Thing 23 Death of Education, Dawn of Learning

Wow, I feel like this is not the end, but the beginning. I liked the video's ideas, especially that the "coin of the realm is do you know how to find information,validate it, synthesize it, collaborate with it, leverage it, communicate it and problem solve with it."
The problem I see is that our student's are motivated to use facebook and myspace, but not spend the time on the internet to find other information. So how do I combine college applications, career explorations and scholarship searches with facebook and myspace?
There has got to be a way....
More to come......
And thanks, this has been awesome!
Joyce

Thing 22 Videos and YOU Tube

I like You Tube. I watch one TED per day. We have teachers who use YouTube in the classroom - there are some classic shorts on 'not proof reading' your papers, etc. Our district lets us view YouTube at school and a few of our students have posted videos they have done for class projects on the internet through YouTube. This is my favorite, a 2009 graduate who starts at GVSU this fall. (Also needs more financial aid so I am always plugging his cause).
Carlos Soccer Tricks

Thing 21 Twitter

I have been "twittering" over a year, and am about to drop it. Our district has tried to make it a 'connecting' and 'educational' tool for the staff, but we haven't used it well. I am tired of receiving tweets on 'lazy day in the sun', 'good day to clean the kitchen' etc. I like tweets from Woot, DoOneGood, some travel sites, my kids and a few others. But unless you have unlimited texting, you have to go to the internet and turn off most of the people you are following. Sorry, tweeting is too sweet to too many people who want to share too little too often.

I would rather use facebook and follow our students and some staff, commenting and encouraging that way.

Thing 20 Delicious

This was easy! I clicked on the button import my bookmarks from Firefox and voila! it was done. No saving to a folder etc.
Wow!!!
My username is JCawthon but I have to tag my bookmarks first:)

Thing 19 Social Bookmarking

Tagging - You're it!
This is great, so often i am at school and what to access my bookmarks at home or vice vs. I have 'tagged' photos on facebook and Picasa so it seems strange to tag bookmarks. But I am eager for Thing 20 to try it out. I already added the button to Firefox, but haven't begun bookmarking - I'll wait for Thing 20:)
The concept is great, I just don't know if I will want others accessing my bookmarks. Stocks I am interested in, real estate I am checking out, some of my bookmarks reflect personal things I don't want other people to know about. Like if I was investigating a new illness and wanted to bookmark all the research sites; maybe that should remain confidential.
I am a little hesitant to start tagging, after reading the 'thirteen tips' article. What if my brain doesn't sync with others? What if what I see in a site is way off base or not even what I might notice the second time I visit the same site? When the article suggested changing the food tag to cooking - wheww! That's me, running ahead with an idea and then backtracking to correct it.
Oh the trauma sometimes of venturing into the new.....

Thing 18 Building Your PLN

So I checked out Ning, joined MACUL Space, created my page, and connected with 3 people I know. BUT now I want to attend the Macul conference in October!
I can see where it would possibly be more relevant if I created a PLN of my own and geared it to Lee High, but.... I am reluctant to start one and then have another site to update and respond to.
But i would rather have a PLN that I track then keep getting all of these twitter's from my superintendent; they are good but my phone is limited in texting and I have to follow his url's on line anyway:)

With only 26 teacher's in the whole high school, sometimes meeting in the lunch room gets more done and no one is worried about discussions being misinterpreted as can happen on-line.

I also don't want to alienate those teachers who still don't want to use technology; whether in or out of the classroom.

Thing 17 More Web 2.0 Winners

How I loved the winners! And I already used Craigslist, Google Maps, Google Earth, Twitter, Pandora (love Pandora), Technorati, DonorChoose, Picasa, LinkedIn, Etsy, Facebook, Digg, iGoogle, Kayak and YouTube. In fact we have an excel spreadsheet just to keep track of the websites, logins and passwords.
So I tried Bing - just OK and Colorblender - but Colorblender brought up an AVG Alert that said a Treat was detected and that colorblender was an "Exploit Link to known Exploit Site". ??? So I didn't try it any further.
I also tried urbanspoon. Now I really will gain weight!!

To use at school? We use Picasa to share pictures with the district newsletter, other teachers, yearbook staff and all students/families. We get curriculum content from YouTube and money from DonorChoose. I could use Google Earth for more information on colleges and their surroundings and Facebook, as universities now are on facebook.


