BP8_2009112_Web 2.0 #2

Tikatok:

 

This is a community for children to write, illustrate, and publish a real book.  The minute I saw this Web 2.0 tool, I fell in love.  The first idea that popped into my head was the students who always finish all of their work first.  What an amazing extra curricular activity to work on.  Although it costs money to buy a book, they are selling the PDF version of the book for $2.99.  Not bad when you can print them out and photo copy them for an entire class. 

 

While I was playing around with the site, I noticed that there are many different types of books you can create.  You can make your own, or there are a lot of different story starters you may use.  It is a very easy layout and once you click a page you can get right to work.  You can add photos or draw your own.  There are just so many options to choose from. 

 

I can see so many of my students really getting into this.  It is such a great way to get kids writing creatively.  I think it would be such a reward to have a real hard cover book from your own imagination.  I think it would also be a great for parents.  What a great activity to do on the weekend or summer vacation.  It would be incorporating technology with improving writing skills.  The best part being, the children would not even know they are improving their writing skills and creativity skills. 

 

BP7_2009112_Web 2.0 #1

Panoramio

 

Panoramio is a geolocation-oriented photo sharing website.  The site's goal is to allow Google Earth users to learn more about a given area by viewing the photos that other users have taken at that place.  Two Spanish entrepreneurs created this site in October of 2005 and by 2007, it had archived over one million photos submitted by users (Panoramio Blog).   

 

This Web 2.0 tool would be so much fun to use in the classroom.  While I was looking at pictures from Japan, Spain, and Hawaii, all I could think about was, what a cool virtual field trip.  You can learn so much from pictures and it is interesting to learn about the areas you are finding the pictures from. 

 

Why would this be an educational benefit?  As we all know, traveling is a very expensive hobby.  Although looking at pictures is not as much fun as going, you can learn so much from a photo.  There are so many projects you could use this Web 2.0 tool with.  Geography class especially!  While learning about the Eiffel Tower, you can locate other famous buildings and get a glimpse of the layout of the city. 

 

Another positive aspect of this website, was the simplicity of it.  It was so easy to use.  You click on an area on the map and photos of that location just pop up.  Another idea about the website that was interesting was the photo contest.  Each month they choose a few photos as winners.  They are based on scenery, remote locations, etc.  Could you see yourself in a photography class in a high school and entering a photo you have taken.  Could you imagine winning?  That would be such an accomplishment for a high school student.  All in all, I really liked the layout of this site.  It was easy to use and would be easy to teach it to students.  

BP6_2009112_Flickr Lesson Plan

My Flickr lesson plan would be geared towards K-1 students.  Before using Flickr on the Internet, I would have to practice surfing the web with my students.  I would also have discuss the safety issues while viewing photos. My biggest concern would be students finding inappropriate photos by accident.  Since you tag your own photos, you really don't know what photos could come up in the search.  

Learning verbs:	Steps of the lesson:
1)   Learn the verbs: run, jump, sing, dance, play, swim, read, write.	1) Learners look for pictures on Flickr.  They type the words in the “search window” and try to guess the meaning of these verbs.  2) The teacher shows slides, pronounces the words, and adds some new verbs.  The learners repeat and try to remember that.  3) Students can print out five photos each.  They will then play a verb vocabulary game with a partner.  4) As a class, we will then take the photos and create “I can “ and “We can” sentences on the pocket chart.

BP5_2009112_Social Bookmarking

(Photo: Freedigitalphotos.net)

Educational Uses for Social Bookmarking:

Social bookmarking has a great place in the education world.  As many teachers are obsessed with organization, this tool can only help.  The concept of shared online bookmarks dates back to April 1996 with the launch of it List, the features of which included public and private bookmarks (Goulder, 2006).  Within the next three years, online bookmark services became competitive, with venture-backed companies such as Back flip, Blink, Clip2, Click Marks, Hotlinks, and others entering the market (Goulder, 2006). 

So why would social bookmarking be useful in the education world? For example, I'm always highly motivated, by Will Richardson.  After all, he's doing some remarkable thinking around the innovative ways that technology can be used in the classroom.  Wouldn't it be cool to share his online reading list? Well, you can! It’s available on Delicious, one of the web's most popular social bookmarking applications.   Now here's the cool thing:  For each item that you bookmark, social bookmarking applications like Delicious will provide you with a direct link to all of the other users who bookmarked that the same item.  You can then see that many other people saved this website as a valuable site.  You can also check out what those people have been saving and see if there are any other common interests. 

