GALT

My initial impression of social networking in education is that I do not see a use right now, but maybe over time it will establish itself as the best way to share and discuss ideas.  After visiting both Classroom 2.0 and Educational Ning, the groups for my subject matter were small and discussions not informational.  Some of the events that were being advertised were about a year old.  I was able to find a couple of sites that were interesting to visit that were linked to this network, but I can use other means to find those sites.  I guess these educational social networks are not popular yet like facebook or myspace, and until they become popular, I doubt there will be much to gain from joining these types networks.  I have a facebook account, but hardly ever use it, it is great for “small talk” not really for discussions.

I read a post on the teachlearning blog  by Scott McLeod on Teaching Administrators about Wikipedia.  The article starts off by telling us how a librarian and a school system has blocked the use of Wikipedia by the students.  I have to agree with Mr. McLeod that by educating administrators on Wikipedia, they would embrace not block the use of a great tool.  Administrators do not like Wikipedia as it may contain inaccuracies and bias, but I have to say which history textbook or book does not contain bias or an inaccuracy.  The nice thing about wikipedia is that it is policed for any inaccuracies or bias,and will be corrected quickly.

WOW!  I really like Pageflakes.  I really liked the NKO Math Clusters, and I would love to do something similar for my math class.  After exploring and editing (adding and deleting) a page it was easier than expected.  I added podcasts, videos, and new flakes.  I will definitely use this in the future, but want to work with my colleagues.  One of my colleagues has posted this to his wiki, and I would like to do a similar thing.  Students could add mathcasts and we could use a pageflake to set up review pages/videos.

My first thought about using google docs was that I could create my tests here, and then the other math teacher and I could collaborate on the test (since we have to give the same tests).  However, I discovered the edit bar does not contain equation editor.  I also discovered that uploading documents, you lose all of the previous formats.  For example, it did not upload lines or tables or equations.  The upload of spreadsheets looked a little better.  In order to use Google Docs, it would be best to start in Google Docs.  I could think of three uses that this application would be good.

1.  Just like in this course, I could assign a project that takes weeks to complete with many tasks along the way.  I could use a spreadsheet in which the students update their progress.

2.  We could have scribes for each class, and each day is a separate document.  Each scribe would add to the same document, and later if other students want to add/correct an item they could.

3.  I have to do an end of the year presentation, so I can start now and have the students and my colleagues help by adding to and editing my presentation.

I have used YouTube before, and I have watched many videos that I liked. I was never sure about what the embed meant, but now I do. I watched two math videos, 1 video on how shoot a basketball, and I found an old music video of a song I liked when growing up (that was my fun one). For teaching, when it comes to math, the only videos I found were a repeat of what I already do in class. These videos would be good for review, so I could set up a review page and embed these videos in there (probably make my own). I thought videos by the students would be better, not as dry and boring.

Teacher Tube looked good as well, it was the first time I had explored Teacher Tube. Again, I viewed some videos that would be great review. I still think student generated videos would be more interesting and educational.

I downloaded the music video, and do have concerns about coyright. I did not see the CC logo anywhere, and did know how to properly cite the video I am using.

Podcasting is a great WEB 2.0 tool.  I previewed a number of the sites that were suggested, and saved two of them.  One of the EPN podcasts, Math Tutor, I saved to my Google Reader.  I downloaded Frontline to my ITune podcasts (wanted to try both methods…easier and quicker to do than I thought).  I really like the video better than the audio podcasts (math podcasts), as you can see the steps demonstrated and do not have to try and visualize them.  I definitely see a use for podcasts in the classroom, and will soon have my students creating their own mathcasts.

I have to be honest and say I am not impressed with Library Thing.  I still like to go to the library and bookstore and have them make recommendations and answer my questions.  I know what I like to read.  When I tried the “suggester”, it came back with the book that I typed in.  I teach Math, so I doubt  I would use this in my class, but I could see other teachers using it to recommend books for students to read such as in geography you might want your students to read about a person from a particular country in order to learn more about different cultures.

When exploring with Delicious, I was using Tags to search.  I put in “students” and “teens” and was very disappointed with the number of porn sites that came back.  I guess I was hoping this was more of an education site.  I guess it is a search engine  just like google.

However, I do like how Delicious can organize the sites that I like (tagging was so easy), and I can definitely see using this in looking for material for my class.  This can be used for professional development in research as well as creating lessons.

I am not sure if anyone wants to use my sites, but my delicious account is filled with sites that I use all the time.  I look forward to using delicious, but I will be more careful in my searches.

I read an article titled Connecting Classrooms, Sharing Real Data. (This article first appeared in Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears online magazine April 1, 2008. The article has been modified to include middle school math and science examples. All versions of this article are licensed under a Creative Commons License.)

I enjoyed this article, because it gave a teacher a number of sites/projects that a class could do with other schools across the country/world.  One project that I thought would be fun for a math class is one in which students from around the world would measure their shadow at a given time, share their information/data and then use that data to come up with the circumference of the earth.  It was a great article showing how easy it is to connect with classrooms around the world and collect and share information.  Students can also learn about different world perspectives and cultures.

I reviewed about half the tools and the one that I really liked was Quizlet. The games that the students could play was not what interested me, but that the students created the games. I think by having the students create the games, they will learn faster than by playing them. It goes with Sylvia’s session at the online conference, in which she encourages game design. The other tool which I liked is the polldaddy, and I could use this in class for the students to take polls and then look at ratios, proportions, probability,…etc.

I will definitely implement these if not something similar in my class.