tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20106133477621803442024-02-06T21:00:52.850-07:00The Math WhispererApril Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-24775922355990951702014-06-01T08:09:00.000-06:002014-06-01T08:09:12.109-06:00How Do I Learn and Some Reflecting<div style="text-align: center;">
How do I learn? That's a really big question. I guess I like to learn by doing and trying. Looking at an activity that's put in front of me and actually physically engaging in it. In our discussions at our table, we talked about some of the different ways we learn. Some of them are doing, seeing, acting it out, revisiting the task and reflecting on the process of what was just done. </div>
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Does this mean our students learn the same way? Is it something we've taught them over the years or do all people learn in these ways? These are important questions I'm trying to figure out. </div>
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The most effective way for me to learn is by making mistakes and reflecting on why I made that particular mistake. After reflecting, I can then go and fix what went wrong and work on not making the same mistake again. </div>
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When we did the knot activity last time we were together, I don't think I did it the correct way by actually making the knot, I just made the design of the knot. In the end does it really matter because I know I learned that I need to make mistakes in order to learn. </div>
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I try to be reflective after a days work with the students by asking myself; How did the lesson go? Did they understand what the point of the lesson was? What could I have done differently? Where do we go from here? What could I possibly do differently next time? And even many more questions. What I don't do a lot of the time is actually write down my reflections and keep track of the changes I need to make regarding my lessons. Maybe I need to do a better job of this especially with the changes I am wanting to make regarding my work with 21st Century Competencies and how I want to embed them into my lessons and investigations. The other area I am discovering I need work in is inquiry.</div>
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I think I understand it but when I visit other places like The Genesis Learning Centre in Edmonton, AB I realize I've got some work to do. At first I wasn't okay with this but you've got to take a step back and realize you can't make ALL the changes in your classroom in a short amount of time. Baby steps are important. Asking quality questions is also important. I worked on that this week and it was difficult for some of my students to come up with answers to those questions. One of them I used during writer's workshop was, Why do you think this is a good piece of writing? The student just looked at me blankly and thought and thought. At that time, I realized I needed to be asking them to really think in this way so I've got some work to do. </div>
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It appears as though learning is an ongoing process which requires us to be reflective and thoughtful about what we ask and why we're asking the questions we do. Inquiry is an area I need to improve upon and work towards more critical thinking and asking quality questions of my students. I guess I better get to work. </div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-15938953249434519552012-06-02T14:30:00.000-06:002012-06-02T14:30:01.520-06:00What Are We Doing To Kids?<div style="text-align: center;">
Every Wednesday I tutor a former student I had 2 years ago in grade 2. He's now in grade 4 and I'm continuing to build upon the knowledge he learned from me as well as his grade three teacher and help him make sense of multiplication and division and all the other math ideas in the grade four curriculum. WELL, when I walk into the room and look on my table this is what I saw.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh91GPI-60eUuFjHQDa8A4m86qjaFEht_N1lMuVhubuJJSG29UfLLfJnCqBzD0AZAdDcWL3zxRj4eaa6Eboe0p4ID9k1D1hn7DlfT97f0MW1z3xkTBKcoeXOHoYaNkjrIJUc2UXiFNDESxm/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-06-02+at+2.10.26+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh91GPI-60eUuFjHQDa8A4m86qjaFEht_N1lMuVhubuJJSG29UfLLfJnCqBzD0AZAdDcWL3zxRj4eaa6Eboe0p4ID9k1D1hn7DlfT97f0MW1z3xkTBKcoeXOHoYaNkjrIJUc2UXiFNDESxm/s320/Screen+Shot+2012-06-02+at+2.10.26+PM.png" width="270" /></a></div>
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Are you getting ready for my rant? Here we go... I'd like to know why are teachers so focused in on giving kids worksheets at this time of the year or at any other time of the year. I'm not talking one worksheet to practice an idea or a skill but 6 pages in a booklet. </div>
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Here's the scenario... I come in the room and see a page with 7 division questions along the top and 12 rows going down, yes you can do the math. That's 82 questions on ONE page, all division. Well that's just one page, there's another and then another with just half of the page covered with division questions. But wait, when I look further there are 3 more with various other questions, yes all division. The front page even looked like this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuwIdShD6Wy98TESOx-ww-ojVTEEaJJpCJ79-dn4JO6_xXcnwkXTI3z_4g3ticw2X9XQ5gLpwvQ0sAM_4_kHlB6V-SPuQKhKdWFxTtaBCV6t9gi50hCLuvTWdwDTtv0NwrF1dEwNAyc-tJ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-06-02+at+2.12.34+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuwIdShD6Wy98TESOx-ww-ojVTEEaJJpCJ79-dn4JO6_xXcnwkXTI3z_4g3ticw2X9XQ5gLpwvQ0sAM_4_kHlB6V-SPuQKhKdWFxTtaBCV6t9gi50hCLuvTWdwDTtv0NwrF1dEwNAyc-tJ/s320/Screen+Shot+2012-06-02+at+2.12.34+PM.png" width="277" /></a></div>
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The theme of the page was Jersey Division. I'd like to know what Jerseys have to do with division? If anyone can tell me then please message me because I'm up for the discussion.</div>
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It takes us 1 hour to get through 70 questions. Remember there are 5 more pages to go but the good part is that he has until Monday to get the booklet complete. But wait, it takes one hour to get one page done and he's got 5 more to do. That means one hour each night until Sunday. WAIT...THERE'S MORE. He's got 2 other booklets to complete along with LA, Social and Science work. Remember it's June and we've got 4 weeks left of school. All of the kids are done and I mean DONE. The weather is nice and this particular boy, along with lots of other boys need to be out running around, playing, riding bikes and having fun. Not inside doing copious amounts of math worksheets and booklets. </div>
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The point of this story is why are we giving kids this amount of work? Why are we giving them this kind of math? Just so we can say we've "covered it!" Do kids really gain from this type of work? Are they really learning their multiplication and division facts by doing gobs and gobs of the same 'ol shit. Excuse my language but this makes me crazy. <br />
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After cooling off for the past couple of days and speaking to various people, I'm still frustrated by this. Why you ask? First, this amount of work is not appropriate for this time of the year. Second, this type of math isn't problem solving, thinking, critical thinking, reasoning, explaining, making connections, etc, etc. It's busy work to make it appear the curriculum has been taught. Thirdly, it's bad practice on the teachers part and it's bad leadership on administrations part. This teacher is doing this because there is support from administration to teach the drill and kill method. I've heard it several times from administration that kids need to know their basic facts and this is the way to do it. This teacher should be expected to teach the new curriculum and support should be provide. Clearly this is not the new curriculum and support is not being provided to this teacher.<br />
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There are a handful of us in our school who are working at changing our practice but it's frustrating when you work hard to get your students starting to think, problem solving, reason, make connection and talk about their learning then they move to classrooms where this takes place. What are we to do? I do not have an answer to this question but I do know that I'm <b><span style="font-size: large;">not </span></b>going to stop learning how to be a better teacher and helping my students make connections, problem solve, think and push them to do better and know more. It's shameful and I would be embarrassed if I was this teacher. Our students deserve more from us.<br />
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<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-14271419008662871732012-05-23T21:06:00.000-06:002012-05-23T21:06:17.935-06:00Continuing to BuildBuilding, building, building is the theme of the classroom. You'd have thought after building the number 25 for the past 5 days the kids would be really good at it and much faster. Well I'm here to tell you that's not the case. I did manage to snap a couple of very fast pictures of kids who stretched the area model out into the number line.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ylseWWk2O9TBdj2V37QFSfJp69jsMtOH4NcM_Y_U6f5bbE49yrd5T1a26k9MMGoSGc5CeFSdq8BsPZ_RsbgKs4QVmFVrFyp0UYwZcm8-ycEW9e-vV1Mu3JH6f1LW1aoanBYJ_uTIfv_M/s1600/IMG_0002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ylseWWk2O9TBdj2V37QFSfJp69jsMtOH4NcM_Y_U6f5bbE49yrd5T1a26k9MMGoSGc5CeFSdq8BsPZ_RsbgKs4QVmFVrFyp0UYwZcm8-ycEW9e-vV1Mu3JH6f1LW1aoanBYJ_uTIfv_M/s320/IMG_0002.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You'll see the paper model doesn't match with the manipulatives. Many are quite concerned by the length rather than the sequence of numbers should make sense. </td></tr>
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Both of these students are understanding that the two models need to match. What they were unclear of is how to move from 25 to 100 using this model. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAipUYFEwBcOE9tBzvUQtXq0SXVEDh_7TYo5SdOgr9Iibz5qd73_rlrAfXAZqQDqOr3mxKGbcBAg2Lb8W21mIZj9MgtFirfBbg9SWnmcDNGy-cJRHxV1PW04oIBoJrh-hVPxom7VZDTunJ/s1600/IMG_0003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAipUYFEwBcOE9tBzvUQtXq0SXVEDh_7TYo5SdOgr9Iibz5qd73_rlrAfXAZqQDqOr3mxKGbcBAg2Lb8W21mIZj9MgtFirfBbg9SWnmcDNGy-cJRHxV1PW04oIBoJrh-hVPxom7VZDTunJ/s320/IMG_0003.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I like how she's kept the green (25) altogether. </td></tr>
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To see the relationship between 25, 75 and 100 I had the students build 75 today. We went right back to the same behaviours of not knowing what to do. I guess this tells me a couple of things.<br />
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<li>We need to do WAY more building of number. </li>
<li>We need to build more numbers and talk about them. </li>
<li>I think we're going to build the 100 model using adding machine tape so that it is always available and easy to access. The blocks are really cumbersome and they don't take them apart properly. Or maybe I need to rethink this and continue to have them use the blocks because at some point they'll figure it out. </li>
<li>I need to be more patient. Today was frustrating for them and me. We'll continue tomorrow and I know it will be better. </li>
<li>The numbers need to stay on the tool. Part of the problem for them is not seeing that the 75 square on the paper (the last place they cut) is also the spot where the numeral 75 should go. That's if they start in the correct place. If they haven't put the numbers in the correct places, all kinds of weird and wacky things end up happening. The chunk of green doesn't end up staying together so then it becomes different. </li>
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I just had a brain wave. What happens if I have them write the 5 number sequence or just the 10 sequence on their paper, then have them color in the number I'm wanting them to make. Will this make a difference? Will they see that the number they are embedding needs to match up with the numbers they've placed on their 10 by 10 grid? I'll let you know how this goes.<div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-9913083695848514752012-05-18T09:04:00.003-06:002012-05-18T09:08:38.510-06:00Connecting Area Models to Linear Models to 100First let me start off with a big <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>HELLO!</b></span> It's been months since I've posted. The content of this blog will change from a technology component to that of a math focus. It was always my intent to use this blog as a space to open up the conversation about math thinking in a primary classroom, namely my own and that of the students, with a focus on grade 2 curriculum. It's a work in progress and I've got lots to share so please return frequently and I look forward to the conversations to come.<br />
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Our grade 2 curriculum in Alberta says, students need<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> to represent and describe numbers to 100, concretely, pictorially, and symbolically. As a class we've been working on this all year but we're revisiting it again to help pull and develop math strategies.</span><br />
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One of the strategies AB Learning recommends is using addition o subtract. The goal in the images you'll see below is to help build the connections between the area model and move it into the linear model of a number line. My goal is to show how the two are connected as well as work on placement of numbers in the area model and linear model. </div>
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Students built 25 and 100 and the task was to compare them to each other. Many students were very good at pulling the chunk of 75 from the 25 and then using strategies like making tens, transforming the chunk of 25 and doubling it, some counted 10, 20, 30,...to 70 and then added 5.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv7wjEnxOUVkuyQTmPIM_vywXwp4JamD_PpQjvk9PmXJ1IyVkfAHxquzmp233Nz70YLR0tNLPpQonGrN_MjhUFQ8y6Uc0_kk28cE-vpRpFKo37WqGS_me6Tk00b5YjhWK9rI7HQViziGKH/s1600/IMG_1421.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv7wjEnxOUVkuyQTmPIM_vywXwp4JamD_PpQjvk9PmXJ1IyVkfAHxquzmp233Nz70YLR0tNLPpQonGrN_MjhUFQ8y6Uc0_kk28cE-vpRpFKo37WqGS_me6Tk00b5YjhWK9rI7HQViziGKH/s320/IMG_1421.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