While researching social bookmarking, I found these great uses on the wiki classroom website (Tangient LLC, 2009) :

·      Network with other educators around the globe who share your interests.

·      Create social bookmark accounts for your school's academic departments. Teachers within the department all contribute to the growing database of web resources.

·      Contact other people for professional networking, based on their social bookmarks.

·      Allow yourself and your students to share bookmarks on research topics.

·      Subscribe to someone's bookmarks via RSS and receive updates whenever they add new websites.

·      Collaborate on projects with other schools, sharing bookmarks between all participating communities (Tangient LLC, 2009)

 Will I begin to use it in the classroom?  I think that I will use it as an educator.  It will be an easy way to sort through the websites I use on a regular basis.  It will also be nice to see how many other people are using the same websites as I am.  I am also looking forward to finding new websites through other people.  Teaching kindergarten limits some of the technology I can use in my classroom.  I have found many uses for most of the technology we have learned thus far.  The social bookmarking might be a little tough for the kids.  If I were teaching another grade, I would definitely utilize this in the classroom.  

References

Goulder, Scott. (2006). Usage patterns of collaborative tagging systems. Retrived

from  Journal of Information Science 32 (2): 198-208.

 

Leelefever. (2007, August 7).  Social bookmarking in plain English.  Video posted to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x66lV7GOcNU

 

Tangient LLC. (2009, November 3). Classroom2dot0 – social bookmarking. 

Retrieved from http://wiki.classroom20.com/Social+Bookmarking 

BP4_2009112_Web2.0Tools

Web 2.0 Tools:

After researching the website with the Web 2.0 tools I found one in particular that I wanted to pursue.  The website is http://kidoz.net/.  KIDO’Z is a website dedicated to keeping children safe online.  While reading the reviews, they state that is an extremely popular website for children ten and under.  As I am a Kindergarten teacher, this is right up my alley. 

This website is a great tool for young children because they

 don’t need to read or write in order to use it.  It is very colorful in nature with a kid-friendly interface.  The best thing about this website is that it allows children to access and browse hundreds of safe sites without leaving the Web 2.0 tool. 

This website is something I would definitely use in my classroom.  The way our schedule is set up, we have two free computer times per day.  I usually let the students play PBS Kids.com.  Using KIDO’Z I would be able to let the children browse through a variety of safe websites and let them choose what they would want to research or play. 

I could use KIDO’Z for many assignments w

ithin my class.  I would start by using this website with the Smart board.  I would allow the students to browse through the different websites and see what the site has to offer.  By allowing each student to have a turn checking out a website of their interest, they would be able to go on their own and use the site by themselves.  The beauty of this Web 2.0 tool is that you don’t have to worry about students navigating away from a specified site.  Any site they are using is safe and allows you to have peace-of-mind. 

Go2Web2.0 has actually made me rethink some parts of my action research project.  It has given me more age appropriate information that might be better to use with kindergarteners then what I had previously planned.  

*The pictures I used in my blog were screen shots from the KIDO'z site!

BP3_2009111_Educational Use of Blogs

Why are blogs so important to education?

As blogs become more and more popular, they can be used for educational purposes.  There are so many uses for blogs in education; creating a resume, personal weblog, newsletters, and collaboration project logs.  It is a great idea for educators to become familiar with blogs.  Personally, I never thought I would be a blogger.  I guess I never thought I had anything important to say.  The more I research blogs, the more I can see the importance of them.

 After watching the Networked Student I discovered the importance of Connectivism.  It makes so much sense to dump the textbooks and take control of your own learning.  Using blogs can help you reach that goal.  Blogs are a collaborative piece of work pertaining to a specific topic.  It actually allows you to gain more knowledge in a smaller amount of time.  When you begin your research, you are not starting from square 1.  It is almost like you have a heads up.   People who are interested in the same topic and who have completed some research are making it easier for you. 

As all educators know, if you can own your learning, you will learn clearly learn more and retain the information.  This is where the importance of blogs comes into play.  Imagine giving a middle school student an assignment on an inventor.  That student could do a number of things to start this project.  They could begin their own blog, and watch for comments on the research they find, or they could look for other blogs posted by other people.  Maybe these blog posts would be from college professors, college students, or anyone who has extensive knowledge in this subject area.  That student is learning so much more then reading a few textbooks or encyclopedias.  In conclusion, it is only a matter of time before blogs hit the education circuit.  Once they do, educators should be prepared and have prior knowledge to coach students on the correct way to use blogs!  

BP2_2009111_iGoogle3Shots

iGoogle Screen Shots: