Tips from your TIS

If you’d like an online space to store, organize, and access all your favorite web sites or if you have a number of bookmarks on Safari and would like to transfer them easily to a PC, check out del.icio.us.

‘del.icio.us’ keeps an online record of all the web sites you would usually ‘bookmark’ in Safari, Internet Explorer, or Firefox. Because it’s online, you can access your account from any computer, anywhere. Each time you bookmark a site, you have the option of ‘tagging’ that bookmark with a keyword. This creates an organized and cross-referenced list of all the resources you bookmark.

What makes del.icio.us unique is your ability to share your bookmarks with others, and follow what other people bookmark. Each ‘tag’ creates a unique web address to which you can direct colleagues or students easily. For an example, check out the account I created of resources for social studies teachers. To see what others are bookmarking, click on the ’saved by …’ link under each bookmark. This opens up another page where you can choose to browse what other people have tagged with similar keywords. What began with one bookmark connects you with a network of resources organized by people all over the world.

If you are interested in learning more about this tool, visit the help page or contact a TIS.

In this day in age, it seems there is a new web application every day that can take the place of a desktop application. A big benefit of most of these is that they are free. But how do you find out if there is a program you can use? How can you keep up with all the changes? Simple Spark just might be your solution. Simple Spark has cataloged all WEB 2.0 type services that exist and brings them to you through a simple search. They have daily updates of the latest programs out there as well. You can search by key words or use their predefined catagories. The site provides a brief description of each app along with a rating. So, next time you need a quick photo editor or want to find a place that pulls in all the biggest news headlines of the day, start at Simple Spark and simplifly your search!

In July of 2007, Jane Hart, head of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technology, asked experts about their top 10 productivity and teaching tools. You can look at the 2007 list as well as contribute to the 2008 Tool List at the following web site.

http://c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/top100.html

Groupwork. It can be a powerful learning experience for students, but a headache for teachers to manage. So much so that I was often tempted to avoid assigning group projects rather than develop new ways to keep students interested and individually accountable. Yet, many companies depend upon results from teams of people working in distant places, and even more so as the world becomes smaller, technologically speaking. Teaching these life skills may be almost as important as teaching our content.

Wikis are a large part of this new global collaboration trend. Many of us may know of Wikipedia, but this extraordinary example is only one of many wikis online. In fact, many teachers are now using wikis as tools for group work in their classes. Lee LeFever and the Common Craft Show provide a good introduction to this Web 2.0 tool. As you watch this short 4 minute film, be thinking about how this tool could be used to redefine groupwork in your classroom.

With a wiki, students can add and modify content to pages you set create. They can have discussions, ask you questions, and post new resources. And, an added managerial bonus, every change a student makes is recorded, easily viewable from their profile or the history of a given page.

Group results, individual accountability.

Two popular hosting agencies for wikis are WetPaint and Wikispaces. Each are now offering ad-free versions of their commercial wikis, with settings that keep your students’ identities and work secure. WetPaint hosts its own education support page and Wikispaces is offering its premium services to K-12 educators free of charge. Visit these sites or contact your technology integration specialist for more information about using wikis in your classroom!

If you would like to view examples of wikis created in each of these wiki providers, I recently created this wiki with a group of elementary teachers in wikispaces, and WetPaint is highlighting this teacher’s work with 9th graders.

Ever try to explain something over the phone? It just doesn’t compare to actually showing someone what they should do — it isn’t as effective as being there.

When I would introduce students to a task I wanted them to complete with the computer, I sometimes felt stuck with a similar dilemma. If I explained it to them in the computer lab, many would be off task, distracted by the computer. Yet, if I explained it to them in my classroom, often I was required to use a chalk board and then some would inevitably forget what they should do. What if there was a way for me to record my audible directions, visually demonstrate the required steps, and provide those directions at the click of a button?

Jing makes this possible.

The Jing Project has created a tool that allows you to take pictures of anything that is displayed on your screen. It can also take video, capturing sound from a microphone (often embedded into your machine if you are using a laptop). What sets Jing apart from other screen capture tools is that it can …

1. Store the image or video on a remote server space, and
2. Create a link to that image or video that you can easily include on your web page or in an e-mail.

