May 2007 Blog Posts (125)

Intro...

I was introduced to a different way of learning early in this year. Since then my mind has been fascinated with the possibilities. Currently I am a 'Training Manager' (although I find my title of 'training' woefully inadequate), Graduate Student and Homeschooling parent. Just about everything I do is centered around learning.

Because of this, I have started the Learning 2.0 Ning site. I also have my… Continue

Added by Kevin D. Jones on May 31, 2007 at 11:27pm — No Comments

Toys

One more week and school will be out. Now I can play with some ideas and toys that I will hopefully be able to use during the next school year. I recently purchased a Flip video camera. It is a great little gadget, I just need to decide exactly what to do with it.

Added by Gary Torstenson on May 31, 2007 at 11:04pm — 1 Comment

Light at the end of the tunnel...

Finished End-of-Grade testing today and then broke up a fight in the cafeteria an hour later. 6 days to go... Hope you all are making it through this stressful time!

Added by Shawn Moore on May 31, 2007 at 9:05pm — No Comments

Two excellent new books on Society 2.0+

We at WeAreTeachers are greatly influenced by the ideas of "The Long Tail". We are very interested in enabling Long Tail economics for the world of educational products using the incredible resource of the worldwide teaching community. Both these new books extend and explain Long Tail concepts.

The first is The Black Swan:… Continue

Added by Kelly Looney on May 31, 2007 at 8:56pm — No Comments

To be or not to be ....... productive

Well, I’ve been tagged by Brian over at Snacks and Staff Meetings about my best productivity tips. It’s taken me a while to get to this one so maybe my tips aren’t really that effective. But, I’ll throw them

out there and you can see if they might work for you.

Tip #1 - Find an all-in-one organizer and stick with it. This took me some time but I really like the Zoho planner and now it stays open on my…

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Added by Kelly Christopherson on May 31, 2007 at 8:38pm — No Comments

Getting Caught Up

Being new to Classroom 2.0, I am still playing catch-up...learning how to make friends, how to respond to invites, etc.

Until I get up-to-speed, I'd like to invite everyone over to my blog...reading it will definitely give you an idea as to my interests, world-view, and definitely-off-center sense of humor.

www.shannonprincipal.edublogs.org

For all those I invited to "be a friend" - it was pretty random, but there was a pattern (of… Continue

Added by Greg Farr on May 31, 2007 at 3:49pm — 1 Comment

Dr. Alice Robison on Video Games as a Learning Tool

I recently spoke with Dr. Alice Robison form MIT on the topic of how video games can be used as learnign tools. A very interesting interview, and she had some surprising insight on how to use and when to use video games.

HEre is the link: It is long, copy all of it into the URL box.

http://web.mac.com/timholt/iWeb/Byte%20Speed/Pod%20Speed/A1ACB7D8-5CCA-4392-9B1D-1605DD2385F1.html

Enjoy. Please leave some feedback.

Tim

Added by Tim Holt on May 31, 2007 at 10:47am — 2 Comments

Giving ICT a Global Dimension

Click on image to view a pdf of the leaflet

It is clear that technology has a significant role to play to inspire and motivate our learners. We all know that WWW stands for World Wide Web. However, many schools have yet to realise its true potential for bringing the real world into the classroom. Communication is literally at the heart of ICT. Sadly,…

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Added by Alex Savage on May 31, 2007 at 6:43am — 1 Comment

And we're preparing them for....

There has been a great discussion going on over at Bump on the Log and We Live in Interesting Times about whether we should or should not be preparing our students for the “business world”. Now, in reading through the posts and the comments, I

began to wonder what exactly we are preparing them for? I mean, I don’t

know how…

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Added by Kelly Christopherson on May 30, 2007 at 8:49pm — 1 Comment

Technology is a Tool, not a Class

Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse.