You'll see from the model, the students could easily count the tens and fives. This picture does not lend itself to easily seeing the adding on to get to 30 from 25 or adding a 10 to get to 35 but it's the model the student built and there were others who built it as two tens and the five ones. I just didn't get a picture :-).<br />
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From here we talked about the decade numbers (tens) and where they would go on the grid. Lots of good discussion was had around where it should go and why. In the end, students placed their numbers in various places on the grid. Some up in the left hand corner others bottom left. It depended on what they were thinking and where they placed their 25.<br />
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You'll see here that this student is building it backwards. It's not a concern of mine because they are understanding their own sequence. I must add that writing the numbers on the blank grid was a challenge for some of them. I didn't leave them hanging because they then stretched it out into a number line to see the connections between the numbers. Now this student I watched because of where the numbers were being placed on his rod.<br />
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This student is going to have difficulty taking the area model out into a number line because they are just writing out the pattern of numbers and placing all the stickers on the one rod. Many ran into this problem but eventually worked it out with help from another student or listening to what others were saying.<br />
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I didn't want all of the numbers written on the grid because it's not about seeing all the numbers it's about making connections to the relationships between the numbers and where they fall on the open number line. Remember, my goal is to make connections and eventually build the understanding of adding to subtract. Before I can get them to this strategy they need to understand several different ideas here.<br />
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<li>Where are the numbers in relationship to each other on the area model and the linear model.</li>
<li>Comparing the two models and being able to use them the same way. </li>
<li>It's possible to move from 25 to 100 or from 100 to 25 without moving the large chunk. HUGE IDEA!!!</li>
<li>The two models the same but just organized in a different way. </li>
<li>The number 25 is embedded in the number 100. Another HUGE IDEA!!</li>
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After placing the numbers on their paper copy and their manipulative copy, the students took the area model apart and stretched it out. A lot of misunderstandings were somewhat cleared up and others realized they'd made some mistakes along the way. It's okay because we'll come back and build more and more of these models. Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of the linear model but I will next week because all of them didn't build it.<br />
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There were some interesting connections being made once they moved to the linear model. Some said, "Ms. Brown, did you know there are 4 - 25's in the 100?" Great connections. "There are 5 - 5's in 25?" Others were asking, "Why didn't the paper model match with the unifix model?" They kept trying to place the numbers side by side on both models but the paper model was longer. Sorry, no explanation for that one other than the paper was actually a bit bigger and wider than the blocks. Hopefully, I can get a picture of that next day.<br />
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When they built both models I wanted them to compare the two. I think it's also important to realize that students don't always have to put the 1 in the same place. You'll see various images where the 1 is opposite. It's all about their understanding and how they build it. It's our job to take their thinking and help them make sense of it. Not to put them into our way of doing it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ3FvwFiRiGGkVmnRcoQlriqYw9pcYLHjCxdry4isPIXgA2S7pVnuBHkzjKpxa4a64CXrS4GjWnJ1ZVdFYrXjt1eK5sSAxpYRDgQU3Ufwt9ZOC1Lv5RJVER1xnvDAtsdqn1XmKHGH1Mljy/s1600/IMG_1424.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ3FvwFiRiGGkVmnRcoQlriqYw9pcYLHjCxdry4isPIXgA2S7pVnuBHkzjKpxa4a64CXrS4GjWnJ1ZVdFYrXjt1eK5sSAxpYRDgQU3Ufwt9ZOC1Lv5RJVER1xnvDAtsdqn1XmKHGH1Mljy/s320/IMG_1424.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Have they finished making connections and do they know everything they should? Absolutely not!!! We've only just begun. More building and discussion needs to take place. We haven't even gotten to the idea of using addition to subtract but I know someone will lead us into this strategy without me having to tell them. </div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-31247065362339460062011-12-14T22:08:00.001-07:002011-12-14T22:15:18.162-07:00Mrs. Claus Pattern Problem<div style="margin: 0; overflow: hidden; padding: 0; width: 500px;">
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<div style="margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 0px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/aprilbrown013/sets/72157628417066989/">Mrs. Claus Pattern Problem 1</a>, a set on Flickr. If you are working on patterning and problem solving, this is a great problem to try with your students.<br />
<br />
This blog will now be used as a way to share my students math thinking and that of my own. I hope you enjoy the new format. I would love to keep a discussion going about student work. Please feel free to try the problem with your students. I would love to hear what yours did.<br />
</div>
Here are some photos of how my students (Grade 2's) solved the Mrs. Claus problem. <br /><br />Mrs. Claus is decorating cookies for the Elves Christmas Dinner.<br /><br />She lined up the first 20 cookies and put icing on every second one. <br />She put a cherry on every third one. <br />How many cookies will have nothing on them? Show how you know.<br /><br />Do some cookies have icing and a cherry? How many?<br />Do you see any patterns?<br /><br />You write a similar problem......<br />
The students were allowed to use any materials they wanted, paper, white boards, manipulatives, combination of any of these. The first part of the problem took us a class block. I had numbered the photos 1, 2, 3 to show you the order they were taken in as well as the progression of their thinking.<br />
<br />As you can see from many of the photos they were stuck on the idea of thirds. They grouped the cookies into three's giving the middle cookie the place of second each time and the last cookie the third placement with the cherry going on top. <br /><br />After looking through the pictures and evaluating our discussion today, they did the problem this way to over compensate for not understanding that a cookie could have icing and a cherry on top. Many of them wanted to have a space after the cookie with the cherry on top.<br />
<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-80564341799284576002011-12-03T22:38:00.001-07:002011-12-03T23:32:13.879-07:00Further Flickr FindingsI would like to return to the tool of Flickr and discuss some of the
things I have learned in the past couple of weeks about this social photo-sharing website. Flickr has
the ability to impact education in many ways but I feel it has fallen
short in others. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">History </span><br />
I
had heard about Flickr from people on Twitter and family members who
have sent me invitations to view photos of my nieces and nephews. I
hadn't really given it much thought for education until this project. I
had remembered our professors saying the images from Google were not
always the best to be using for research, Flickr was a better site for
being able to reference and give credit where it was due. Upon further
investigation into Flickr I because interested in it's popularity among
educators and how they use it in the classroom. I also wanted to know
more about the tagging and RSS feeds. How did they work and why are
tagging and RSS feeds important.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">What do I really like about Flickr?</span><br />
1.
Flickr allows you to share photos with Blogger, Twitter, Tumblr, and
Wordpress right from the actual Flickr site. I tried this feature this
week and I quite enjoyed the ability to quickly upload and write about
my photos at that moment without having to do extra steps.<br />
<br />
2.
When you subscribe to a groups photostream RSS feed, it is sent to your
aggregator of choice, mine happens to be Google Reader. This is a
feature I really like. Having the photos comes to you is much easier and
helps to keep you updated. You could then share them to Twitter or make
comments on your friends images or tag the picture with a note.<br />
<br />
3.
Flick has thousands of photos uploaded each day, which makes the
possibilities endless for finding a photo. There are so many to choose
form. The 'explore galleries' tab was really amazing. There are some
amazing amateur and professional photographers around, it a great time
waster during crunch time for sure.<br />
<br />
4. Discovering the
Flickr Uploader on iPhoto makes adding photos so much easier than how I
was doing it before. It will be much easier to now upload photos to my
photostream, Blogger, Twitter, and my groups using this feature in
iPhoto. You can read my blog post about the Uploader feature <a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/2011/10/flickr-just-flick-of-button.html">here</a>. <br />
<br />
5.
Flickr offers a widget photo stream for your blog. I added one to my
classroom blog and one to this site. It shows the most recent photos
added to Flickr. If I or my students need to quickly access a photo I
can click on it and it sends you to the most recent set I uploaded. I
use it a lot in math to discuss student work in the classroom. You could
also add images from Flickr and have each student click on an image of
choice and then write about about what they see, it would depend on the
task and what you wanted them to think about and reflect upon.<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">What I was bothered by in Flickr</span><br />
1.
If you click on one of the photos from my photostream on this blog, I
thought people could make a comment on the photo. I was incorrect, only
contacts can make comments and you must be signed in to do so. For
example, I was going to have students explain their thinking about the
pattern they saw in their own work. When they clicked on the photo, it
opens up to the site and it appears you can comment but it takes you to
the sign in screen. This is a definite con especially if I am wanting
others to make comments. I will need to create a class Flickr account,
share the log in name and password with students and have them sign in.
This <a href="http://youtu.be/QLo4355l6QE">video</a> provided some excellent ideas on how to use further use Flickr in the classroom. <br />
<br />
2.
Flickr does not offer an educational feature like Diigo does. Perhaps
having a safe place where teachers could upload photos and students
could search this data base of images is something Flickr will think of
for the future. But for now, <a href="http://www.edutopia.org/flickr-social-networks-sharing-photographs">Standen</a>
says, the group feature is a way to go around possible problems with
the search feature and kids coming across unnecessary photos. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
much of what's not kid friendly about Flickr can be eliminated by
skipping (or greatly limiting) use of the Search button. One way to do
that is with Flickr's Group tool. Flickr's groups are small pools of
users who pull photos from across the site and organize them into
categories accessible by group members</blockquote>
This would mean, creating a group and posting the link on a wiki or blog where students had access to it. <br />
<br />
3.
Due to the huge number of uploads each day, Flickr has the potential to
be an unsafe site for students. Who is controlling all of those
uploads? This photo shows how many photos are uploaded in a minute.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNmAYZKCswBhxWGfhei9iNZn1uSzN66H172fHBR6lNV6i_MR0VMm0zXe1ds1FNFQANcehz76JW755vJ8c_lJRkDOFHVWmx1IgYbFWieLV_1RMUrgPDSMycYbwrzrBCp5DJ56nlRz1Wvo8V/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-12-03+at+8.44.07+AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNmAYZKCswBhxWGfhei9iNZn1uSzN66H172fHBR6lNV6i_MR0VMm0zXe1ds1FNFQANcehz76JW755vJ8c_lJRkDOFHVWmx1IgYbFWieLV_1RMUrgPDSMycYbwrzrBCp5DJ56nlRz1Wvo8V/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-12-03+at+8.44.07+AM.png" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
This
is an amazing number in one minute. In 2008, Educause reported over two
billion images to be on Flickr, the amount of images present three years later is
astronomical. The report goes onto state: </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Flickr
largely depends on the community to police itself for copyright
violations, and opportunities for libel or invasions of privacy around.</div>
</blockquote>
This can be a frightening thought for a teacher who does not want to take the risk of students finding an inappropriate photo.<br />
<br />
4.
Searching for photos can become daunting. I found searching to be quite
difficult. It could be that I am not using the correct words or tags
but I often feel I cannot find what I am looking for. If I find it
difficult, kids could potentially experience the same problems. A
teacher may need to search photos ahead of time and upload them to a
group site, students could then search through the site. It seems like a
lot of work. It would depend on how many photos one was looking for and
the tags and subject of the photo being used. <br />
<br />
5. I couldn't find a group that I really wanted to join, so I created my own. You can take a look <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/themathwhisperer/">here</a>.
I am hoping to have conversations about student work in math. If I keep
adding to the group and posting updates to Twitter I am hoping to
engage in some great discussions about student thinking. I think these
group discussions will be a way to collaborate with others using
authentic photos and actual student work. This is something I feel is
missing in math instruction. In order to really reflect, we need
something to reflect on. Sullivan (2000) stated it nicely when she said
this:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I still have ideas that I think are uniquely my own, at least in part.
