Summarizing the day, er, um, Course

I'm sorry I did not take this journey over the course of the weeks with most of you. I only hope that Nancy will be gracious enough to even accept my last-minute submissions and give me credit for the PD, but even if she doesn't (and she has every right not to) I have found some great resources to boost my efforts to create a digital paperless classroom. By far and away the greatest resource I found in this course was the rolley-thingy (sorry, I've been at this 11 hours straight, now) that lets me search a specific list of websites. That will make my life so much easier. I have found that it is far easier to collect resources than to utilize them, but this is a tool that will make that infinitely easier. There were several other good sites, apps and tools as well. I can't wait to get back to the book site (I swear I'm brain dead, I cannot remember a name to save my life) and see what else is there. I also look forward to seeing if the RSS keeps me abreast of all those websites I plugged into it. You can all check out my Wiki page at wiki.rockwallisd.org/groups/davidthomas and see what I manage to plug into it from this course.

Thing #23

Credits

Learning 2.0 is a discovery learning program created by Helene Blowers. Content and style for Learning 2.0 Through Play, LearningThroughPlay and Learning2Play has been borrowed and duplicated with permission, under a Creative Commons License.

Additional content for this program borrowed and duplicated with permission from School Library Learning 2.0 by the California School Library Association and Mary Woodard, Director of Library Services, Mesquite Independent School District, Mesquite, Texas and Barry Bishop, Director of Library Services, Spring Branch Independent School District, Houston, Texas.

All this shows this program was modified from the original, right?

I think it is easier to obey the copyright rules than to just search one website for all our ideas. If we are only using web material for individual learning and assessment, we are fine. If I, on the other hand, put something on my wiki page that is someone else's, I give credit where it is due. Now, when I start selling advertisement space on my Wiki page, then I may run into further troubles!

Thing #22

I found Ning to be similar to Flickr in that many sites with promising-sounding names just didn't deliver much content. I'm not even really a big fan of facebook except for its ubiquitousness. So Ning really doesn't have any appeal to me. I can taylor my webpage to do more than what Ning can.

Thing #21

I searched through a couple of these podcast sites, but had trouble finding anything as worthwhile as the description sounded. However, I am a big fan of several podcasts, including a number of NPR programs and Jeff Chandler's physics podcasts, which I have added to my blogline.

Thing #20

On both teacher tube and on you tube I found our own Mel Harlan! On teacher tube she was using screen capture to present powerpoint/airslate/word presentation along with her oral presentation.

On You Tube, she has a channel set up with a large number of labs and lectures recorded. I am embedding one of those labs. I hope it works. Doesn't look much like a video as I put it here.

Thing #19

The last few things were a struggle, but this was another gem of an assignment! I thought I would hate looking at books, but the easy interface and wonderful diversity of works were really fun! I found so many of my old favorite books and saw so many people who feel the same way. I was a little surprised when I changed directions from SciFi classics to a much less renown work, an old real classic and a pulp novel that I had just as much of an interested crowd! So many people feel exactly as I do about these works, I can't wait to get back into that site and see how people feel about many of my other favorites!

Thing #18

I didn't really find sandbox helpful. I have students post comments at the bottom of the page that I have set up for their class. My wiki site is incredibly useful for posting a calendar, work, answer sheets for study guides, additional work for struggling students, etc. I also use it to link to websites I want them to get to, linking other teachers' web pages that might have a better explanation of something, etc. I have embedded video, made video tutorials and reviews with imovie, posted students performing labs. It has been an altogether fine website for me. I feel I might have done the same thing with weebly or many other websites, but since the district was going with Wiki, that's the one I have used mostly.