Alphabetti Spaghetti

This week we learn about www.go2web20.com , a website that I am not so quietly infatuated with. This website catalogues all of the Web 2.0 websites. Unfortunately we did not have a chance to scroll through some of these sites in this lesson and were instead given three sites to look at.
First we looked at Fotoll where people create online polls using photos. This website seemed too basic and un-educational. Secondly we looked at a site called Kerpoof where students can create avatars and chat. I couldn’t not find a single educational use for this website and was disappointed by its interface. Thirdly we looked at a site called Pikikids that allowed students to create comics by adding speech bubbles to sequenced photographs.
I was disappointed by the choice of websites used in this presentation. I have found many great highly educational sites that use Web 2.0 technology. The best site i have located thus far is  www.myhappyplanet.com that offers a very interesting way to learn new languages and teach your own language!

The online application Google Earth serves as a virtual 3D simulation whereby the user can navigate around the surface of the earth and zoom in from the entire continent down to the street level. I had used this program a lot when it was first release and didn’t feel like there was a lot I could learn from this presentation. Alas, I was wrong.
There is obvious application for this software for geography, science and society and environment applications. Place and space and other math outcomes can easily be incorporated into the software use as well. There is now the option of viewing streets from the street level, looking at individual houses and front yards. As well as looking at full 3D models of rendered buildings in cities. Trips can be planned by finding the most direct route from one place to another. Students could star gaze with a map of the universe with interesting information and facts associated with different sections.
This is a truly interesting and potentially educational software. With proper instruction and educational tasks built around the software my students could be learning in no time!

This week the presentation dealt with websites that can ensure safe browsing and searching for our students. We looked at both Zoeybot and KidZui as safe ways to browse the internet. I found both to be novel but ineffective.
Safety for students when browsing the internet is an important thing in this day and age. The internet carries a lot of inappropriate material that should not trickle into our classroom. But firewalls and websites such as these are never completely effective. I recommend software such as NetNanny to more safely access the internet.
I look forwards to a time when I can let my year threes browse freely with the knowledge that they cannot be harmed by the ‘nasties’ of the world wide web.

This week’s lesson was about clickers and the magnificent way that teachers can harness this technology to improve classroom interaction with testing. Clickers are a keypad that allows students to respond to multiple choice questions with a simple pressing of a button.
I think that the two boys presented this information in a very interesting and fun way. But I cannot see myself ever using this technology in the classroom. It seems that a pen and pad are too complicated for a classroom and must be replaced by an automated electronic button pressing system. I can see many uses for this system in a high school environment but feel that it is unnecessary in the primary classroom.
A great presentation but the subject matter just didn’t grab me!

The photo sharing websites that we encountered in class today were Flickr (a personal favourite of mine) and Photobucket. I use these websites to access free high quality desktop background images so that I may keep the desktop of my laptop. I am aware that there are a lot of users that frequent these sites so that they may continue to be part of the community that they are associated because of personal interests associate with photography. But how can these sites be used to educate my students?

Today’s lesson was about MP3 players and I was glad to see this incorporate more than just the mass marketed iPods that people s often speak of. I own an iPod and feel that (unlike most people) I take full advantage of all of the technologies that it incorporates. I listen to music, I play games, I store photos, I upload podasts and I convert my favourite movies and series into a compatible MP4 format so that I can watch them in a handheld format whenever I choose to do so. I would think that I could not be surprised by new innovations on handheld media devices. Yet I have never given thought to the educational uses of this handy dandy tool.

Unfortunately I was absent for this lesson and needed to read the Wiki and others blogs to get an insight on what was presented. I now know that portable media devices can be used to harnessed educational podcasts and for use in topic studies in the form of video, audio and graphic files. It seems that the ability of portable learning is the real strength in portable media device in an educational context. Apparently the cost of this learning as a school implemented process is too high and therefore cannot be easily incorporated into learning.

This week I got to play with garage band software on the Mac section of our computer lab computers and I may have forgotten for this time that I should have been listening to our speakers who were teaching us all about podcasts. For this I apologise, sorry guys!

Podcasts are already a very popular means of distributing audio or video media over the internet. This media can be viewed on a computer or on a portable media player. The presenters introduced us to the software GarageBand that can create podcasts. This was great to know as I had previously thought that it was done by some other means. It was also great to view some of the many websites that store and catalogue podcasts and see if there were any that interested me.

I enjoyed hearing the presenters comment on the tedious link between iPod and Podcasts. Many people think that they exist only together and are blind to the fact that the two operate and exist completely independent of one another. From a joint beginning both have progressed significantly and could be harnessed by students today.

I am a frequent user of Podcasts for recreational purposes and can only think of limited ways that I could use made podcasts them for educational purposes. But I can imagine students creating their own Podcasts and reaching MANY worthwhile outcomes by doing so.

How does “Mr.Purcell’s quarter-hour of power” sound?

Until I have my own class it is only a dream but thanks to this presentation it’s an achievable dream!

This week I was reintroduced to SMARTboards. This form of educational technology is all the rage with student teachers and many often fantasize about their classroom of the future decked out with this fine piece of technology. I have come into contact with this technology and find it amazingly simple to use and very effective for student engagement and learning.

This week I was introduced (for the first time ever) to Google Docs. This ne BETA site has many of its own glitches but still managed to enthral me with the new possibilities I was confronted with. Imagine a website that you and multiple others could edit a single document without the hassle of file double ups and saving over others work. Well Google Docs does just that!

No, this week’s presentation was not on MyFace.com and no there is not actually a website called this (not to my knowledge) but today we did discuss and learn about a wave of social networking websites that are taking young people (and not so young people) by storm.

I have a facebook and I had a myspace that I grew out of when I feel it was overrun by 12 year olds requesting to be my friend because they live in the same city. At the start of this presentation I found myself at a loss for any educational reason a person would use or could harness from these websites. In this presentation we were told that students could use these websites to create character profiles for fictional characters we were studying in class. I find this idea quite novel and think that students would very much enjoy using this technology with creative writing. Although on reading the user sign up agreements i have found that these accounts would breach both sites code of conduct by misrepresenting the actual person using the site. The offences punishment is instant deletion of the account, making me think that a student would not appreciate their hard work being squandered on what is essentially a meaningless task.