Thing 23

I have been taking online courses through the Ed Tech program at MSU. I hope to earn a Master Degree in Educational Technology. My experience in the MSU program meant that most of the 23 Things were review for me. It also allowed me to move fairly quickly. I would recommend the MSU program to anyone who wants to move beyond this program. I enjoyed reviewing the material covered in 23 Things.

I plan to try to incorporate most of what we learned into my classes next year. We will use blogs, create group websites or wikis, RSS and Delicious pages. I know that my use of 2.0 tools will evolve over the next couple of years. Practice will dictate when and how we use the various tools. I have been trying to get YouTube unblocked for several months with no luck. Photo sharing will be a big part of our projects next year. We are talking about a podcasting requirement but have not worked out the details.

We are going to be making big changes in our method of delivery next year and Web 2.0 is going to be a big part of it.

Thing 22

Link to wiki.

The above link will take you to the wiki that I started. It will obviously be different when school starts. Ms. Laforest and I will be teaching a combined class and will collaborate on things such as a class wiki. I can see that wikis are useful but am not sure I will use one in place of a website.

As part of the New Tech Foundation our students will be working on several major projects a semester. A group wiki would be an ideal tool for collaboration. Projects can be outlined and developed using a wiki. This would also allow us to monitor participation by tracking changes made by individual group members. Group participation will be a major component of student grades.

Wikis differ from blogs in that blogs are the work of an individual and wikis are a group effort. Each will have its place in class next year depending on the assignment. Blogs-individual wikis-group.

Thing 21

I like the way that Westwood Schools and Welker's Wikinomics put Wikis to use. It is similar to what I have been planning to do using a Weebly website. They have set up course pages that appear to include all the information that students need for class. This is being done in a paperless format which is one of my goals for next year. Each included links and obviously allowed responses. Both were locked to prevent unauthorized changes.

I will now have to consider whether to use a wiki or website for my classes next year. I may use some combination of both. I do not foresee any problems using a Wiki. We will have classroom sets of computers making access easy. There should be no interference from administration because they will be used for educational purposes and monitored daily. I do not see any real hurdles at this time. The only problem I can anticipate at this point in inappropriate postings or changes. We will have to develop a policy to deal with this before the start of the school year.

Thing 20

I used iTunes to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal Morning Report. I am an Apple user and thought that iTunes was the easiest to use and the most visually appealing of the 3 services. I have used EPN in the past when looking for educational podcasts. I will use EPN for examples when we begin classroom podcasting next year. This was the first time I looked at Podcast Alley. I will use all 3 in the future when looking for specific topics. I especially liked the assortment of sports and travel podcasts available on Podcast Alley.

Thing 19

My favorite podcast so far is from the high school in Minnesota. The commercials for elements on the periodic table are great. I can see using them as part of multimedia presentations in class. I would use them just like a T.V. commercial. I teach Biology but most biological concepts are based on chemistry. It would be simple to match elements with topics being covered.

I also enjoyed the National Geographic site. They had many podcasts dealing with environmental issues and National Geographic material is always interesting and timely.

The New Tech Model requires students to make several presentations over the course of the year. Podcasts would be a natural fit for several of the presentations. We have also discussed making podcasts to emulate a radio station. We have not gotten past the discussion stage for this idea, but I am sure it will become part of our curriculum next year.

Thing 18

I picked a slide show dealing with DNA to embed. I liked this particular show because it is a good introductory overview
of DNA. The graphics were very good, I enjoyed just looking at some of the pictures. What is nice about Slideshare i you do not have to "reinvent the wheel." This type of tool will save me a lot of time and provide a high quality product. I will be able to find a Slideshare presentation for almost every topic. Slideshare and YouTube will make my classes more interesting next year.

DNA The Molecule of Life

View more presentations from Salwa Hassan Teama.

Thing 17

I have wanted to learn how to make a website so I picked Weebly as my 2.0 tool. Weebly is free ( up to 3 sites ) and easy to use. The first time I used it I was able to make a site in about 30 minutes. Weebly looks nice. It allows you to add photos and link to other sites. You can have multiple pages on one site. We will be using a course management system next year as part of New Tech. If not I would use Weebly as a course page. Assignments and announcements could be easily posted. It would be a great resource for absent students. Parents could use it to find out what is going on in class. You could probably make your own course management system using Weebly. I think Weebly would be a great organizational tool for both teachers and students. Everything you need for class could be at your fingertips.