But I know that a lot of other people are thinking about the same thing
as I am, just perhaps in a slightly different way, through a different
lens.</blockquote>
What a better opportunity to invite other
educators into the conversation around mathematical thinking than
reflecting and sharing their ideas on their students work. <br />
<br />
Overall,
I think Flickr is a useful tool to use in a classroom and for personal
use. It took some time to learn about all of the many features and I
still do not feel completely confident in knowing all of the ins and
outs of Flickr. However, I would recommend exploring and using this Web
2.0 tool in your classrooms. I look forward to keeping you posted on how
my Flickr group is going.<br />
<br />
References<br />
<br />
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Educause. (2008). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">7 Things you should know about flickr</i>. [PDF]. Retrieved from <a href="http://www.educause.edu/ELI7Things">http://www.educause.edu/ELI7Things</a></div>
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Johnson, C. (2010). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What does it mean to “reflect on my learning?” </i>Critical Thinking at
Forest Green School/CFL. [Blog post].Retrieved from <a href="http://ct.forestgreenschool.ca/2010/11/15/what-does-it-mean-to-reflect-on-my-learning/">http://ct.forestgreenschool.ca/2010/11/15/what-does-it-mean-to-reflect-on-my-learning/</a></div>
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Jutecht. (Producer). (2006). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Flickr.</i> [YouTube Video]. Retrieved from <a href="http://youtu.be/QLo4355l6QE">http://youtu.be/QLo4355l6QE</a></div>
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Standen, A. (2007). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My friend flickr: a great photo opportunity</i>. Edutopia. <a href="http://www.edutopia.org/flickr-social-networks-sharing-photographs">http://www.edutopia.org/flickr-social-networks-sharing-photographs</a></div>
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Sullivan, K (2000). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What does reflection mean to us?</i> From Now On The Educational
Technology Journal. [Blog post]. Retrieved from <a href="http://www.fno.org/apr2000/reflection.html">http://www.fno.org/apr2000/reflection.html</a></div>
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<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-46471267841595664992011-11-30T19:55:00.001-07:002011-11-30T19:56:30.940-07:00The Power of Tagging<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://kidblog.org/MsBrownsClass19/"><img border="0" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIUdRlGbNtN4iUMq7H5o_Xe6prFVhquX8jeIBEC3yi6R4WxAcsRO2sCjQeooNdmcVMSopYSv_7HeS6jz9QKtcAugadA54CjItQr4KQKEUvx1ByCAGLqVgFsWMJhKNK5bh78jt-i3X4qQm2/s400/Screen+Shot+2011-11-30+at+7.42.34+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I am so excited!!! I know this doesn't have anything to do with reflecting on my actual blog but I was pretty pumped about what I saw. I wanted to show the power of tagging. I showed it to my students this week and never got around to doing anything more with it. Tonight, when I looked on our classroom blog I had a student who was trying out the idea. You can see that she has tagged her post quite accordingly. We're also working on adding voice to our writing and you can see she is well on her way to getting it. Sometimes you just need to put the idea out there and see what they come up with. If you wanted to comment on the blogs, just click on the picture. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Hope you enjoy this little tidbit of information</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-22346730755991974742011-11-28T21:28:00.248-07:002011-11-30T22:49:47.971-07:00More Than I Thought to Screencasting<object data="http://content.screencast.com/users/aprilbrown/folders/Jing/media/082cbf59-64e2-4076-9e6c-db4c948a4f15/jingswfplayer.swf" height="300" id="scPlayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400"> <param name="movie" value="http://content.screencast.com/users/aprilbrown/folders/Jing/media/082cbf59-64e2-4076-9e6c-db4c948a4f15/jingswfplayer.swf" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="flashVars" value="thumb=http://content.screencast.com/users/aprilbrown/folders/Jing/media/082cbf59-64e2-4076-9e6c-db4c948a4f15/FirstFrame.jpg&containerwidth=1384&containerheight=830&content=http://content.screencast.com/users/aprilbrown/folders/Jing/media/082cbf59-64e2-4076-9e6c-db4c948a4f15/00000007.swf&blurover=false" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="scale" value="showall" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="base" value="http://content.screencast.com/users/aprilbrown/folders/Jing/media/082cbf59-64e2-4076-9e6c-db4c948a4f15/" />Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.</object><br />
<a href="http://www.screencast.com/t/tTGjNL0T">How to create a Kidblog account</a><br />
(I can't get my screencast to play in the blog) This is a problem to be solved in the future.<br />
<br />
Screencasting and using the program Jing is the last of the Web 2.0 tools I'll be reflecting on for this inquiry project. I saved this particular tool for the very end because I needed time to think about how I was going to put the screencast together and because it was one of the tools I knew the least about.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">History and First Experiences</span></b><br />
I discovered screencasting over the summer when I was exploring blogging and adding to my Google Reader. It seemed like I'd taken up a collection of blogs like I've taken up a collection of children's books. I just couldn't get enough of them. My very first experience with what I now know to be called screencasting was found through iTunes. I'd been looking for help on quick tips to help improve my knowledge on my Mac. I came across several screencasts, watched them and didn't think much of them other than how helpful they were.<br />
<br />
Over the summer, I had been following <a href="http://ladybugsteacherfiles.blogspot.com/search/label/Creating%20a%20Class%20Blog?max-results=5">Ladybug Teacher Files</a> and she did a summer series on how to create a blog on Blogger. My interest had been peeked. At first, I thought it was a program you bought but I didn't know how to go about getting it. In my head, I knew this was the next tool I needed to conquer but didn't have time or the know how to learn about this tool. I saw the name, Jing, on our syllabus list and Googled it and wouldn't you know, the pieces started falling into place. Screencasting is the actual procedure but one of the many tools available is called <a href="http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html">Jing</a>. <br />
<br />
According to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screencasting">Wikipedia</a>, <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">A <b>screencast</b> is a digital recording of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer" title="Computer">computer</a> screen output, also known as a <i>video screen capture</i>, often containing audio <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narration" title="Narration">narration</a>. The term <i>screencast</i> compares with the related term <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenshot" title="Screenshot">screenshot</a></i>; whereas screenshot is a picture of a computer screen, a screencast is essentially a movie of the changes over time that a user sees on a computer screen, enhanced with audio narration.</blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Experiences</b></span><br />
Web 2.0 tools need to have a purpose in our lives. In order to give this particular tool purpose, I chose to create my own screencast on how to set up and create your own class on Kidblog.com. I distributed it to my colleagues so they an see how easy it was to create.<br />
<br />
Since doing this, I've experimented with the tool a lot more. I showed my students a screencast I had created for a student who was travelling to Australia for the month (I know lucky right!). Her homework is to take pictures and blog about her experience in Australia. I didn't think she would remember how to load pictures so I created a screencast to help. After showing it to my students today, one student asked at the end of the class, "Can you do that thing again so I can learn how to do what we did in comptuers?" Translation --> Can you create a screencast so I can remember how to go to Tagxedo and enter in words like we did in computer class? Wow!!!!! The power of a Web 2.0 tool. Steve McGovern (2010) says it nicely when he writes about how screencasting can enhance the learning process:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Firstly the clarity of teaching is evident; students can be shown exactly how to perform a given task or be educated on a given subject matter. Moreover, the easy access to repetition of this teaching through repeated plays of the content can help establish understanding.</blockquote>Obviously, this tells you the impact screencasting can have and how it can best be used in an educational setting. Students in the primary years are very capable of watching a screencast over again to learn how to use another Web 2.0 tool. Mental note Ms. Brown, do more of this in the future.<br />
<br />
Teachingsagittarian also writes about the potential benefits of screencasting. She writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Screencasts are so good for those learners that just need a visual as well as an aural explanation as well as the opportunity to watch something again, in their own time, and without having to feel like they’re not smart just because they benefit from hearing/seeing something many times.</blockquote><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Collaboration</b></span><br />
McGovern (2010) goes on to write about how screencasts can be used to:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">exchange ideas, comment on student progress, showcase approaches to teaching and generally do the things that would normally require us to be present in a given location and a given time.</blockquote>What an excellent way to collaborate on student progress through distance education, in graduate classes with professors who live great distances apart (wink, wink) or with parents. Parents would love the opportunity to see more about what their child is doing in school. Jing offers a link to send to anyone for future viewing. Quickly recording a screencast about what their child is doing on their blog would be an excellent way to collaborate and share with parents. Comment on their writing or their use of specifics like Ideas, Voice, or good words they are trying to use to enhance their writing. The possibilities are endless.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Ease of Use - Pros </span></b><br />
Jing was especially easy to use. I didn't find it difficult at all. The short tutorials are all that are needed.<br />
This feature page was very helpful along with this video.<br />
<a href="http://www.techsmith.com/jing-features.html">Features of Jing </a><br />
<a href="http://www.techsmith.com/tutorial-jing-record-video.html">VideoTutorial Jing</a> <br />
<br />
Andreas Zeitler's article <a href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/12/09/most-common-mistakes-in-screencasting/">Most Common Mistakes in Screencasting</a> was very helpful. His tip about keeping your hand off your mouse so that viewers do not follow it and get distracted. As well, if you need to edit your screencast you don't see your mouse moving around in awkward spots were two pieces of advice I tried to adhere to. Another tip that was very useful, was creating a story board or script before shooting helped to keep my content and video to a minimum. I didn't want to go above my 5 free minutes of time for various reasons; nobody wants to listen to me ramble and uploading would take much longer. My audience was going to be teachers and young children so I needed to keep it short and sweet, for the low attention span of both audience members.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Cons</b></span> <br />
Even though I enjoyed using and learning about this particular tool, I did find some drawbacks to it.<br />
<ol><li>The <span style="color: red;">time commitment</span> to creating a screencast. Sometimes, you might have to go through several tries to get it right. It can sometimes take you time to getting it right. Patience is a virtue. The first time doesn't always turn out the best. </li>
<li><span style="color: red;">Addicting</span> - you could potentially turn yourself into a screencasting monster because of the potential uses in the classroom. Don't worry, you won't be seeing a huge amount of screencasts from me. </li>
<li><span style="color: red;">Usage for primary children</span> - I am not sure I would use this tool with primary students to have them show what they learned. Instead, I would use it more for How To videos or for leaving specific feedback on some student work. Another way to use the tool would be to leave a How To for a sub on operating your Smart Board or any other electronics in your room. </li>
<li><span style="color: red;">Tagging</span> - It is possible to tag the screencasts but Jing calls it "keywords". Once you upload the screencast to your blog, you also have the possibility of tagging it here. It is also possible to add screencasts to your RSS aggregator but you can only get access to screencasts that are in a public only folder. Watch the video tutorial from <a href="http://screencast.com/">screencast.com</a>.</li>
</ol>As you can see my cons list is small. I feel screencasting is a valuable Web 2.0 tool and I look forward to using it more in my classroom.<br />
<br />
References<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -1cm;">Berger, P., & Trexler, S. (2010). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Choosing web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in a digital world.</i> Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.</div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><style>
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</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -1cm;"><span style="font-size: small;">McGovern, S. (2010). <i>Screencasts and education</i>. The Screening Room. Retrieved from <a href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/12/09/most-common-mistakes-in-screencasting/"><span style="color: blue;">http://bit.ly/e3Zzg7</span></a></span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -1cm;"><span style="font-size: small;">Richardson, W. (2010). <i>Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms.</i> Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -1cm;"><span style="font-size: small;">Screencasting (2011, Oct. 4) <i>In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</i>. Retrieved Nov. 27th, from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screencasting"><span style="color: blue;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screencasting </span></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -1cm;"><style>
