Whoa, cool

One of the things that I am doing is an online course at the moment.

I am doing the Spec Ed III; as a part of that I signed up for daily email from the Centre for Exceptional Children. I got this post today:

Arizona State Launching launching online learning credentials.

Whoa.

Feedback and Reflection on applying tech 2.0 in my room

You know, I'm pretty sure I'm hooked.

Not sure I've done "everything everything" for this E-ducation journey, but here is the list.

One - blogging

This I am doing - it's whether the people that need to read it are reading it. I kept a blog for my Phys Ed class. I am keeping a blog for the team I am coaching in Burlington. None of the posts have been read my my athletes. They just don't "do" that. Some adults, not the target audience, have been reading the blog.

Two - Commenting
I have commented on the blogs that people have come from to comment on my blog. I don't think there were too many people who went out and made comments on other blogs. This might be a thing to work on for next time - but as it was, I think that most did not do very much for this Journey.

Three Pictures
I have used Picasa and looked at shots on Flickr since we started this journey. My current blogs are filled with images that I own the copyright to, or are from Picasa. That was really useful. onestly, that is something I will continue to use.




Four Streaming Video
I recorded a short video with my daughter and posted it here. Rather hilarious. Then I saw the Youtube video on how to stream video to my blog. That was really helpful. Of course, I got it from the E-ducation blog, and that just worked for me.

Five Podcasting
I did play a bit with Audacity - but I've not yet used that in my classroom. As I sit and write this, I am getting a few ideas about how I might sneak it into my classroom, but alas, I'm merely thinking off the cuff.

Recording them reciting a poem? What about posting an MP3 file of them giving advice to Holden Caufield. What about thinking out loud about connections between Lennie Small and Wille Loman? I mean ..that's just in English. What about trying to recite a prayer for their World Religions assignment. Or getting them to use Premier to have someone else read it to them.

Finally, I just want to have it noted that I have been listening and promoting podcasts in my classroom for a while - I like them, especially since they are free and are quite entertaining and educational at times. I have a lot of episodes on my iPod Touch.

Six Adobe Connect
I didn't get Skype to work. Nothing I did seemed to make that item move forward. Would be nice to talk to my buddy in China, but beyond that, I'm just not sure about that piece of technology. However, Creative Commons and Picasa were and are continuing to be awesome free pieces of the web to integrate into my teaching.

I did peek at Creative Commons, but not enough for me to take credit with having completed it 100%

Seven Wikis
I did some of this through what ever it was ... setting up a party, I think. There were two or three of us that completed this. I think I got it done some time in March. April was a disaster for me, and I really don't want to think about it much. Could I see myself doing a wiki for a class ... I don't know. Certainly I can see myself do basically what some are doing in the online courses I've done in the past:

"I like that idea. Genius.' or 'Thanks for the idea."

I mean not very helpful thoughts, merely something online to demonstrate that they are putting forth an effort to pass the class.

Eight Social Networks.
I Facebook, I twitter. I use Facebook to contact people about rugby, special education, alternative learning and strength and conditioning ideas. I've gotten through some tough times by reaching out to people that helped through Facebook. I've gotten some great ideas for blog posts and other ideas I've used via Twitter.

Nine Productivity Tools
I think I did this one, too. Not sure. I did set up a yahoo account so that I could "doodle", although by this point I have not yet done so. I did have the Board's Assistive Technology person in my school and I did a "Wordle" ... but I know that has nothing to do with this. ;) it just sounds cool.

Ten Bookmarking/tagging
I did this today, while my class was working on their blogs. Well, I was checking on them, both virtually and physically moving around the class ... they were watching the world cup game. Meh, tick, tick, tick....

Eleven RSS feeds
This I have done int he past, and it is just too much information coming down the pipe at me, and so shut it off. Too many links to too many websites for me to function properly in a classroom setting. It'd be awesome if the internet didn't work this way. I find it hard enough to keep up with my Twitter and Facebook accounts. RSS feeds, no thanks. To me, it's like Twitter on amphetamines.

Twelve Blogging/Feedack

I thought this was a useful experience. I am using the ideas, strategies and tactics I learned during this Journey in my classroom already. I feel that I will need to learn by doing from now on - I can't have Scott and Regan breathing down my neck every day.

I think that I was successful in not only learning how to blog, but taking it at least one step further towards integrating it into my classroom. If you are interested, I can send you some links to the pages of my students. Overall, though, I think you need to run something like this again.