This means that you don’t have to worry about e-mailing large videos to people and that the videos you create are easily shared with others.

In the scenario above, if I was going to have students complete a number of activities on one or two websites, using Jing I could record myself navigating to those activities and dictating directions. I could put a link on my web page and direct the students there for directions. Their first task when they get to their computers would be to listen to my directions, as I take attendance.

Jing can be used to share anything you can see on your desktop. Here’s a link to their online tour.

ePals is now offering SchoolMail, Schoolblog, and In2Books free for schools. These services were formerly available only via a subscription. Further information can be found in the article below from THE Journal.

http://www.thejournal.com/articles/21246

Surveys. It seems we’re getting a lot lately, and the process can be tedious at times. However, the feedback can be valuable, especially if we ask well-crafted questions and receive honest answers. Surveys can also give us the feeling that we have people interested in what we are doing, a verifiable audience whose opinions can impact the way we perform in the future.

Fo.reca.st is a free survey-creation site with customizable features that give your survey a unique look. You can make a multiple choice, multiple question survey with no limit on responses, ideal for surveying multiple classes or opening up your survey to the whole school. The results are displayed in a bar graph accessible from your account.

Fo.reca.st could be a tool for informal assessments on content mastery or students’ prior knowledge of a subject. But students don’t have to test only their own knowledge with these surveys — they could also evaluate the work of their peers. Paired with other Web 2.0 technologies, e.g. slideshows from Slideshare, fo.reca.st surveys could be used to evaluate digital projects.

With Web 2.0 technologies, students can produce work for the world to view, and the world can give some feedback.

Here is a sample fo.reca.st survey

Students create presentations all the time, sometimes well, sometimes very badly. We often attempt to set the bar high through modeling our own work or displaying exemplary projects other students have completed. But what happens after your students leave your classroom? Too many students often forget. Slideshare, paired with your blog or website, can reconnect students to a solid visual standard anytime they access your online resource.

Slideshare is a web-based application which allows you to upload presentations to the web and then display them to as many or as few people as you would like. If you would like to keep your audience small, you can e-mail individuals a secret web address where they can view your show. Or, if you’d like to broaden your audience, you can paste your show into your website or display it to the members of the Slideshare community. Students can review your presentation anywhere they can access the internet.

Used in your classroom, Slideshare may actually increase your students’ engagement by giving them an authentic audience. After certain Internet safety measures are taken, posting student work on the web can encourage students to produce works they can take pride in, and it enhances the perception that correct citation is an issue of honesty, not simply a requirement of the rubric.

Here’s an example of one publicly available presentation from Slideshare, embedded into this blog:

Here’s an interesting way to communicate concepts to students even after they’ve left your classroom.

Sketchcast.com is a site devoted to the creation and sharing of sketches, with or without audio. A great feature of this site is that each sketch you create is given an embed code, so you can attach it to your blog, wiki, or website. Share sample problems with students, record concept-mapping instructions, illustrate a lecture, and more.

Teachers with interactive tablets or SMART Boards will find this technology most accessible, but a successful sketch can be created with only a mouse. For the example below, I used my touchpad to demonstrate simple division.

WEB 2.0 is all about sharing, collaborating, and receiving feedback. A great resource out there for you to check out is VoiceThread. Voice thread is a site where you can upload pictures, movies, pdf’s, and presentations, and add your own verbal and written comments to them, for the public, or a select few to see. The fun, and power of this site, is that others viewing your upload can listen to your comments and add their own. So what does this have to do with the classroom? Rich story telling with real pictures and the author’s voice. Group collaboration and sharing. Student/teacher conferencing over presentations or individual documents. The nice thing is that the Pro version, usually $30 a year, is free for educators and gives you unlimited use of the site. As for security, you can select to moderate any posting you make and your uploads can be kept private to just your group of friends, in this case, your classroom. Take a minute to check it out and feel out the potential in your classroom when everyone has a voice. Here is my posting Feel free to add your comments to it.

Here is a posting by a student. It is a report on black bears. What a great way to incorporate media into everyday projects!