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</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -1cm;">Teachingsagittarian. (2009). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Screencasting in the classroom</i>. Retrieved from <a href="http://bit.ly/AsnQm">http://bit.ly/AsnQm</a></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -1cm;"><span style="font-size: small;">Zeitler, A. (2010). <i>Most common mistakes in screencasting</i>. Smashing Magazine. Retrieved from <a href="http://bit.ly/e3Zzg7"><span style="color: blue;">http://bit.ly/e3Zzg7</span></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screencasting"></a><div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-47817729640171509672011-11-27T18:50:00.002-07:002011-12-05T00:42:21.640-07:00Learning About Blogs FOR Your Students Part 2 Final Current Event<div style="text-align: center;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikebaird/2351476488/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Kite for sandbuggy power by mikebaird, on Flickr"><img alt="Kite for sandbuggy power" height="333" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2341/2351476488_c3fcbc494a.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo courtesy of Flickr (cc)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
Hello Everyone,<br />
<br />
This is our last current event for this course. I was going to post about the <a href="http://www.daretocare.ca/index.php">Dare to Care</a> presentation put on by Lisa Dixon-Wells about bullying and Cyberbullying. It's fabulous!! If your school is dealing with bullying or cyberbulling I would highly recommend having them come to your schools.<br />
<br />
Langwitches posted her second blog post in her series on blogging, <a href="http://langwitches.org/blog/2011/11/26/learning-about-blogs-for-your-students-part-ii-writing/">Learning About Blogs FOR Your Students Part 2</a>. If felt it was relevant this week considering our discussion about the progression we've gone through as bloggers. You must watch the video by Derek Sivers. He puts everything into perspective about why we should share what we know. I feel the Langwitch blog is an great example of complex or at least real blogging. I hope you enjoy reading her blog as much as I do.<div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-63801587198474403192011-11-27T00:30:00.005-07:002011-11-27T00:40:49.605-07:00Less Is So Much More With PodcastingI just finished a lengthy post on my learning and understanding of podcasting and how I would use it in my primary classroom or other classrooms. What I didn't tell you was, that there is a much easier way of going about doing publishing podcasts. Here's what I learned:<br />
<br />
My students blog on Kidblog.com. Great site if you've never used it, I would highly recommend it for getting your students to write, reflect and comment on what others write. You can then share their writing on Twitter and others will comment on it. That's just a shameless plug for Kidblogs.com for those teachers who are interested. I'll be creating a screencast to show you how to create a class account.<br />
<object data="http://content.screencast.com/users/aprilbrown/folders/Jing/media/f35f8a8a-635e-4706-9805-4d718df1fce0/jingswfplayer.swf" height="300" id="scPlayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400"> <param name="movie" value="http://content.screencast.com/users/aprilbrown/folders/Jing/media/f35f8a8a-635e-4706-9805-4d718df1fce0/jingswfplayer.swf" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="flashVars" value="thumb=http://content.screencast.com/users/aprilbrown/folders/Jing/media/f35f8a8a-635e-4706-9805-4d718df1fce0/FirstFrame.jpg&containerwidth=1440&containerheight=834&content=http://content.screencast.com/users/aprilbrown/folders/Jing/media/f35f8a8a-635e-4706-9805-4d718df1fce0/00000004.swf&blurover=false" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="scale" value="showall" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="base" value="http://content.screencast.com/users/aprilbrown/folders/Jing/media/f35f8a8a-635e-4706-9805-4d718df1fce0/" />Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.</object><br />
<br />
Other way you can create a podcast is by using AudioBoo. This is the easiest way for young students to create and collaborate using podcasts. After all of the searching for a host server for my podcast, I remembered that AudioBoo could do it.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigV7rmeKeLoKAKbb4NemXKPEhsLr_rIP3hiskfteQTqOflCz4xfX1wKhj3gpM5ZXD7NNki5g-NxerK9G7Re5_35TPx6eCpdFhA3t5tTgMLQ1bpKhLj1ksDbJr7moF4m1JOnSMpr_Knays5/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-11-27+at+12.07.29+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigV7rmeKeLoKAKbb4NemXKPEhsLr_rIP3hiskfteQTqOflCz4xfX1wKhj3gpM5ZXD7NNki5g-NxerK9G7Re5_35TPx6eCpdFhA3t5tTgMLQ1bpKhLj1ksDbJr7moF4m1JOnSMpr_Knays5/s320/Screen+Shot+2011-11-27+at+12.07.29+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />
The box on the left allows you to record right to your microphone on your computer and the right box allows you to easily upload an mp3 file. So after all of the work I put into learning how to find a URL to then embed it into a host server was good because during the process I realized I could do it with this Web 2.0 tool.<br />
<br />
Here is the AudioBoo from uploading the mp3 file from my computer:<br />
<object data="http://boos.audioboo.fm/swf/fullsize_player.swf" height="129" id="boo_embed_562977" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://boos.audioboo.fm/swf/fullsize_player.swf" /><param name="scale" value="noscale" /><param name="salign" value="lt" /><param name="bgColor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="wmode" value="window" /><param name="FlashVars" value="mp3=http%3A%2F%2Faudioboo.fm%2Fboos%2F562977-what-we-did-on-nov-24th.mp3%3Fsource%3Dembed&mp3Title=What+we+did+on+Nov.+24th&mp3Time=01.06am+27+Nov+2011&mp3LinkURL=http%3A%2F%2Faudioboo.fm%2Fboos%2F562977-what-we-did-on-nov-24th&mp3Author=msbrown&rootID=boo_embed_562977" /><a href="http://audioboo.fm/boos/562977-what-we-did-on-nov-24th.mp3?source=embed">What we did on Nov. 24th (mp3)</a></object><br />
<br />
I continued my journey to find out how truly frustrated I could get. Why do you ask?<br />
<ul><li>If I didn't go through the hard parts, I wouldn't have come to understand that there was a much easier way of uploading an mp3 file by using AudioBoo.</li>
<li>I learned how to convert an audio file from Audacity, which I wasn't too crazy about doing in the first place, into an mp3 file. I went back to the tool I'd originally wanted to use and persevered to get through the challenges. Yeah for me!!! </li>
<li>I learned that AudioBoo is a much easier audio sharing tool to create, share and publish with than a Voice Recorder or Audacity. It has many of the features I was looking for. </li>
<li>Of course there are drawbacks, AudioBoo does not have the ability to edit or resolve background noise or insert music, but for right now I'm not looking to add those features to the podcasts my students will be creating. </li>
<li>During my frustration, I had to take a step back and really think about how difficult this was. If creating a podcast was this difficult for me, then it was going to be doubly challenging for the average teacher who is already afraid of technology. </li>
<li>I also like the look of having the podcast in a blog post, rather than off to the side like I had to do with the widget. I could have embedded the widget code into the blog post buy I wanted to see what it looked like off to the side. It looks much better as a blog post. </li>
</ul>I know there are others out there who really like Audacity, but it is not a great Web 2.0 tool for your young children to be able to use in a collaborative way. Young students are able to press record and talk into a microphone but Audacity doesn't allow them the flexibility to have it posted to a site on-line so they can go back and access it or even embed it onto a blog if they so choose. The social media tool I will use more frequently is AudioBoo.<div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-59736448595335699662011-11-26T20:53:00.008-07:002011-11-28T07:50:25.118-07:00My Adventures with Creating Podcasts<div style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Podcasting</span><span style="font-size: small;"> has been an interesting Web 2.0 tool to figure out. I'd like to start by explaining my history with this tool, then talk about what it was like to create a podcast highlighting the good, the bad and the ugly, to finish off I'd like to talk about how it can be used for educational purposes. </span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;">History</span></span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">I hadn't really embraced the idea of<span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: small;">podcasting as a tool I would use personally or professionally. As our mother's have told us on numerous occasions, we must eat our broccoli it makes us strong and healthy, so I thought why not give this social media tool a try, it will teach me something about the tool and about how to use it best in my grade two classroom. I was interested in exploring it because of the possibility of capturing and engaging those students who have a difficult time with written work and for the possibility of having students explain their thinking in an audio format rather than in the written word. </span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">I knew it was going to be a huge learning curve and I was right. I chose to create two podcasts, one in which I would use my little <a href="http://www.letsgomobile.org/en/4286/sony-voice-recorders/">Sony Voice Recorder</a> that converts the audio to mp3 format and loads it onto my iTunes account. The other I would use Audacity. You can read about my initial experience with Audacity <a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/2011/11/annoying-audacity.html">here</a>. I had never created any type of social media in the past, other than experimenting with AudioBoo about a month ago. I found this particular social media site to be very easy and self explanatory. I knew podcasts could be located on the Internet and I'd subscribed to several some years ago but found I wasn't listening to them so I stopped subscribing. Due to my inquisitive nature, I decided to start exploring and subscribing to the CBC <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/q/">Q podcasts</a> with </span></span></span></span><a href="http://jian.ca/">Jian Ghomeshi</a>. I do not always get a chance to listen as often as I would like. Jiam's voice is captivating, so when I want some Jian and April time alone, I listen. </span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">My Learning</span></div><span style="font-size: small;">What I found most interesting in my research came from Berger & Trexler's (2010)</span><span style="font-size: small;"> chapter on Media Sharing. They write about how Thomas Ludwig (As cited by Berger & Trexler) traced the history of media in the classroom as being lectures with chalkboards and demonstrations with slides, filmstrips, overhead projectors, transparencies and videotapes. They go on to write about how students were passive receivers of this media distribution by teachers, up until Web 2.0 tools changed this (p. 125). After reflecting on these ideas, I would agree. As a student, I was a passive receiver and so have my students been up until this year. Now students have the opportunities to be actively engaged and often times the creators of the social media. Students have shifted from being passive to actively involved.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Berger & Trexler also suggested tutorials from the Internet, one being, <a href="http://podcasting.about.com/">http://podcasting.about.com</a>. I discovered Brian Bertucci's (2011) article <a href="http://podcasting.about.com/od/basics101/a/planningpodcast.htm">Planning Your Podcast</a>. It brings to light 4 important considerations for creating a podcast: </span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">1. Consider your audience</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">2. What subject areas or content will you be discussing?</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">3. How often will you have new podcasts? </span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">4. Will you be using music? This opens up a huge legal issue if you are not careful. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">When creating my two podcasts, I knew who my audience was: parents and students, plain and simple. I also knew I had wanted to investigate the tool and to do so, I needed a reason. I would give a brief description of what we did in our day so students and parents could be aware if their child had missed a day or two of school. Podcasting, at this point, was not going to be a regular occurrence. It would be done for the purpose of this inquiry project and to be done when students missed school. I will continue to report about our day when a student misses school because I think the students will enjoy hearing what we did in class. I would not be investigating adding music or background sounds, etc because of the legal issues and complexity it would involve. Learning how to convert it to mp3 and get a URL address would be enough of a learning process and music would take away from what the purpose of the podcast was going to be used for.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Good, The Bad & The Ugly</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Oh my goodness, was I in for an adventure with this tool. I began by simply jumping in with two feet and seeing where I landed. Sometimes this is a good thing and sometimes, well, it isn't. In this case, it all worked out in the end. I knew I had enough knowledge of how embed codes worked, how my voice recorder worked, how Audacity worked, so that I could spend time learning how to save to mp3 format, and find a hosting site so it could be embedded into a blog. There was a lot of watching</span><span style="font-size: small;"> You Tube video's and frustration at not getting the URL's to work properly. </span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Good</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Using and speaking into the Voice Recorder was easy. I had tried to just wing it but that didn't prove to work out my favor, so I wrote out a brief outline and reminder of what we did on Wednesday, Nov 23 and Thursday, Nov 24th in the classroom. I was able to plug the recorder into my computer and it was instantly converted into mp3 format. I easily named the file and added an image. Talking into Audacity was easy as well. The sound was good and all of the buttons for recording, playback and stopping were easy to understand. Sounds simple, right...</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Bad</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">I thought iTunes created a URL for me but I was wrong. This <a href="http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/specs.html#submitting">Apple help page</a> was telling me to create RSS feeds and something about Metabata. WHAT!!! I knew I was entering into uncharted and scarey territory so I ditched this idea and began searching again. I knew once I got a URL I was in business. It become frustrating and in my searching, this video proved to help, simple, straight forward and to the point. </span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
