Friday, March 13, 2009
ezclasssites.com
I decided to extend my mindtool search outside of the books recommended sites and found this great site called ezclasssites.com. It's definitely a web 2.0 tool and a mindtool (if you choose to use it that way). It has many features inside it that I was looking for to use with my class. Overall, it's place to create a class webpage. Inside it, you can provide a place for your students, with individual accounts, to have a discussion board, blog etc. Teachers have webmaster and overview priviledges and nobody can see it that's not invited. I'm excited to play around with it more and will share more of my findings as I go along.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Spreadsheet
I have never used a spreadsheet before today. I'm fairly comfortable with math and formulas so it wasn't difficult for me to figure out. I like the idea of being able to input data and then setting up the spreadsheet to manipulate it. I could see students using it to track data on projects. I'm also interested in being able to graph information so this could be a great find.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Flickr
The other day I uploaded images to my personal account. Now, I've taken the next step to upload my poverty images into the group page.
Snow day discovery
Today was a very rare thing in NYC - a snow day. I decided to stay in and check out some of the websites and programs that were mentioned in this weeks readings.
I first checked all the wikipedias. Overall the concept of wikipedia makes me uneasy since anyone can write anything that they want whether accurate or not. That being said, I found that they had interesting material.
Wikibooks had books on some interesting topics. I read a one on classroom management and notetaking. There are definitely interesting ideas there.
Next I looked at wikitravel. This one I could see referring back to in my personal life. The one problem that I found was that it had so many links that I ended up so far off from where I started. If I had no goal, this would be fine. But, I was looking to specifically find information about Hawaiian travel. Eventually I made it back there but it took a long time since there were many interesting things to read. Basically, the reader needs to keep very focused when reading this site.
World 66 was alright. I found that it had less information that wikitravel and it felt like it was trying to sell me something the entire time.
Wikijunior made me the most nervous out of all of them. These books are written for children who, for the most part, believe everything they read. I tried to open a page for editing hoping that it would ask me to sign up, screen me, or something. It did none of this. It just allowed me to begin editing. I could have written anything and some child somewhere could have read it. This is not a site that I would recommend for my 9 and 10 year old students.
I then looked at wikisource. This seems less like a wikipage than a website. It seems like there is limited revision allowed. I like the idea of that when it is supposed to be a copy of actual text.
Bob Sprankle's work was very interesting. I'd love to do some blogging work with my students. Maybe pair them up with an old student of mine that's in high school so they have someone that is reading it often. The one thing that may not allow me to do this is the amount of children in a typical NYC class. I typically have 28-32 children in my class. And it's only me. The computer work, in my mind, would be better if it was a smaller class with at least 2 adults. It looks like Bob has 13 children which seems like a more manageable number for this type of work. His children did produce beautiful work though.
Global Schoolnet Foundation was out of order. I'll have to check back with that one another time.
Next I looked at Tapped In. I love that it tracks you. This makes me feel that people that don't want to be tracked will stay away. This makes it feel safer to me for my students, as well as for me.
I first checked all the wikipedias. Overall the concept of wikipedia makes me uneasy since anyone can write anything that they want whether accurate or not. That being said, I found that they had interesting material.
Wikibooks had books on some interesting topics. I read a one on classroom management and notetaking. There are definitely interesting ideas there.
Next I looked at wikitravel. This one I could see referring back to in my personal life. The one problem that I found was that it had so many links that I ended up so far off from where I started. If I had no goal, this would be fine. But, I was looking to specifically find information about Hawaiian travel. Eventually I made it back there but it took a long time since there were many interesting things to read. Basically, the reader needs to keep very focused when reading this site.
World 66 was alright. I found that it had less information that wikitravel and it felt like it was trying to sell me something the entire time.
Wikijunior made me the most nervous out of all of them. These books are written for children who, for the most part, believe everything they read. I tried to open a page for editing hoping that it would ask me to sign up, screen me, or something. It did none of this. It just allowed me to begin editing. I could have written anything and some child somewhere could have read it. This is not a site that I would recommend for my 9 and 10 year old students.
I then looked at wikisource. This seems less like a wikipage than a website. It seems like there is limited revision allowed. I like the idea of that when it is supposed to be a copy of actual text.
Bob Sprankle's work was very interesting. I'd love to do some blogging work with my students. Maybe pair them up with an old student of mine that's in high school so they have someone that is reading it often. The one thing that may not allow me to do this is the amount of children in a typical NYC class. I typically have 28-32 children in my class. And it's only me. The computer work, in my mind, would be better if it was a smaller class with at least 2 adults. It looks like Bob has 13 children which seems like a more manageable number for this type of work. His children did produce beautiful work though.
Global Schoolnet Foundation was out of order. I'll have to check back with that one another time.
Next I looked at Tapped In. I love that it tracks you. This makes me feel that people that don't want to be tracked will stay away. This makes it feel safer to me for my students, as well as for me.
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