I tried the Travel IQ game - I am very bad:(

Thing 16 Teach Digital

Ha :) Should have know Ron would feed us TED:)
I had heard Sir Ken before, and figured out that my future grand kids would graduate in 2032 from High School (that's if I am blessed enough to have one of my 3 sons have a child in the next 3-4 years).
But how do we help children find their talent? With the state pushing testing and results, we lost wood shop and drama and added 4 years of predefined math and English. The last video clip where the children said "you want to teach it the same way you learned it" really struck home. I learned English by diagramming and have heard myself say that that's what's missing in today's classes. I see our math teachers teaching the same way I was taught 45 years ago. Ways have to change. BUT and a little but.... our students make great videos and put them out on You Tube but... I try to help them write their senior papers and they don't know punctuation, spelling or verb tenses. What is the balance? We have mostly bi-lingual students so their early years of education are in another language and not in Michigan. How can we help them here?
My biggest learning take-away? That our only hope is our children and we must help them find their future- not take it away from them. As the guidance counselor, that scares and yet excites me. Time, more time....

Thing 15 Podcasts in School

I think I jumped ahead, I already used a podcast in lesson 14 and put it in my school web page. I thought about recording my own podcast about how to fill out college applications, but I really dislike the sound of my own voice:)
I liked learning about pod catchers like "the juice" and was going to install it on my home computer except I already use itunes.
I have to check with Kelly in the Media Center to see how available and 'student' acceptable is using earphones in the Media Center. Otherwise I can post podcasts but the students won't listen.

Thing 14 Podcasts

This took longer than I thought; simply because I kept getting interrupted with the GH Coast Guard Festival:) Andy and I direct the Kids Parade which started the Festival July 26th.
The podcast are great, I even have an ipod. I just am not tuned in to listening to anything except 'live'. Really, I can go on a five hour car drive and am very happy with my thoughts or just talking to the others in the car. Around the house it's the wind, waves and birds, skiing it's the sound of nature, etc. Even when cleaning the house I would rather think than listen to a podcast. Oh well.
So I found the "Financial Aid Podcast" and linked it to our high school's guidance page.

Financial Aid Podcast

I checked out other podcasts:
TED
Which is fed to my iGoogle home page.
"TED: Ideas worth spreading. TED is devoted to giving millions of knowledge-seekers around the globe direct access to the world's greatest thinkers and teachers. " Check them out at TED.com

Thing 13 Empressr

This is an update- I had to delete my first 13 Empressr because it took forever!!! to load and almost froze our computer. I had loaded 4 videos of white water rafting:)
So this is the orginal posting from July 22:

Sorry, empressr was not impressive for this first try. I was all excited to upload and share my white water rafting videos, but it took 6 hours of frustration to get 5 short videos done. I think these programs are really geared to slides, not videos (maybe my stuff used too much 'space').
But I liked it for the ease of showing, and my husband was all excited by the sites for work.
My reflection: This stuff will make life easier and more fun. I love not having to use thumb drives or look at the family calendar that is only in the kitchen. Now no matter where I am, I have access to what I want to know or do.
This is way way cool and fun.

Thing 12 30 Boxes

I love exploring the web! But it really drains the time. Hopefully 30 boxes will lower my stress level. I added ALL of my family and friends birthdays' to the calendar and it posts to my Google homepage. So now I won't forget anyone. This is fun!!
I also looked at Remember the Milk! but I just have a jive old phone without a whole lot of texting, so that wasn't for me.
I went back to 30 boxes and added Dr. appointments, dinners, etc. Really love that it shows up every time I open my browser!!!!

Thing 11 Google Docs

Hooray, something I had been using but didn't really understand! Short history: our family has given up giving Christmas presents - and now gives the gift of our 'stories' to each other for Christmas. So Christmas morning may take 5 hours while we listen to each others stories. The first year everyone had to write their autobiography - the short version. Year two was a significant experience, year three all about siblings, etc. My sons have been sending me their stories via Google docs! when I went to my settings and clicked on Docs - there were all the stories!

Also there were the excel spreadsheets I had generated with my youngest son concerning food and expenses with their wedding reception.

Way cool!!

Didn't even know I was doing it!

Thing 10 Family Vacation Wiki

Things just have to be usefully in my life, so I created a wiki about where our extended family should vacation next year. I created the first entry, set it up as a data spreadsheet so we can scan down the page and see what everyone is interested in, and emailed it off. I chose the more private wiki that I have to 'invite' others to view and add to.

This was harder than I thought. I created the first entry, and then went back and couldn't find it. (ha) Then I had to hand enter the email addresses because I did this at school and my personal address book is not on the Internet or this computer.

I could use this in many ways at school; asking for input on what should be included in Open Houses, Scholarship Nights, Orientations to each grade at the beginning of school, etc. I think at least 4 other teachers would be able to add, but most of our teachers would not know what to do with a wiki.