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style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">I found this video to be the most helpful out of all that I watched. I knew how Dropbox worked, which made me confident in the end result. After uploading the widget, problems occurred with getting it to play. After reading comments after comments, it occurred to me, the URL that Dropbox gave me was too long, I eventually got the widget to work buy shortening the name of my podcast, recopying the code and posting the widget again.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">What I didn't like about the Voice Recorder was the scratchiness in the sound at the very beginning and end. The sound is me moving my hand along the device, which you wouldn't think would make that much noise but it does. Can you image the scratchiness you would hear from kids holding it? I don't think this is the best tool to use for a podcast. I feel the buttons are small and cumbersome for young hands, the excess noises of touching it along with classroom noise would distract the listener, and the complexity in uploading it to the widget each time are just some of the reasons why I wouldn't use a voice recorder for podcasting. It's too much work for teachers and students, they are busy and need to be able to podcast with few steps, ease, and efficiency. </span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Audacity co-operated with me and actually prompted me to install LAME, which I did. I wanted to really get a feel for what this process was like. I knew it was going to be difficult because of watching <a href="http://youtu.be/-hrBbczS9I0">video's</a> and seeing all of the steps I needed to go through in order to get this podcast up and working on my blog. There are way too many steps for young children to try to do themselves. Recording is simple and easy but I don't know if the process of saving it as an mp3 file would be easy for them to do. I could see students reading into Audacity and then listening to it after words to help with their fluency. </span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Ugly</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The amount of steps it took to come to a final product were and would be daunting for the average teacher. This process needs to be easier. There are so many hosting sites for podcasts and knowing which one to use can be discouraging. I used <a href="http://www.podbean.com/">Podbean</a> on Berger and Trexler's recommendation. </span><span style="font-size: small;">Once the account was created and I'd gotten my password through email, I signed in and this image page appeared. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4EdaB8l2-wbMmBhDKPZlfZPgbgLzE-0WIxyORItyQPYYnxGQnONHVfnx8jFdWFb5DcyPTrx3zs623ie0pDM2hhO8HvGswcm_h5NeifdnfXUvToC_xQ5VE_WCO3zJ764eyculpMNJZiQHB/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-11-26+at+5.41.53+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4EdaB8l2-wbMmBhDKPZlfZPgbgLzE-0WIxyORItyQPYYnxGQnONHVfnx8jFdWFb5DcyPTrx3zs623ie0pDM2hhO8HvGswcm_h5NeifdnfXUvToC_xQ5VE_WCO3zJ764eyculpMNJZiQHB/s320/Screen+Shot+2011-11-26+at+5.41.53+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you've ever used Edublogs, this page looks very much the same as this blogger site. I'm thinking they are one in the same company. I uploaded my podcast because it had been saved as an mp3 file, thanks to LAME. After some monkeying around, and yes this is the best way I can describe it, I created a post called "<a href="http://mathwhisper.podbean.com/">Here's what we did while you were away</a>" because it seemed to be prompting me to do so. It's called 'publish a podcast' and I've since discovered Podbean is a Pod blogging site. I knew I needed a widget and I found this site by clicking on the 'embeddable player' link under my post on the home blog page, I copied the link and embedded it into bloggers 'edit HTML' section, that way it appears as a post and not as a widget. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw8d-IASRVoNzZ_sZ34qlbvm1PpuxGOUpYYl7XiATv0Nt4mXd2ZAw5q3q1tGbyMy8EyF85R9DXZtGhkU588kYzXOHd2kDdczvAdO9_sioAi6wWsrWWejJ6SPb_yua95KOyDFAaj5DxxeBi/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-11-26+at+6.03.34+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw8d-IASRVoNzZ_sZ34qlbvm1PpuxGOUpYYl7XiATv0Nt4mXd2ZAw5q3q1tGbyMy8EyF85R9DXZtGhkU588kYzXOHd2kDdczvAdO9_sioAi6wWsrWWejJ6SPb_yua95KOyDFAaj5DxxeBi/s320/Screen+Shot+2011-11-26+at+6.03.34+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></div></div><br />
<div>Here is the final product: <br />
<div><object align="middle" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,0,0" height="25" id="mp3playerdarksmallv3" width="210"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /><param name="movie" value="http://www.podbean.com/podcast-audio-video-blog-player/mp3playerdarksmallv3.swf?audioPath=http://mathwhisper.podbean.com/mf/play/xsqdsp/Nov24.mp3&autoStart=no" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><embed src="http://www.podbean.com/podcast-audio-video-blog-player/mp3playerdarksmallv3.swf?audioPath=http://mathwhisper.podbean.com/mf/play/xsqdsp/Nov24.mp3&autoStart=no" quality="high" width="210" height="25" name="mp3playerdarksmallv3" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /></embed> </object><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.podbean.com/" style="border-bottom: none; color: #2da274; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; padding-left: 41px; text-decoration: none;">Podcast Powered By Podbean</a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Here are a few suggestions to get you started in a primary classroom?</span><br />
1. Have students read into Audacity from a book or their own story so they get the opportunity to hear their own voice. They can hear the fluency of their writing or the fluency of their reading.<br />
2. How I used the tool, by creating a simple breakdown of your classroom day and what the students did and what they learned.<br />
3. Have students explain their thinking to a math problem, then post it on their blog to keep for their eportfolio.<br />
4. As a teacher, you could record your sub plans on a podcast, embed it into your classroom blog and have your substitute go to the link.<br />
5. Have them do #3 post it to the blog and have students respond to what the child said through comments.<br />
6. Have students record their favourite daily 5 or subject and tell why. See what my <a href="http://kidblog.org/MsBrownsClass19/">students</a> said. <br />
<br />
I could continue with a multiple ideas but I think my point is clear. Podcasting allows for multiple uses in education and the classroom environment. The choice becomes the teachers, do you always require paper and pencil work? Or would accept a verbal responses from students in the form of podcasts? The choice becomes yours and your students. I believe primary children would benefit from using social media but I do not believe the tools I chose were the best for them to use.<br />
• See my next post on how this process can be done in less steps. <br />
<br />
References<br />
Adamdacutie. (Producer). (2010). <i>How to embed your own mp3(s) to your website. </i> [YouTube video]. Retrieved from <a href="http://youtu.be/-hrBbczS9I0">http://youtu.be/-hrBbczS9I0</a> <br />
<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -1cm;">Berger, P., & Trexler, S. (2010). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Choosing web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in a digital world.</i> Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -1cm;">Burtucci, B. (2011). <i>About.com Podcasting. </i>Retrieved from <a href="http://podcasting.about.com/od/basics101/a/planningpodcast.htm">http://podcasting.about.com/od/basics101/a/planningpodcast.htm </a></div>Gigifide. (Producer). (2008). <i>How to create a podcast. </i>[You Tube video]. Retrieved from <a href="http://youtu.be/-hrBbczS9I0">http://youtu.be/-hrBbczS9I0</a></div><div></div><div></div><div><style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -1cm;">Richardson, W. (2010). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms.</i> Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.</div><br />
</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-64390848913371558032011-11-26T18:00:00.005-07:002011-11-26T21:22:28.843-07:00What you missed Nov. 24th<div><object align="middle" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,0,0" height="25" id="mp3playerdarksmallv3" width="210"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /><param name="movie" value="http://www.podbean.com/podcast-audio-video-blog-player/mp3playerdarksmallv3.swf?audioPath=http://mathwhisper.podbean.com/mf/play/xsqdsp/Nov24.mp3&autoStart=no" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><embed src="http://www.podbean.com/podcast-audio-video-blog-player/mp3playerdarksmallv3.swf?audioPath=http://mathwhisper.podbean.com/mf/play/xsqdsp/Nov24.mp3&autoStart=no" quality="high" width="210" height="25" name="mp3playerdarksmallv3" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /></embed> </object><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.podbean.com/" style="border-bottom: none; color: #2da274; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; padding-left: 41px; text-decoration: none;">Podcast Powered By Podbean</a></div><br />
<br />
Here is the podcast, finally embedded into the blog post. This took much longer and it was harder than I thought it was going to be.<div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-68880684124819892042011-11-24T23:08:00.000-07:002011-11-24T23:08:10.361-07:00Wiki's and What Have I Learned<div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lawria/6182022703/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Footprints by Lawria, on Flickr"><img alt="Footprints" height="500" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6175/6182022703_07506ae1ae.jpg" width="331" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo courtesy of CC</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>This course is beginning to come to an end, but that does not mean my learning of Web 2.0 tools will. Rather, I feel like I have just gotten started with each of the tools and each of the possibilities and how the tools can be used for education. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Wiki's were a tool that I felt were not going to be of interest to me. I had joined several wiki's but hadn't returned to them or contributed to any. I know the very first wiki I contributed to was the math cohort for my master's course. I was the first to say hello and introduce myself. I think I did this because I knew I had to get use to the tool and learn it. The other wiki I'd joined was the Twitter <a href="http://daily5cafechat.wikispaces.com/">Daily5chat</a>. Again, I joined and never did very much. I didn't return to it even though I knew members of my PLN were posting information which I might find useful. Basically, all I had done on a wiki was join, never contributed, just looked around a bit and used it as a place to find information. To be honest, I've never used <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikipedia</a> either. I'd often heard how a lot of the information can be changed and sometimes it can be unreliable. I stayed away out of fear. I still haven't embraced Wikipedia but it's not off the table of perhaps taking a look at in the future. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">All of that changed when I decided to investigate and learn how to use a wiki. I created my own, a place where I share some information on presentations I do, math work I've done and some games I've created for a program I use in spelling called Words Their Way. The other investigation I took on was to contribute to the Daily5 wiki. I had to start someplace and this was as good of a place to start since it was with people whom I felt comfortable with and trusted. Here is a list of what I've learned about wikis and how they can be used in education. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>What have I learned about wiki's?</b></div><div style="text-align: left;">1. You shouldn't be afraid of them. They don't bite!<b> </b>I have a lot of experience with blogs and blogging, I'm not an expert but I'm willing to learn. Contributing to the Daily5 wiki was easy. You can see my <a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/2011/10/adding-to-wiki.html">post</a> here for what that was like. Due to my willingness to learn and experience with other Web 2.0 tools such as blogging; it wasn't that difficult to figure out how to add content, files, text (edit text, etc) to the wiki.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">2. Wikis are a collaborative tool where authors have the opportunity to write thoughtfully, clearly and critically. Authors of a wiki have the opportunity to create a piece of writing in collaboration with each other. Wiki's allow the authors an opportunity to create quality pieces of writing. What I didn't realize and understand about the purpose of wiki's, that Berger & Trexler taught me, was that a wiki is about "<i>authoring content, rather than just downloading existing content on the Web</i>" (p. 96).<br />
Guth (2007) also writes about this same understanding,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">When contributing to a wiki project, students are not just writing for the teacher, as is the case in traditional classroom environments, but for and with their peers. As such, they<br />
promote collective authoring which inherently entails peer review. </blockquote>Authoring others work is an area I still feel uncomfortable doing because if others have taken the time to write in a thoughtful and critical way, who am I to change, modify or edit anything they have written.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">3. Wikis are a tool for collaboration, they can be engaging and exciting and if used for this purpose, they can provide an opportunity to hone your writing skills to be critical and reflective about what you write on other wikis. I do not necessarily agree that they have to be used for this purpose, or at least not when you first develop a wiki. I am using mine for sharing of resources and not necessarily ideas or opinions. Do I want others to add there perspectives or other games, of course I do? But for right now, I am good with it being a site to share and post information for others to collect. It is after all a beginning process, I am hoping to evolve the wiki into something more reflective where others can add their critical writing and thoughts. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">4. A wiki has RSS feeds built in, so you can stay up to date with any changes members might make. I'm learning to really like RSS feeds and find them to be very handy. It saves you time when checking for any changes to the wiki or wikis you subscribe to and other sites as well. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">5. I believe my students could learn to use a wiki to write creatively and thoughtfully. Very similar to the Manyvoices project (p. 83) in William Kist's book The Socially Networked Classroom. Except it would be done on a wiki. Students would make critical decisions as to what should stay, be added or edited from the story. Practice would be needed in how to edit and think critically and thoughtfully about what they wanted to add to the piece of writing but I believe it could be possible. My class will be discovering this next week or the first week of December. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">6. I don't believe you always need to use a Web 2.0 tool for the original purpose it was intended for. I find that's the wonderful thing about Web 2.0 tools, there are endless possibilities on how you can use a Web 2.0 tool.<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">This is not a complete list of all that I have learned about wiki's but I do believe they are some of the more important aspects of this Web 2.0 tool that I did not expect to like. I am glad I chose this tool because it allowed me to open my mind about sharing resources, now I just need to be brave and add my thoughts to someone else's wiki. Wish me luck.<br />
<br />
References<br />
<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -1cm;"><span style="font-size: small;">Berger, P., & Trexler, S. (2010). <i>Choosing web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in a digital world.</i> Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -1cm;"><style>
