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