoy broadcasts I cannot hear when they originally air.  I subscribed to Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, Speaking of Faith and The Splendid Table for my own enjoyment, and the International Reading Association’s two sites, Insights on Teaching Reading and Literacy 2.0 for professional development.

Surprising to me were how many interesting-sounding sites had not had anything new added in a year or more, and how many current sites began with goofy, pointless opening minutes.  I listened to two very self-absorbed guys describing their summer plans and ran out of patience before I could hear their ideas for using SMARTBoards.

Now I am coveting my neighbor’s iPod.

Thing 16: LibraryThing

What a unique and fun website!  As  LibraryThing member Kathryn Havemann enthuses in the instructive NY Times article about Library Thing, “It’s wonderful to know there are many other crazy people out there who are absolutely addicted to books.”

It’s lovely and fitting that the site carries no advertising, and that makes LibraryThing a calm place to browse.  Just imagine: the world as my book club!  It’s intriguing to me that so few of the members are identified by their real names; it’s as though this cerebral world of reading and books is an absolutely sacred space for people who love to read.

I can definitely use this as a way to organize the books I read with and for the students as well as a tool for personally holding onto key books, themes, characters, etc. from the books I enjoy.  I can see that this would be a good way to catalog books read by individual classes or groups of students.  Fabulous!

Thing 15: Definitely delirious demystifying del.icio.us

Not sure why it took me so long to get the gist of this resource, but having it now is worth the struggle to get to this point.  At first, it seemed as though this would be one more way to be overwhelmed by information (“drinking from a fire hose” as one site noted yesterday) but in fact it is a good way to bring focus and narrow some of the limitless options available  on the web for educators.

I took a whirl at “subscribing” and that was a shock: within 30 seconds, 3 sites had popped into my pristine, carefully selected list, and one of them contained a four letter word in the title. Yikes!!  I scrambled to unsubscribe and I won’t be trying that again for a while.

The link is: http://del.icio.us/cherylmullins32