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</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -1cm;">Guth, S. (2007). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wikis in education: is public better?. </i>WikiSym ’07. doi: <span class="MsoHyperlink">10.1145/1296951.1296958</span></div><style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 200%; margin-left: 35.45pt; text-indent: -35.45pt;">Kist, W., (2010), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The socially networked classroom teaching in the new media age</i>. Thousand Oaks. CA: Corwin. </div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-44601502487948964072011-11-20T21:56:00.002-07:002011-11-28T07:50:58.388-07:00Guide for Teachers who want to start blogging #9 Current EventI feel this is an important blogging site to share with others. As this course comes to a close soon, many of us have began a journey into the blogging world that we wouldn't have expected to take. This blog will help with such a journey.<br />
<br />
I have been following <a href="http://langwitches.org/blog/">Langwitches Blog</a> for over a year and I just love what she shares and how she explains her learning and that of her students. Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano has an amazing ability to make you want to become a better teacher of technology. She makes it look so easy. If you need an example of a good blog to follow, I would recommend this one. This blog clearly explains and provides examples of how technology can be successfully integrated into your classroom. <br />
Several weeks ago, she posted this How to guide for teachers called <a href="http://langwitches.org/blog/2011/10/23/coming-soon-stepping-it-up-learning-about-blogs-for-your-students/">Stepping It Up - Learning about blogs FOR your students</a>. This guide will help you and your students become better bloggers. It is in the beginning stages of construction and I know more great posts will be coming. She has already written a post on her first guideline, <a href="http://langwitches.org/blog/2011/10/29/learning-about-blogs-for-your-students-part-i-reading/">Reading</a>. I would highly recommend subscribing to this blog and reading more about the other six parts to being a successful blogger not just for yourself but your students as well. <br />
Thank you Silvia for all of your hard work and dedication to blogging and helping others become better as well.<div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-92055238499170821812011-11-20T08:21:00.000-07:002011-11-20T08:21:26.815-07:00First Member to My WikiThe email arrived this morning. I had posted on my classroom Facebook page last night about the Words Their Way games I'd added. I was asking people (friends) to join if they wanted to have the games. If I'd just asked they wouldn't have come but if I built a reason for them to join they would.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ9BdymUyJ0NBXlKxMtmR2RksDc4Qwuy8p9w_Ia11WiUoyDtUO3vyF2xds8jP6QDaaT4w4cRFuKyuiLr-j1KYnh0y55wGIiMYjFmpEfkfXNIRZDhTF4cXjcOX0JKNzg5hui2k5X24hkIpo/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-11-20+at+8.09.40+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ9BdymUyJ0NBXlKxMtmR2RksDc4Qwuy8p9w_Ia11WiUoyDtUO3vyF2xds8jP6QDaaT4w4cRFuKyuiLr-j1KYnh0y55wGIiMYjFmpEfkfXNIRZDhTF4cXjcOX0JKNzg5hui2k5X24hkIpo/s320/Screen+Shot+2011-11-20+at+8.09.40+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>Well it happened this morning. This email arrived in my inbox. By clicking on the "approve their membership request" it sends you right to your wiki.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Jl1nonOO3duAIkGyYkJdMs_w7E9zE1YY2paa6obtCS4CPqMQAYsnkpAkXvPP5zYG8ypr5dZSPYbaqgdyCrRzB3b9PjsOUpr2SJRr9oo2hfnAq6e2zg2wvVK9zfI0XKfzgH0kLhDv_z7d/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-11-20+at+8.09.53+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="59" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Jl1nonOO3duAIkGyYkJdMs_w7E9zE1YY2paa6obtCS4CPqMQAYsnkpAkXvPP5zYG8ypr5dZSPYbaqgdyCrRzB3b9PjsOUpr2SJRr9oo2hfnAq6e2zg2wvVK9zfI0XKfzgH0kLhDv_z7d/s320/Screen+Shot+2011-11-20+at+8.09.53+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />
This last photo is what I saw when I clicked on the approve button. She must not realize you need to verify the account. Or I was just too quick.<br />
<br />
This now gives me another chance to collaborate or share some of what I do in the classroom with other teachers. It's simple word games but to a teacher, this is a huge time saver. Hopefully, others will post their own games to this wiki as well.<div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-84610784792455072352011-11-19T22:31:00.002-07:002011-12-03T23:05:47.252-07:00Discovering Diigo... And Why It Rocks!As I was sipping on a hot cup of coffee catching up on some Google Reader blogs I've neglected for the past couple of days I came across a post on Diigo by Steve Anderson aka Web20classroom Blog but it was posted by <a href="http://www.teachhub.com/why-diigo-rocks-educators">Teacher Hub</a>. This caught my eye,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="color: #7d143f; font-weight: bold;">
Sharing with Groups</div>
And the groups are great too. Have a special interest or area that you want to find resources for and share with? Maybe you have an Interactive Whiteboard or you are interested in Pre-K education. Or perhaps you are in a 1:1 school. There are groups for all these where members can share their saves to not only their inventory but to the group as well. Diigo will email you once a week with all the new content. Pretty neat, huh? </blockquote>
The more I read the more I realized I'd forgotten to look into the Group and List functions of Diigo. So off I went to explore. <br />
<br />
<div style="color: red;">
<span style="font-size: large;">What did I discover?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: blue;">1. Joining a group.</span> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;">Once I joined the group, I could then add a link and a brief description. Here is a picture of what it looks like. I can't believe how easy it is. You search for groups you are interested in joining through the search window and depending on your search or the words you use, several suggestions come up. I joined the Daily 5 Chat group and added some bookmarks to test it out.</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span> </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGeWZpHqM6OCuOxPEfnal0tCYtFMz09gqpM6S0jXjYHLlq8OT9B1iiQE-7l7hiZDzIYHXKgt_zqXUTHZJ8_xxHQaPTbHkFhc47xgbjEya4XIu3jh3xTFpaQCSjJc2eiY28uMvDFF1Ur4q1/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-11-19+at+9.24.29+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGeWZpHqM6OCuOxPEfnal0tCYtFMz09gqpM6S0jXjYHLlq8OT9B1iiQE-7l7hiZDzIYHXKgt_zqXUTHZJ8_xxHQaPTbHkFhc47xgbjEya4XIu3jh3xTFpaQCSjJc2eiY28uMvDFF1Ur4q1/s400/Screen+Shot+2011-11-19+at+9.24.29+PM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You'll notice Mitch Hughes has already tweeted out the link I posted and forgot to tweet.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: blue;"> 2. Adding a bookmark.</span> Here's what it looked like:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzMoFV3ntwAvllcSMBmGA9lGBmZziOksGtahzUinLWX2TLc0HSDW9xVYkugEs8OLMt74MyDdTQh1gvIVlWSPMkEgNTOmFWZA8OjodYeA3xjCV5dHSbeB1h5DEbJaCIU2gokaLiP1OGnjjJ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-11-19+at+8.41.43+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="141" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzMoFV3ntwAvllcSMBmGA9lGBmZziOksGtahzUinLWX2TLc0HSDW9xVYkugEs8OLMt74MyDdTQh1gvIVlWSPMkEgNTOmFWZA8OjodYeA3xjCV5dHSbeB1h5DEbJaCIU2gokaLiP1OGnjjJ/s200/Screen+Shot+2011-11-19+at+8.41.43+PM.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So much easier to now tweet out a link. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBiv9pTCxiVvTgrDGA3jruL06vLMMGcQWktDS5Csw2XxvHA_GjlX9lcwPs7HVQQ98T0my5uEKs9XLmai7pCOZnOo3dfiTvy8R5ruhU_4ajdi5iqk2VzzY4K6HEXoiOVMA8qmXFn4wMkn-9/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-11-19+at+9.30.50+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBiv9pTCxiVvTgrDGA3jruL06vLMMGcQWktDS5Csw2XxvHA_GjlX9lcwPs7HVQQ98T0my5uEKs9XLmai7pCOZnOo3dfiTvy8R5ruhU_4ajdi5iqk2VzzY4K6HEXoiOVMA8qmXFn4wMkn-9/s320/Screen+Shot+2011-11-19+at+9.30.50+PM.png" width="233" /></a><br />
It was so easy to add the link to my Diigo site, my list and my shared group. Wahoo! I've finally figured out how people share their bookmarks on Twitter through Diigo. I knew I would figure it out eventually. I like how Diigo shows you the last tags you used. This helps with not duplicating tags and especially when you're searching and bookmarking for similar like ideas or topics.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: blue;">
3. Subscribing to RSS feeds. </div>
I've subscribed to this group through the RSS feed. I think because I'm focusing on RSS feeds I'm starting to see them everywhere. I had noticed them in the past but didn't pay much attention. The more I see it the more I'm curious to know what will appear in Google Reader when I click on it. <b>A major goal of mine was to discover what RSS did and how it linked to sharing and collaborating with others. </b>RSS feeds are becoming a way to stay up to date with activity on blogs, Flickr, Wikis, and now Diigo. Who would have thought?<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">4. Personal Learning Network and followers of the Group</span><br />
I also discovered others from my PLN who have joined this group. I am now following a lot of them and I'm looking forward to seeing what following someone does. <br />
<div style="color: red;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red; font-size: large;">How will this impact my students in a primary classroom? </span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div id="__ss_605218" style="width: 425px;">
<b style="display: block; margin: 12px 0 4px;"><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/cliotech/diigo-in-education-presentation" target="_blank" title="Diigo in Education">Diigo in Education</a></b> <iframe frameborder="0" height="355" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/605218" width="425"></iframe> <br />
<div style="padding: 5px 0 12px;">
View more <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/" target="_blank">presentations</a> from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/cliotech" target="_blank">Jennifer Dorman</a></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
Anderson (2011) also confirms what Dorman (2008) suggests about creating a classroom account. Anderson wrote, <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div id="__ss_605218" style="width: 425px;">
<div style="padding: 5px 0pt 12px;">
</div>
</div>
First thing to do is get a regular Diigo account. Then visit the <a href="http://www.diigo.com/education" target="_blank">Educator Area</a> and apply for the Educator upgrade. Once you get upgraded you can access all the new features in the Teacher Console. You can create class groups and student accounts.</blockquote>
I have done what both of them suggested and I am currently waiting to find out whether or not I will be given an educators account. I get the feeling Diigo takes educators accounts very seriously because I needed to use a school email address when applying but when I signed up for my original Diigo account I used my gmail address. They also ask you to fill out how you will have your students use Diigo. Here's what I said,<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiai7zANQtiTYUqs8Glzc4qbokawRlnFM1D_EL9b9wiFMUGNmkk3URHN5fRhcISF-2yjt0dfO127nZQV1-f7wot33N2PU4gwqzsl0KPgS2cxZZhDPuMYOmBDKnBY2bviDVm-tKGyd66VvGT/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-11-19+at+9.54.34+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiai7zANQtiTYUqs8Glzc4qbokawRlnFM1D_EL9b9wiFMUGNmkk3URHN5fRhcISF-2yjt0dfO127nZQV1-f7wot33N2PU4gwqzsl0KPgS2cxZZhDPuMYOmBDKnBY2bviDVm-tKGyd66VvGT/s320/Screen+Shot+2011-11-19+at+9.54.34+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
Diigo has the potential to start my students on the journey to social bookmarking. We work on a Penguin unit in January. The students will be doing research on Penguins and I would like them to be able to share the sites they find. They will also enjoy the highlighting feature and the sticky note feature to give a brief understanding of what they have read about or why they choose the particular site. What a fabulous discussion we could have as a class, as to why someone chose a particular site? They could also highlight key words, strong verbs and such to help develop their knowledge of making their writing sound more interesting. <br />
<br />
I am excited to see if they approve my request. The more I use this tool the more I am enjoying it.<br />
<br />
References<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Anderson, S. (2011). <i>Why diigo rocks for educators!</i>. [Blog post]. Retrieved from <a href="http://www.teachhub.com/why-diigo-rocks-educators">http://www.teachhub.com/why-diigo-rocks-educators</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Dorman, J. (2008). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Diigo in education</i>. Retrieved from </span><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/cliotech/diigo-in-education-presentation" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">http://www.slideshare.net/cliotech/diigo-in-education-presentation</a></div>
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<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-85470247432277663952011-11-16T22:01:00.001-07:002011-11-19T22:52:14.374-07:00A Media Rediscovered<div style="text-align: center;">I have discovered a love for CBC radio again. I was travelling down to a conference in Kananaskis and I thought about listening to CBC radio. I had the privileged of listening to Q with <a href="http://jian.ca/">Jian Ghomeshi's</a><i></i><br />
interview the <a href="javascript:CBC.APP.UberPlayer.playRelease('2163827626');">William Shatner</a>. It was a pleasure to just listen while I was driving down the road. If you have been a fan of Shatner's I would recommend listening to the interview.<br />
Jian's voice is mesmerizing and such a pleasure to listen to. I think that's why he's on the radio and not myself. I know my podcast's won't sound anything like his voice but it's not a competition.<br />
I also got a chance to listen to <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/spark/">Spark</a>, thank you to Joanne for recommending this program as a podcast to follow. <br />
It's nice to disconnect from the computer and TV to just listen. </div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-44181267994057213262011-11-16T21:24:00.001-07:002011-11-16T21:44:48.531-07:00Anything but Audacity!<div style="text-align: left;">I knew when I decided to try a podcast and first looked into trying <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a> I thought it was going to be difficult. I don't think I realized how difficult. I am not against podcasting but more so with this particular Web 2.0 tool. Here are my first initial thoughts on the tool:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicFZJOsiDXZbfOgO38fGQoNAHpygNvp8XnQ3h610y7gfDpRx_a7lPYF3YPc52fiC22xlMPamiaIdsU7bbqkJtpbPAMyq8ABHMWheH_DdJl8ZhB4zARy7R4RFzIErYRpndqGCvdtcs1Jcth/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-11-15+at+10.01.35+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicFZJOsiDXZbfOgO38fGQoNAHpygNvp8XnQ3h610y7gfDpRx_a7lPYF3YPc52fiC22xlMPamiaIdsU7bbqkJtpbPAMyq8ABHMWheH_DdJl8ZhB4zARy7R4RFzIErYRpndqGCvdtcs1Jcth/s320/Screen+Shot+2011-11-15+at+10.01.35+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div></div><ol><li>The home screen is not appealing to look at. </li>
<li>There is a lot of small text, the kind that reminds me of a site that isn't really trustworthy. </li>
