Thursday, July 19, 2007

Reflection/Suggestion

During this class I learned about many useful emerging technologies that can be utilized in the classroom. The discussions, projects, and presentations were all very beneficial. I enjoyed being able to share links and ideas using our blogs. I think this is a valuable asset to any classroom. I look forward to implementing this technology in my future classroom.

I have a suggestion to anyone who feels like they will be using blogs in their classes. I feel like livejournal.com is very user-friendly and easy to learn. I think this site would be good to use and perhaps even more beneficial to a class than blogger. Using this site instead of blogger, allows you to have a "friend" page, which means you subscribe to other people's blogs and it shows it all to you on one page. Anytime you comment on someones posts, they receive an email and they can comment back to you in a chain. You are able to see the thread of comments in the order they occurred. You receive an e-mail for each comment and are alerted when you receive one. Basically you can reply to another person's comment, which creates a conversation in a way. There are also things called communities on livejournal. Communities are basically areas for people with similar interests to post blog entries about a certain topic. You can ask each other questions and help each other out. This can be useful in a classroom when talking about certain subjects. You can also make the blogs private so only the students in your class can view them and post comments. This is just something to keep in mind when using blogs in the classroom.
This is what a thread of comments looks like in livejournal. You can see the chain of events, who commented first, then someone commented on their comment and so on. Every user gets a little icon as well to identify themselves.

I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their summer vacations and good luck in your next school year!

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

ASSURE Lesson Plans

Today our ASSURE lesson plans were due. I found it interesting to write a lesson in this format. I am so used to writing such long lesson plans that are required of the college. Many times our lesson plans as an undergrad would go up to ten pages, which is extremely unrealistic as a teacher in the real world. The ASSURE method seemed like an efficient way of writing them. What did everyone else think?I wrote about the class tour podcast for my lesson plan. I think it would be such a fun project for kids to do.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Podcast Creation Guide/Upload Services

Another useful resource I found while researching podcasting, was the podcast creation guide. It is a PDF file made by Apple Inc. I recommend educators download this and take a look at it. It tells you step by step how to create a podcast. It also includes images of the equipment involved. I have uploaded it to sendspace.com for you.

Sendspace.com is a website where you can upload files for a certain period of time for free. These are useful for sharing files with other users, or if you are formatting your computer and you need a site to temporarily hold your files. They will stay uploaded for about a week, depending on the site. If you are interested in downloading the podcast PDF file, simply click on the link I have provided below. When you click on that link, there is a flashing red arrow pointing at the button you need to click for the download. Most free upload services typically look like this.

Podcast Creation Guide:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/nja4sh

Free upload services you may want to check out:
megaupload.com
yousendit.com
mediafire.com
sendspace.com

Monday, July 16, 2007

Podcasts in Education

While doing research for my PowerPoint presentation on educational podcasts, I found many useful resources for educators. These links include general podcast information, podcast search engines, and educational podcast web sites. I never really thought about all of the possibilities of podcasts in the classroom. My favorite idea for using podcasts in class, was to have the students create a walking tour of their town for visitors to download. The students can have fun learning the history of their town while incorporating technology in the classroom.

General Podcast Information:
http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/21-podcast-hosting.htm
http://www.edupodder.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting

Podcast Search Engines:
http://www.podcast.net/
http://digg.com/podcasts/view/education
http://www.digitalpodcast.com/browse-educational-20-1.html
http://www.podcasting-station.com/showrss.php?category=Educational%20Podcasts
http://www.podcastalley.com/podcast_genres.php?pod_genre_id=7
http://www.podcastingnews.com/forum/link_6.htm
http://www.epnweb.org/

Education Podcasts:
http://blog.podcasting.oln.org/
http://digg.com/podcasts/view/education
http://www.podcastforteachers.org/
http://www.educational-feeds.com/
http://www.digitalpodcast.com/browse-educational-20-1.html
http://www.idiotvox.com/Podcasts_About_Education_19.html
http://ask.metafilter.com/31426/Educational-podcasts
http://www.apple.com/education/products/ipod/podcasting.html
http://www.podcastingnews.com/forum/link_6.htm
http://www.epnweb.org/

Friday, July 13, 2007

HTML

The Nvu program we were using yesterday was a simplified way of creating a webpage. It made it so much easier to do a layout then using traditional html. Since html wasn't really involved in making our websites, I thought that these websites might be interesting to check out. You can use html to design your own blog format, make your blogs fancier, and create your own websites. These are websites that will give you a basic idea of how to use html and what it looks like. It is not hard once you get the hang of it.

blog html
basic html intro
basic structure tags
basic html commands

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Useful WebQuest Links

This WebQuest assignment was a little difficult to get started. While I was looking around on the web, I found some useful sites that others might be interested in. There were some good WebQuests that you can use in your classroom, and suggestions on how to make them.
Links:
WebQuest.Org
This site was good for learning how to make them and it also had a good search engine.

Science WebQuests
Math WebQuests
History WebQuests
English WebQuests



Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Creating WebQuests

Creating WebQuests is a new process for me. I just wanted to share a website I found today that may help you write your own.
Design Process

This rubric might also be helpful for evaluating the webquest that you create.
Instructor's Rubric

Good Luck!