Maybe another staff meeting presentation??????

Thing 9 Wiki Wiki

So i had a hard time sitting and reading all the wiki info - i kept linking to another page and better examples. After I got through the historical stuff IE wikipedia is the biggest and started in 2001, I thought a lot about my 'control' problem and how that really can't operate in wikiville. I then started reading Meredith Farkas. She IS great (and you had her indirectly linked at least 4 times). Her article on ALA Wiki had excellent tips (need structure, post so no one else feels they have to be 'first', and have a very specific purpose). I checked out the Ann Arbor Wiki 'Arborwiki' which was a lot like 'rocwiki'. I noticed some wiki's I tried to check out were gone!! "The Teacher's Lounge".
Then I got to the WikiMatrix.org and answered the questions and it came up with a list of 20 wiki's that matched my criteria:
Okay. You want a hosted offer with a page history using your own domain and which allows your own corporate branding.
The following 20 Wikis match your criteria:
BrainKeeper, BusinessWiki, CentralDesktop, ClearWiki, Confluence, EditMe, Intodit, Metadot Wiki, MindTouch, Netcipia, PBwiki, SamePage, SeedWiki, Socialtext, Wagn, (f) Wetpaint, (f) Wikia, Wikidot, Wikispaces (f) and Zoho Wiki (f)

Based on the results - I liked the features of Wetpaint!! Can't wait for Thing 10!!!!

Thing 8 Feeds and the news:)

So I had a good discussion with my son the web site programmer about the difference between Google Reader and my iGoogle homepage. I did add the google gadget that puts google reader on my iGoogle homepage. So now I have the best of both worlds:)
But ........ I am a very visual person, so I like the spread out format of my homepage vs the scrolling of the google reader. But what to do when I have more feeds then will show comfortably on my homepage? Well then, maybe I am trying to get too much of life from the internet and I need to "step away from the computer" and experience life in the here and now (sorry twitterers).

As I said in my last blog, I already have a bunch of feeds to my homepage, and I added a few more.
:) good night to 'see' a sunset!!!

Thing 7 RSS and news feeds

Well it took me a while to figure the Reader out, but then in adding to my subscriptions I found that the reader is just about the same as my iGoogle homepage - because I use the same RSS feeds to 'populate' my homepage. So I don't know that I will use the reader as all the new items already show up on my homepage. BBC news, our superintendent's blog, Jon Stewart's (Ok OK) local weather, Hulu blog, my horoscope, Twitter gadget, Google Technology, Gmail, the Onion, etc.

Is there some advantage to using the Reader instead of having everything feed to my homepage?

But I appreciated the simplicity of the plain English video:) Thanks!

Thing 6 Code of Best Practices in Fair Use (Media Literacy)

Wow - OK this lesson was really worthwhile! I wanted to discuss it with others, so am blogging the samples from the last article so I can have my friends tonight read it:) (OK - so I don't google doc yet). Because I am not in a classroom, I haven't dealt much with copyright, but since I just used Simpson in my last Blog, I was glad to take in this lesson. I wondered if maybe an English teacher (Coil) and I could collaborate and make a quick presentation at one of our staff meetings this coming year. Especially sharing some of the last lesson's sites. Thanks for this lesson!!!
• Criticism & Commentary
A book publisher used several stills from the famous 1963 Zapruder footage of President Kennedy's assassination for the historical book Six Seconds in Dallas. Time Inc., the owner of the footage, sued the book publisher for copyright infringement. In Time Inc. v. Bernard Geis Associates, the court ruled that the publisher's use of the stills was "fair and reasonable," in part because the use was based on a factual and historical news event.3
• Parody
An episode of the TV cartoon "Family Guy" made fun of comedian Carol Burnett's image and signature characters from her 1960's comedy variety show. In Carol Burnett v. Twentieth Century Fox, the court ruled that the show's use was fair, in part because the "Family Guy" episode was designed to parody Burnett as a public figure, using a relatively small percentage of copyrighted material, and would not substitute for the original in any market.4
• News reporting
The Washington Post newspaper used three brief quotations from Church of Scientology texts that were posted on the Internet. In Religious Technology Center v. Pagliarina, the court found the use to be fair, in part because the newspaper excerpted only a small portion of the work and the purpose was for news commentary.5
• Art
American artist Jeff Koons used a portion of a designer photo advertisement (a model's legs in Gucci sandals) amongst a collection of iconic images in his painting, "Niagara." In Blanch v. Koons, the court held that the painting's use of the copyrighted images was a transformative fair use, in part because it commented on fashion and consumer culture.6
• Scholarship and Research
A biographer of author Richard Wright quoted from six of Wright's unpublished letters and ten unpublished journal entries. In Wright v. Warner Books, Inc., the court found that the biographer's use was fair, in part because the biographer's purpose was to educate and inform the public, and his use constituted less than 1% of Wright's unpublished letters. 7
A researcher at a nonprofit foundation used quotations from an unpublished, historical literary work in her academic presentation. In Sundeman v. The Seajay Society, the court ruled that the researcher's use was fair and noted that the work was transformative and was used solely for the purpose of scholarly analysis. 8
• Time-shifting
A major electronics manufacturer developed a video tape recording device that allowed the consumer to "time-shift"—record a complete TV program in real-time and hold the show for a later viewing. Several major film studios filed a copyright infringement suit against the electronics manufacturer claiming the device could be used for copyright infringement. In 1984's Sony v. Universal Studios (aka the Betamax case), the Supreme Court held that time-shifting with a VCR qualified as fair use. The courts noted that the private, non-commercial home taping of free television programs for later viewing was not infringing and did not hurt the market value of the copyrighted material.9
• Search Engines
A Google search engine turned the photos on a subscription-only website into thumbnail images for its search results. In Perfect 10 v. Amazon.com et al, the court ruled that Google's use of thumbnail photos was "highly transformative," since the search engine changed the image's original purpose of entertainment and aesthetics into providing Google's users with links to images.10