<li>Sometimes when I see (Beta) it doesn't always give me the warm fuzzies, the exact opposite. I'm very leery to be honest. Beta is the work in progress and sometimes this work in progress can cause some headaches. I do not need anymore than I might already have. </li>
<li>It's a download and not web based which means that you've got to have it on each of your computers you use, personally or at school.</li>
<li>Did I mention a lot of text? I do not find it user friendly at all. Too be really honest, I don't want to have to read all of this text. </li>
<li>When you go to the wiki for help, it is filled with text. I clicked on <a href="http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Category:Tutorial">Tutorials</a> thinking I would come to some video but it was more text. </li>
</ol><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOlGUGHuRgnshvSczPx6xledw2MmJsPX1tqf2pmj9D5wca_S8Lx-BvwQVZ9tqHxQTfneVFaG7OWjPvPwoIy9xDX3COsOqkWjMWvv34p2m-Fj-afn6izQNCZfDG4Q_wS5So6_HVyLKebzDn/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-11-16+at+8.18.05+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOlGUGHuRgnshvSczPx6xledw2MmJsPX1tqf2pmj9D5wca_S8Lx-BvwQVZ9tqHxQTfneVFaG7OWjPvPwoIy9xDX3COsOqkWjMWvv34p2m-Fj-afn6izQNCZfDG4Q_wS5So6_HVyLKebzDn/s320/Screen+Shot+2011-11-16+at+8.18.05+PM.png" width="244" /> </a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZETjbXySbrBdXHADv-Ry3Gizy6GGwM7xeY0OrTAwMe932zVpX0KBLubqxBtZZAwnJl1C1DKIxhyphenhyphenJ2S1qm8I1W5IIkVehF7zMrov1HhcfDs8o3Sm9JEqHoPpdPtV6Km1BIelqWdS0LCWWW/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-11-16+at+8.18.35+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZETjbXySbrBdXHADv-Ry3Gizy6GGwM7xeY0OrTAwMe932zVpX0KBLubqxBtZZAwnJl1C1DKIxhyphenhyphenJ2S1qm8I1W5IIkVehF7zMrov1HhcfDs8o3Sm9JEqHoPpdPtV6Km1BIelqWdS0LCWWW/s320/Screen+Shot+2011-11-16+at+8.18.35+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;">I clicked on <a href="http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Audacity_for_Teachers_-_Installation_and_Basic_Editing">Audacity for Teachers</a> to then be taken to this screen. Yet again, more text. So I'm not all that impressed so far. I don't want to have to read all of this. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I was able to do a small test from following what instructions I did read. But to save it was really confusing to me. Maybe I have a bad attitude towards Audacity or I just REALLY don't get it. Sometimes when something is too difficult, we just need to find an easier way to do it. From what I've experienced so far, I think this it too difficult and it takes too many steps to record a podcast and then to save it. Berger and Trexler (2010) suggest Audacity as a tool to create a podcast on and then you need to download "LAME, which is an encoder for converting the file to MP3 format." Right now I'm not sure I want to continue with this Web 2.0 tool. <a href="http://lame.sourceforge.net/">LAME</a> is another download and I am not keen on doing another download. In <a href="http://radio.about.com/od/createyourownpodcast/ss/How-to-Create-Your-Own-Podcast-Make-Your-Own-Talk-Show-Music-Program-or-Audio-Stream_2.htm">Deitz's article</a> (2011) he states,<i class="diigoHighlight id_50edd9bc70bfae42f3adb0c11268f4a0 type_0 a_style yellow commented"></i></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: left;"><i class="diigoHighlight id_50edd9bc70bfae42f3adb0c11268f4a0 type_0 a_style yellow commented">most people want to concentrate on their content and worry less about the technical aspects</i><i></i></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"> I would agree with him completely. I feel I'm working too hard on trying to figure out the tool and not on dealing with the content. Young children could record their own voice on here but to get them to save it, I think is too much work for them and for myself who would then have to convert them into MP3 files. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">When I tried <a href="http://audioboo.fm/">AudioBoo</a> with my students, I created an account, pressed "Make a recording/Upload a File. It loaded quickly, I hit record and talked (did a short test), listened to the recording, decided to keep it or not (or rerecord) and uploaded it. Simple, straight forward and no fussing around. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiwS07F_T5J4IVSJElhKRoqMWzd33WS-QR1e8eFRAwyzzXv2akiOksGve54mxj1J8PsYdJe27CA05vg7dNtcqqeQZV2qT73xIaaCejiAKPtRcRtaVReDI69ZFiLglFTwVvH_5gJbC-R1UD/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-11-16+at+8.43.02+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiwS07F_T5J4IVSJElhKRoqMWzd33WS-QR1e8eFRAwyzzXv2akiOksGve54mxj1J8PsYdJe27CA05vg7dNtcqqeQZV2qT73xIaaCejiAKPtRcRtaVReDI69ZFiLglFTwVvH_5gJbC-R1UD/s320/Screen+Shot+2011-11-16+at+8.43.02+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">I never intended for this to be a comparison between the two podcasting Web 2.0 tools but after learning about AudioBoo from @kathycassidy 3 weeks ago, and trying it out with my students, I feel it's a much better tool to use with your children. As a busy teacher and very active students, I do not have time to be completing extra steps. AudioBoo also gives you an embed code, which you can then embed into a blog post or website. It allows you to tag and use RSS feeds, which I'm finding to be very useful. This Web 2.0 tool is so much easier to use.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Therefore, I am going to use AudioBoo to complete my podcast assignment and still use the Voice Recorder. I've got to find my two voice recorders and put batteries into them. Yikes, another problem to solve. Maybe this is a sign that I going to prefer AudioBoo much better. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
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</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -1cm;">References</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -1cm;">Berger, P., & Trexler, S. (2010). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Choosing web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in a digital world.</i> Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 1cm; text-align: left; text-indent: -1cm;"><style>
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</style><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Deitz, C. (2011). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How to create your own postcast-a-step-by-step tutorial. Retrieved from</i> </span><a href="http://radio.about.com/od/createyourownpodcast/ss/How-to-Create-Your-Own-Podcast-Make-Your-Own-Talk-Show-Music-Program-or-Audio-Stream.htm" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">http://radio.about.com/od/createyourownpodcast/ss/How-to-Create-Your-Own-Podcast-Make-Your-Own-Talk-Show-Music-Program-or-Audio-Stream.htm</a><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Century Gothic";"></span></u> </div><br />
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</div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-38573220397868043722011-11-14T11:11:00.001-07:002011-11-14T11:12:44.093-07:00Subscribing to your own RSS Feeds<div style="text-align: center;">I took my professors advice and started subscribing to my own RSS feeds, blogs, wiki and Flickr feeds. It's interesting to see what others see when they subscribe to your feeds. </div><div style="text-align: center;">After doing some editing on the <a href="http://aprilbrown.wikispaces.com/">AprilBrown wiki</a> I received an email from Wikispaces. I decided to have every notification turned on so I could see what was happening. I've never added to a wiki or edited one before. To turn on these notifications go to Manage Wiki<Tools<Notifications. Click which email notifications you want to receive. As you can see I wanted them all clicked so that I could see every change that happened. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU8oAg8pV3YQffGj9X9XSCSK4hqgPT6mf_1VQM_EG4zyUsrWkpfCPaXyblOxNmMvsIu-5xsvH4X6V3fRk_QOCJWKqF7niaKWPxpDu5y3e2mZKVPRhxuizpLaMh6OCHNd0-6ZbaE5TaVEAQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-11-14+at+10.39.57+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU8oAg8pV3YQffGj9X9XSCSK4hqgPT6mf_1VQM_EG4zyUsrWkpfCPaXyblOxNmMvsIu-5xsvH4X6V3fRk_QOCJWKqF7niaKWPxpDu5y3e2mZKVPRhxuizpLaMh6OCHNd0-6ZbaE5TaVEAQ/s320/Screen+Shot+2011-11-14+at+10.39.57+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">I am also subscribing to the RSS feeds so I'm getting any updates to my Google Reader. Wanting to see what others are seeing is one way to help me utilize this tool. </div><div style="text-align: center;">Here is the email notification I received when I edited it as a guest. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_zYdjX2s8ctp18Y35hL1Ot-4lwEZ8VsKY1XX4hPkJNW1cJ01NiX07xvWowvj1qHXpE7z8FnkUUMjMJHN63J3M5TLkBf-L6MszFiFiXVn0CqOCOzPCvNN-6GvQHNiz6-N51qCuibTT3M0V/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-11-14+at+10.35.21+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_zYdjX2s8ctp18Y35hL1Ot-4lwEZ8VsKY1XX4hPkJNW1cJ01NiX07xvWowvj1qHXpE7z8FnkUUMjMJHN63J3M5TLkBf-L6MszFiFiXVn0CqOCOzPCvNN-6GvQHNiz6-N51qCuibTT3M0V/s320/Screen+Shot+2011-11-14+at+10.35.21+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">The red highlighted areas are deletions I made and the green highlighted areas is content which is staying on the wiki. This is pretty neat to see what changes have been made. It gives a completely different perspective on my thinking about a wiki. It doesn't just have to be you adding content but others as well. For educational purposes, I can see how these email notifications can help students. Your edited work is visible for you to see. Therefore, it gives you an opportunity to improve your writing skills. The person who edited your writing may have added ideas or more insight that you hadn't thought about.</div><div style="text-align: center;">How could this be used in a primary classroom? I think it would be perfect for developing writing skills. A narrative piece of writing could be started by the whole class and student could go in and add content to the story but they could also go in and add details, strong verbs, adjectives or any thing that may be needed to make the piece of writing stronger. Guth (2007) states,</div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>When editing a public wiki, students must critically read what has already been written by people they do not know, paying close attention to content, structure and style in order to see what needs to be modified or added and how to write contributions. </i></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: center;">Teachers are wanting their students to read and think critically. Contributing content to a wiki allows for this important skill to develop. This is an area where I am also working towards. </div></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Being able to see the changes as the administrator allow you insight into where students made changes, you could then go back and ask them why those particular decisions were made. </div><div style="text-align: center;">The more I play with this tool, the more I am beginning to see how it could be used for collaboration. I think my grade two's will be learning to add to a wiki very soon. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Guth, S. (2007). <i>Wikis in education: is public better?. </i>WikiSym ’07. doi: <span class="MsoHyperlink">10.1145/1296951.1296958</span></span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-7578502524030281682011-11-13T23:38:00.004-07:002011-11-28T07:51:34.849-07:00Technology plays a big role in today's libraries #8 Current Event<div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nypl/3109284711/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Art & Architecture by New York Public Library, on Flickr"><img alt="Art & Architecture" height="283" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3237/3109284711_7eff0792a5.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flickr photo courtesy of <br />
<div class="photo-desc" id="description_div3109284711"><div id="yui_3_4_0_3_1321253276379_1106">Digital ID: 1153320. Juley, Peter A. -- Photographer. Date depicted: 1911</div></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div> This week's current event comes from my local newspaper. I still enjoy having a cup of coffee and reading the paper. I found this article in Friday, November 4th Daily Herald Tribune paper.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.dailyheraldtribune.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3357444">Technology plays a big role in today's libraries</a><br />
<br />
The article talks about how libraries are changing by using technology to allow people more access to the types of programs being offered and speed at accessing materials all over the province of Alberta. Yet again, the library is wanting to connect with the community and the families in it. To do so, means they are creating Facebook pages, Twittering (<a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/GPPublicLibrary">@GPPublicLibrary</a>) , and they've created a <a href="http://www.gppl.ab.ca/">webpage</a> to advertise many of their programs.<br />
<br />
Also along this same topic of technology in libraries, I went to go see J. Edgar this weekend and there was a great scene where he talks about categorizing and cataloguing the Library of Congress's books and files and how easy and fast it was for him to search a topic. I had to chuckle because he was able to locate a topic within 1.5 minutes. Speedy at that time. I didn't realize J. Edgar Hoover was responsible for organizing and cataloging the Library of Congress. Interesting piece of history for all of you library history buffs out there.<br />
