Thing 13

I have spent a good portion of my Saturday afternoon playing around with Flickr and Dumpr. I have added a bunch of family pictures to Flickr and organized them into sets. I made those private. There are pictures of little kids in them and although I know people post their children's pictures on Facebook and other sites, it makes me a little nervous.

I wish these sites were available to students during school (provided I could limit their access to what they viewed). All of my students have to prepare a power point as part of a common assessment for English. Think of the possibilities they would have with adding and customizing pictures. Because many of my students don't have computers at home, this would be something that could only be done in the public library.

Sometimes I wish I was doing this "class" in the summer where I have more time to explore. As it is now, I have kind of ignored my dusty house today.

Lily and Dylan

Thing 12

We were asked to comment about how we could use Filckr in the classroom and how we can share with other teachers. We can't used Flickr in the classroom because it is blocked from being used in school. I could use it outside of school but not in school. I don't think I would ask kids to go on Flickr because I couldn't control which pictures they view and I would need to do that if I gave an assignment.

I was thinking about how nice it would have been to know about this site when I was teaching world cultures. The course was organized by region. Students would first learn about the geography of a region, then the history, and then they would study the culture and modern-day concerns. I used to think that we'd spend all this time talking about Latin America or China or South Asia and the kids wouldn't have any connections to what the places and people in these regions looked like. I spent a lot of time on Google trying to find pictures to make a "virtual tour" so we had some ideas of sights of a region. I would also try to include music and language of the regions so we would also be exposed to the "sounds." I'd even bring in food so the more adventuresome students could connect to a region with "taste." With Flickr, I could go to a map and the pictures are organized geographically. What a nice way to see a place you may never go to.

Thing 11

I spent a lot of time browsing SlideShare, mostly in the Education category. I had some trouble with it, though, because I didn't get sound on any of the presentations and I never figured out why. I couldn't find anything that I could specifically use in my teaching. That's probably more of a function of what I am teaching this year, though, because there were plenty of presentations that could be used for English/language arts, science, and social studies. I did see some presentations that I could steal ideas from. There was one about time travel that would be an interesting project for students in world history classes. There was another about ways to fail a class that was funny but it was geared to college students. I could modify that and do a funny presentation in my developing skills class when we set goals for the new trimester.

If I asked students to use this site, I would have to limit their searches. There are so many presentations that I think they would get bored sorting through them for one that interested them or was useful for an assignment. I didn't make it though all the education ones before I got bored.

Feel Small

Feel Small?

View more presentations from Jason Wyatt. (tags: earth space)

Thing 10

I created a survey on Google Docs and thought I was being very clever. I have a class called developing skills. It is a special education class where students can bring their work from their general education classes to the resource room to get help. It is a chance for re-teaching and practice. It is like study-hall-plus. I am required to give a trimester exam. In previous trimesters, the exam has been an essay exam. Students need to reflect on their successes and what they did to be successful. They also have to reflect on where they weren't successful, why they weren't successful, and what they need to do differently. Written expression is usually a weak area for learning disabled students so an essay of this length can be challenging for some students. I thought creating a survey would be a good way to do the exam. I created some questions that were checklists, some that were on a sliding scale, and a few essay questions. The problem is that I need to be able to view individual responses. I really don't need to compile the data into one report. I can't figure out if I can get individual reports on this survey. If I can't, I won't be able to use it as an exam. Creating it was a good learning experience, though. I learned how to create questions and to edit and move questions around.

Thing 8

I found "Thing 8" much easier to do than "Thing 6." I have had a lot of fun creating my delicious account and starting social bookmarking. I have already added a bookmark from my husband's bookmarks. He found a really good site with algebra tutorials. I will also add the link to my teacher page for my students to use. I also added "Read the Words" from Jim's bookmarks. The thing I like about del.icio.us is how easy it is to use. I am anxious to talk about this at a department meeting and share it with the other special ed teachers at Monroe High School. What a great way to share resources.