Thing 5 Continued

My creation
Originally uploaded by JoyceCawthon

I loved making the posters etc. at Big Huge Labs. So this poster will say "What's missing? Are YOU on track to graduate!!!!!"

Thing 5 Mashups

So I established flickr, and went to the create your own cartoons and did 4 of them for school next year. But when I tried to upload them to flickr - the carton host linked to say that he ran out of money to provide server space, so I couldn't upload my cartoons:) But I did right click and save the images on my hard drive at home. Since I am in the Guidance Office, I made my cartoons reflect timing of schedule changes, college applications and credit recovery.
I really believe the students will read my notices this way! Way cool!!

Thing 4

St C sailboat
Originally uploaded by JoyceCawthon

So I created a flickr account and am posting a picture. Tagged, etc. But this is getting confusing; I now have a hotmail account for my facebook, a yahoo account for flicker and a gmail account for Picsas. And we really use charter at home and godfrey-lee at school: OMG!!

Thing 4 - Photos and Videos

I am not too sure I want to create Flickr when i have two Picasa webablums already. So I am hoping Ron will approve my Picasa experience instead. I use Picasa because our students and staff can download high def pictures without paying anything additional. My experince with the others is that you can download a "poor" quality resolution, but must pay ($.25) to get a better quality photo. I have two albums, one personal and one for Lee High School: http://picasaweb.google.com/JoyceVCawthon

This is a picture from my personal album of what I did this week - whitewater rafting the New river in West Virginia. it was a bit extreme for me - i have done 'float' trips before - but not level 4 and 5 rapids. But hey - we are all about new experiences and learning more about life:) I learned I had a louder scream than my husband thought ;)

If this video works, I am in the white mid sleeve shirt, just to the right of our guide (who sits in the back and steers and yells at us!!) Notice we are all wearing helmets? My friend Chris sitting across from me flipped off the raft and surfaced under the raft!!!! Not fun!

Thing 3 - 7 1/2

So watching 7 1/2, hmmmmmmm, since my principal/superintendent started us working on #1 last year - teach with the end in mind - decide the essential question first! - I guess really MY easiest is a combination of #2, #7 and #71/2. Way back I realized I loved teaching/sharing fun things; like geocaching, blogging, texting, listing on ebay or craig's list, photosharing (picasa), etc. Just last night I walked 2 50 something adults through the process of sending their cell phone pictures to their home emails. And I had them laughing (and holding their own cells) while they learned. There is so much out there to learn!! And it is fun. The hardest thing for me is #3 - specifically the problem of balancing technology time with face to face people time. I think we all can spend way too much time in front of the computer and not enough time walking with friends, sitting on the sofa and holding hands and talking, or just dropping by to give someone a hug. Students I connect with by facebook or email response - but when I drop by their house in the summer - Wow - they light up. So I get frustrated between choices of things to put my time into.

23 Things- The First Thing

So this is the start, just trying to understand my kids when they are talking amongst themselves, never really hope to be a 'techie' :)
Had a older blog that I stopped posting to, was concentrating on my facebook account. So back to blogging!