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I chose this article because it hightlights how the Grande Prairie Library is trying to move along with technology. They are wanting to serve their community members in new and inventive ways. Not only are they advertising on-line but they are willing to help train you to search for items, use their services and help you understand how to use the OverDrive ebook service. Way to go GP Library! Way to be on the cutting edge! I appauld you for your work.<div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-64741657810210144492011-11-13T22:05:00.003-07:002011-11-13T23:53:19.267-07:00Wiki's Will Win You Wover!<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimtctj48L_QzTorPAPPcjbRajgKJJv8jgb6poF1g3oeDdyGtsps2ixoVr8UBkFd6ukUDsQ_hXOJBIN3C3-MdSj2FZCYyc8m956BWB9H24Slpc592SA_8s1jay7kE1Dq7FcA3QPMUdTZoGb/s1600/Screen+Shot+2011-11-13+at+10.04.16+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="45" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimtctj48L_QzTorPAPPcjbRajgKJJv8jgb6poF1g3oeDdyGtsps2ixoVr8UBkFd6ukUDsQ_hXOJBIN3C3-MdSj2FZCYyc8m956BWB9H24Slpc592SA_8s1jay7kE1Dq7FcA3QPMUdTZoGb/s320/Screen+Shot+2011-11-13+at+10.04.16+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Do you like the catchy title? I thought it was clever. I think it's how I feel about wiki's these days. When I first thought about wiki's and what their purpose was, I envisioned them being a lot like blogs but more collaborative. In fact, they are much different. Blogs are a way to journal about our thoughts and understandings then people respond back with their opinion or views. After reading, Sarah Guth's (2007) paper <a href="http://www.pdfdownload.org/pdf2html/view_online.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wikisym.org%2Fws2007%2F_publish%2FGuth_WikiSym2007_IsPublicBetter.pdf">Wiki's In Education: Is Public Better</a>, I'm beginning to see that wiki's are a Web 2.0 tool used to build collaboration between those who are participating in the wiki and the topic they are writing about. They are also an opportunity to publish quality pieces of writing. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Choosing-Tools-Learning-Teaching-Digital/dp/1591587069/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321245923&sr=1-1">Berger & Trexler</a> (2010) explain a Wiki's <span style="font-size: small;"><i> </i></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>"focus as authoring content, rather than just downloading existing content on the Web. Student authors select, evaluate, write, revise, edit, and publish information and ideas to their collaborative wiki Web site."</i></span> </blockquote>This Web 2.0 tool then becomes increasingly important in helping students and myself learn to share, collaborate, and deal with editing others work and have my own edited. Guth also reported that the students in the study also had the same difficulty as I am having,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>both a challenge and a benefit of using wikis in education is helping students let go of individual ownership. </i>(p. 62) </blockquote>I am learning to do this since one of our first discussions in this course from our textbook, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Socially-Networked-Classroom-Teaching-Media/dp/1412967015/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321245783&sr=8-1">The Socially Networked Classroom by William Kist</a>. I wondered what I had to share but I am learning that everyone has something to share, even myself. Guth also reported, the students <i> </i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>"still felt strong ownership for their personal contributions and had difficulty editing each other's work/" </i>(p. 64)</blockquote>I know this is an issue I will be struggling with. I think, who am I to be editing someone else's work. Again, it's going to take time to leave this mindset. </div><div style="text-align: left;"></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">I had two goals in mind for my proposal. One was to create a Wiki (at the time I wasn't sure of why or what it would entail) and to add to the <a href="http://daily5cafechat.wikispaces.com/">Daily 5 Wiki</a> of our Friday night Twitter chats. I successfully added some of my word work activities to the wiki. If you would like to see the post I did on how easy it was to add content to this wiki click <a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/search/label/wikispaces">here</a>. This particular wiki is not one in true sense of what Berger and Trexler (2010) stated a wiki should be. Instead, it is a place for teachers to share their ideas, resources and insights into this program. I added an introduction of myself so I could get use to using the editing function of a wiki. This is still a very new Web 2.0 tool for me and I know I am not using it to it's full potential but with all new things, experimentation is important to understanding what to do and how to use it. <br />
<br />
I knew I wanted to create a <a href="http://aprilbrown.wikispaces.com/">wiki</a> of my own, I have to create something in order to know how it works, but at the time of the proposal I struggled with knowing what was the wiki for. The more I read and looked at other wiki's I realized I wanted to have a place to share what I do. Several people ask for power points, documents, images, etc from me after I finish a presentation or from a post I may add to my <a href="http://www.msbrownsgrade2class.blogspot.com/">other blog</a>. For now my wiki will be a place to house all of these items. I will leave the wiki open so others can add to it. I feel the more I use it and give others the address, the more others will feel comfortable collaborating on it. A problem I know I am going to encounter is having people contribute and become members. Why would they want to? At this time I am unsure of how to answer this question. Perhaps with more use and putting out my content on Twitter others will find the value in collaborating on the wiki and adding their own work. <br />
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References<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -1cm;"><span style="font-size: small;">Berger, P., & Trexler, S. (2010). <i>Choosing web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in a digital world.</i> Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.</span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span></span><br />
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</style><span style="font-size: small;">Guth, S. (2007). <i>Wikis in education: is public better?. </i>WikiSym ’07. doi: <span class="MsoHyperlink">10.1145/1296951.1296958</span></span></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-55913593706661976532011-11-09T21:24:00.000-07:002011-11-09T21:24:26.459-07:00Changes in my Google Reader<div style="text-align: center;">I love the new look of Google Reader. I think it was last Monday or Tuesday was when I saw the changes. It's cleaner looking, less cluttery and far more simple looking. </div><div style="text-align: center;">I've been doing a whole lot more tagging than I ever had. Yet again, tagging becomes really important to finding posts you like or would like to return back to. I've discovered that the tags are kept at the bottom of your Blogger list. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe4l-q7JDzMGDNXjBWtR9u0fh4KywRxD-Cql31ulEhYvnTmiRFXRgG2CoFN4eKG5DBh4TE7qCHtHrJC7cFVvtE7LLaP3h6gVc_sZ_AAUvH1yb6c0Q1DrtX370gAa40FL42P9rK6nnWdTuq/s320/Screen+Shot+2011-11-09+at+9.11.09+PM.png" width="170" /> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I think they are very much like folders, when you click on a tag it redirects it to the blogs you've tagged. I'm still not sure how others can have access to your tags in order to find the posts you've tagged but I feel it's in the permission settings you give your Google Reader and who you want to have access. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> I love when you read a blog post how it turns yellow. It's so easy to keep track of the what you've just done. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In my inquiry, I knew I needed to go through and de-clutter the blogs I follow. I was following over 150 blogs and I just couldn't keep up. Over the summer I went a bit, yes, just a bit 'subscription' crazy. I was subscribing to any blog that looked interesting, fun to read, had great pictures, and had to do with primary or grade two. I've been trying to see which blogs post frequently and which ones I actually read and I've weeded through and gotten rid of ones I don't look at or quickly scroll over. It's very hard getting rid of blogs. It's a bit like taking outcomes out of curriculum, we know some need to go but we feel they're all important. As it turned out some had to go. I can always go back and remove more at a later date, baby steps. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I am happy with the changes, but I'm always going to the left of the blog title to star the blog for future reference and it's not there anymore. Instead, Google has added it to the right of the title. It's going to take a bit of getting use to but I know I'll be able to adapt. </div><div style="text-align: center;">Hope your enjoying some of the changes as well. </div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-58238120900404090152011-11-07T20:21:00.001-07:002011-11-07T20:22:09.539-07:00Out of Touch but Now I'm Back<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ET3jw4BGvnFPdDGcAd_pK0UoPI3QYHrpEEol0aBRPJkZS0BEaGvepVXBUPI1FbMWaM5SFYjwtrqiJHGjDFFdiz-GGG7n9oYX8CF_krziU42h2HtLTnJWuMfKa3Yn8MJN7nhTzs64f8iU/s1600/permissiontoplay.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ET3jw4BGvnFPdDGcAd_pK0UoPI3QYHrpEEol0aBRPJkZS0BEaGvepVXBUPI1FbMWaM5SFYjwtrqiJHGjDFFdiz-GGG7n9oYX8CF_krziU42h2HtLTnJWuMfKa3Yn8MJN7nhTzs64f8iU/s200/permissiontoplay.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image courtesy of ECEC Council</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;">Hello Everyone!</div><div style="text-align: center;">My apologies for not being around in the blogging world. This past three weeks I've been CRAZY busy! Last week I completed report cards, created agenda's for meeting, made three days worth of sub plans so I could attend meetings and the ECEC Conference in Kananaskis. What a wonderful location to have a conference. Not that I saw any of the gorgeous scenery because I was busy learning about PLAY, project based learning, and math. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/robtrent/1363044164/" title="Delta Lodge at Kananaskis Country by robtrent, on Flickr"><img alt="Delta Lodge at Kananaskis Country" height="212" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1059/1363044164_07ea0d2cd0.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">I promise to post more this week. In between all of my travels and work, I've found sometime to work on various Web 2.0 tools. I am looking forward to sharing what I learn. </div><div style="text-align: center;">Come back and see what I've learned. </div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-89889203548059955122011-11-06T21:14:00.001-07:002011-11-28T07:52:03.601-07:00Kids and Tech Gadgets Current Event #7<div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewpescod/272080926/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Play Time by Andrew Pescod (possibly away for a while), on Flickr"><img alt="Play Time" height="213" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/82/272080926_620d9b7f51.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><small><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/georgecouros/6311061942/" target="_blank" title="Imagination">flickr photo</a> shared by <a href="http://flickr.com/people/georgecouros/" target="_blank">aprilbrown</a></small></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>While travelling down to Kananaskis on Wednesday to attend the ECEC Conference: Permission to Play I was listening to CBC radio's Spark program (Love it! Thank you to Joanne or Jennifer for recommending it). The interview which caught my attention was <a _mce_href="http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2011/10/spark-160-october-30-november-2-2011/" href="http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2011/10/spark-160-october-30-november-2-2011/">Kids and Tech Gadgets</a>. It was a fantastic interview about how too much technology and gadgets can be replacing creative outlets in kids. If students are being passed gadgets, which are called Passback tools they are always being stimulated by technology and not given the opportunity to use their imagination and creativity to explore and imagine. <br />
It was interesting because the conferences' theme was Play. I felt his interview and our conference had a lot to do with each other. <a href="http://www.nifplay.org/about_us.html">Dr. Stuart Brown</a> and <a href="http://www.goingwild.org/">Brian Keating</a> both talked about the importance of play and how it contributes to a well rounded individual. They had far more scientific language than I do, I'm just summing it up for this post. Dr. Brown also spoke about how sleep and play can stimulate the same areas of the brain. He mentioned how a good play session can give you the same feeling as a good sleep. I found this to be very interesting. <a _mce_href="http://www.parenting.com/blogs/children-and-technology-blog" href="http://www.parenting.com/blogs/children-and-technology-blog">Jeana Lee Tahnk</a> commented on balance and how important it is to maintain when it comes to technology and children's usage. I would agree completely. I don't believe the Internet and technology are going away but it's about finding balance. Sometimes, unplugging and playing can be the best thing for you or your family. We must have kids play, it helps to improve their imagination and creates a better sense of self. <br />
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I found this interview especially interesting because Dr. Brown and Brian Keating suggested kids should be out playing to stimulate their imagination and build up their creativeness, sometimes games on computers or apps can not do such a thing. I think technology is important but not at the expense of a child's creativeness. If parents and teachers are always pushing technology and gadgets at our children when will they ever discover how to use a box as a spaceship to travel to the moon or a blanket as a secret hiding place for them and their friends?<br />
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On a side note, the other interview <a _mce_href="http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2011/10/spark-160-october-30-november-2-2011/" href="http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2011/10/spark-160-october-30-november-2-2011/">Technology and The Wandering Mind</a> was just as good. <br />
Spark. CBC (Producer). (2011). <i>Kids and tech gadgets</i>. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2011/10/spark-160-october-30-november-2-2011/<div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2010613347762180344.post-73335366434015426352011-10-29T15:17:00.002-06:002011-11-28T07:52:34.851-07:00Project-Based Learning: An Overview - Current Event #6<div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dkuropatwa/5711114355/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Teach everything they need to know before they start the project by dkuropatwa, on Flickr"><img alt="Teach everything they need to know before they start the project" height="240" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3241/5711114355_87a51e5c38.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">picture courtesy of Flickr: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wheatfields/116726981/">Horse and cart</a> / <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wheatfields/">Christian Guthier</a> / <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/" rel="nofollow">CC BY-NC-SA 2.0</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>I'd like to first start out by saying, I am slowly working towards teaching in a project-based environment but more work is needed. If you've done any reading of Project-Based Learning you'll appreciate this short video on what it is and how it can impact student learning.<br />
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Just looking on the face of the young girl who is outside doing work in 'her' classroom and not the four walls of a school sent shivers up my spin. You can see the joy on her face at being able to learn outside of a school. I wish we could all teach this way. What would happen if we forgot about curriculum and let students pick their own learning? Seymor Papert suggests this is the first step towards project-based learning or at least forgetting about learning a particular outcome at a particular time (video). Using technology in classrooms and with students helps to lend itself to beginning to explore project-based learning. Technology must be in the hands of the students.<br />
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I am in awe of this type of teaching and learning. This video helps to remind us all that inquiry and project-based learning is one of the best ways of learning. I have a feeling this is why we have been given the opportunity to create our own learning project. I would love to know your thoughts on Project-Based Learning.<br />
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Edutopia (Producer). (2001), <i>Project-based learning: an overview</i> [video]. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning-overview-video<div class="blogger-post-footer">This post originally appeared on <b><a href="http://themathwhisperer.blogspot.com/">The Math Whisperer</a></b></div>April Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12705102738457690079noreply@blogger.com0