Similar would work - bringing us to different schools once a month for "catch up" sessions might be helpful. I say maybe once a month, as teaching is already stressful enough, but never just lets people be lazy and not accountable. If people knew they had to get something done before meeting with everyone, they'd be more likely to do it. Another suggestion would be to get some sort of "Technology Champion" in each school - someone not a Computer Teacher- who can make all the buttons go "Bling" and stuff.

If you run it again, I'd like to do this course again.... I liked the learning.

Cool

I got an email from my boss about social networking today - a cool link that I am training around the interwebs this monring, as I get other work done, too.

Then I come across this video of how a student in Grade 7 is using technology to help her learning:




Man, that is a clever little kid. Kinda makes me want to teach her...;)

Oh, man

OK, so I'm still not sure if I have done everything for this e-ducation thing, but I know that I have certainly had a sip or two of the Kool-Aid:

I'm using facebook to get into better shape, making friends with Strength and Conditioning coaches, literally across the planet. I'm still considering going to Columbus next week for the Wordpress conference, but I'm pretty sure rugby will win out. I'm also going to be putting together a blog for my online class for Special Education, part three I just started last week - due date is the middle of August. I'm now making my current Grade 12 English class blog their Culminating Activity/Final Assessment, going to see if my summer school 4U class can do the same, keeping another blog for the rugby team I coach in the summer and now I read this:

Internet team building ... for 25 bucks for the download.

I was telling my dad (a retired teacher) about all of this, and his one reply was that he wasn't sure he'd pass my class. I did explain to him that I'd be there for him if he wanted to try Secondary school English again, but I'm pretty sure he'd at least pass it....

Learning in Hand

I'm in the middle of something - literally. I'm learning. I'm trying to learn like my students learn. The Literacy Interant is going on about this article in the Spec from a few years ago.

It's awesome to think that the iPod Touch can be used to help to teach. To reinforce the learning that I am doing - that my students should be doing. (I'm at my school, in the computer lab as I am doing this. I just walked by my classroom with my students in there - one guy is STILL on facebook and Youtube, even though I know he shouldn't be there. He needs to be doing my homework)

That Preimier can be used to speak and record any text - and I need to find out other voices online tonight while at home, on my own network. I also got a chance to use Wordle ( See above pic for proof). Nice stuff.

But the Project Gutenberg and Librivox is the thing that is awesome. I recall thinking that I could use the combination of Premier and Project Gutenberg to pound down some reading for free on the way to work. And if I can do it, everyone can. Cheaply.

Streaming da vids

OK, I admit it. I've gotten a little off track on this blog.

I think I went a little crazy with the looking around the internet, the trying to express stuff through which I was wondering out loud how to get stuff done.

Ya know, I am only hooman.

In any case, here is a streaming video, one version of which started my off on my road to where I am now. I follow Karl Fisch's blog these days, and he's the one that put together the now famous "Did You Know" presentation:





I mean, it's good. This particular version has not quite got the same feel as the one which I was presented first, three years ago. But it was something that set ideas in my head. Teaching is running the risk of losing a whole number of students if we do not get on board. Older teachers, me included, have to keep sharpening skills in order to keep the learning going forward.

I know what Marva Collins would say; I know what my dad (a man with a similar length of time spent in a classroom) would say: technology will never replace a teacher, or motivated students.

But, what about the ones I need to suck into learning, as unwilling as they are? What if I have to get them to learn Shakespeare through blogging about it? Or tweeting about it?

Hmmm?

Interwebs, again?

Well, I have been suffering a good deal from "double Burnout" - that feeling after getting through a tough part of the year, wherein a lot of you free time is sucked out of you by, well, working.

And now, I am working on my annual learning plan. That is, I made a concerted effort to find ways to integrate technology into my classroom. And I found something "new" ... at least, new to me.

In a word, "Wordpress".

One of my buddies swears by it. I'd like to sit with him, but he's in Vancouver. And he runs his own "bid'ness", and really can't spare the time to sit with me. (as an aside here, I will be sitting with the Ontario Blues tech support dude learning how to use "Dartfish" the first week of June. That should be cool, man. Fo' sho.

But back to the "Wordpress camp" in Ohio this June. Seriously. That would be above and beyond the call of this e-ducation thing, right?

Right?

That it is for people trying to make money off of their blogs and writing for the interwebs is not the point. That I could take students to the "next level" (I HATE that cliche) and get them the skills they need to thrive in an electronic/digital environment is the point. Schools are here to provide help with that.

Right?