To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the

confident it is inspiring…

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Added by Tim Holt on May 30, 2007 at 2:33pm — 2 Comments

Lights..camera..learning

I made this "Farm Kids"movie with my Jr. HIgh actors the last year I was in the classroom. It was the third full length film I'd made with kids and community members. I wrote the script and kids helped with everything from technical work, to the soundtrack. The story is a little autobiographical as I lives in an abandoned house for a while as a child. At the time we were making this movie, we had just gotten VE-2… Continue

Added by Kevin on May 30, 2007 at 2:28pm — 1 Comment

The impact of technology on learning

I'm writing this as a brief assignment in a teached ed programme, to demonstrate writing online - the subject is the impact of technology on learning.

Technology has exploded on our educational lives in the last decade, At the front end of the explosion were things for the teacher to do: use a computer to make handouts and assignment briefs, learn software to enhance their presentation skills, get savvy with gadgets like IWBs and digital cameras. And as those skills became… Continue

Added by pete whitfield on May 30, 2007 at 7:42am — 3 Comments

My Web2.0 Wanderings

Thanks for the invite.

I was surprised by how many people I knew when I looked through the profiles.

Hi guys

Allanah

Added by Allanah K on May 29, 2007 at 10:30pm — No Comments

Plans

WOW! Looking at all the stuff I've started accumulating, I wonder how in the world I'm ever going to get things organized so that I can help my teachers! Oh my gosh! Right now, I'm feeling like I'm in WAY over my head. I want to help the teachers get things going so that the kids are much more engaged and DOING next year, but I think I have to find small ways to get people started. I've identified my movers - there are 2 for sure and maybe a 3rd. There will be three new teachers next year that… Continue

Added by Marsha on May 29, 2007 at 8:30pm — 1 Comment

How to Upload TeacherTube Video to Classroom 2.0

Adapted from Phil McCluskey at Ning:

Go to the video that you want to use on TeacherTube. Then look at the "page source" information for the page (in Firefox, View --> Page Source).

When you view the source of the page you get a lot a lot of gobbledy-gook. Look for some code like this:

<embed src="…

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Added by Steve Hargadon on May 29, 2007 at 8:30pm — 1 Comment

The Wonderful World of Wikimedia

I'm been looking for a new creative outlet lately (not like I have any extra time :)...something not exactly work-related, but media-oriented and imagination-stretching. I started a small-format documentary video project, but it wasn't really moving along. I tried Second Life...well, let's just say that didn't really work out for me.

At the same time, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about "copyleft" content and the Open Source… Continue

Added by Karen Fasimpaur on May 29, 2007 at 8:30pm — 1 Comment

Mirror mirror in the brain

I had an ah ha moment this morning while reading an article about "mirror neurons". For some time scientists have studied these fascinating cells in the brain. Mirror neurons don't seem to descriminate between actually doing something and seeing someone else do it. They were first discovered quite by accident in a lab with monkeys. Scientists were observing the firing of specific neurons related to… Continue

Added by Kevin on May 29, 2007 at 8:25am — 1 Comment

Great lists of Web 2.0 services

Here are a couple of lists worth checking out:

Web 2.0 Directory: eConsultant
Top 25 Web 2.0 Apps to Improve a Student's or Professor's Productivity
The Complete Web 2.0 Directory

Anyone have other suggestions?

Added by Lucy Gray on May 29, 2007 at 1:25am — No Comments

Let's all meet at NECC

Okay everyone, shall we all plan a meeting at NECC in Atlanta??
We could all take pictures of each other for our blog sites,. we could all go to dinner or drinks...

It would be great to meet y'all!

How about a Classroom 2.0 dinner?

Tim

Added by Tim Holt on May 28, 2007 at 10:35pm — 10 Comments

Time Crunch

Well, like many teachers and administrators, the end of May and June are times when things get a bit hectic. It seems that each year, no matter how much I plan, I always seem to be crunched for time. So why

am I writing this blog if I don’t have much time? Good question.

Since I began on this web2.0 journey in January, I’ve begun to rely on this blog as a place to discuss important ideas, sound off about things that are bugging me and ask for input on ideas that are…

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Added by Kelly Christopherson on May 28, 2007 at 5:15pm — No Comments