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.

Thing #17

These 'worryists' as the Mr. Carr correctly identifies himself are way off base. Since the first article takes its cue from Mr. Carr's book I will address my rebuttal to his points. First, he makes the argument that because he and his friends can no longer focus on long novels like War and Peace that is the internet's fault. His only other real point is that technology has stifled the minds of other great thinkers like Nietzche.

To rebutt the first point is simple. I can tell you absolutely first-hand trying to get all these in before midnight that as we get older we get busier and cannot take the time to casually digest a novel in its due time. I'm sure that, like the rest of us, most of Mr. Carr's friends are of a similar age and demographic to him. So they are all getting older and busier as they experience success. Their success probably has something to do with the internet, but not their ability to focus on a long reading.

The second point is that as technology increased the great thinkers decreased. As demand for productivity soared, demand for deep thinking declined. The fallacy of this statement comes from our cultural history of aristocracy. The printing press may have led to a decline in intellectual giants dominating the scene like a Newton (though I would debate this, as I think would Albert Einstein), but it certainly led to a massive increase in collective intellectual advances that have led us to the point that the internet is viable. No collection of aristocratic geniuses, no matter how brilliant could have led us to the level of technical advancement the human race has achieved. It required the combined contributions of hundreds of thousands of educated, smart and productive minds. If they can't collectively realize that 'God is dead', then I think it is no great loss.

Thing #16

I wasn't very impressed with anything on this list. I have never been much of a fan of home pages. When I get online I usually have goal before I click to get on. The calendars are not helpful to me, which we already explored last thing. I tried backpack and really didn't find it helpful. The rest of the top ten sites we have tried in other things. Really nothing much here that was helpful

Thing #15

I have never been a big fan of flowcharts. They seem very constraining to me. I understand their uses for really right-brained people and concrete learners, so I do use them from time to time. However, I feel that life generally comes at a person too fast to break most decisions down into a flow-chart format. My own brain probably works more in flowchart format than any other, but I think that is a hinderance to my ability to function among other people (one reason I have been evaluated as 'too much of a lone ranger'). I think that a much more global approach to problem solving is more useful to people in general and to students in today's world especially. That is why I try to guide my students more toward free-thinking, open-ended problem solving where I reward them for coming up with solutions that I could not even have predicted.

Even the mind-maps are constraining in that, though they are not linear, there are predicted outcomes. Granted, most things we teach in high school (especially at the IPC level) have predictable outcomes, I think it far better for students to figure out where they should end up, than to have set outcomes for them.

thing #14

I tried to use google calendar, but it took so long to load! I really don't put anything on ical anymore because my phone holds all my important dates as I always have it on and with me. I used to have a pda that had the same function, but smart phones obsoleted it. It still has my anniversaries on it, as I haven't had time to transfer them. I no longer have a version on MS outlook to download it to or else google calendar might be very useful!

I tried google docs, since the notebook was no longer supported, but it gave me an error for every file I tried to upload. I'm not really a big fan of google to begin with, and this just reinforces that.

Thing #13

We've actually gotten a lot of practice tagging through the course of this, um, course. I've used tags in Flickr, Rollyo, Facebook, Google Reader, etc. I have not found them to be very helpful for myself. This may just be me, though, as I spend (waste, according to my wife) a lot of time organizing my computer files including my bookmarks. I have lots of folders with many subfolders that make sense to me, so tags are a little redundant. It is nice that many of the sites we have visited have buttons for delicious, magnolia and other bookmarking sites, but it seems like a job I would rather do in a more linear, organized fashion with folders.

Thing #12

Oh my goodness, where was this site all my life!?! I wish I had done just at least this one thing before I got into that UCLA course. I have been floundering trying to find resources for each topic in AP chemistry for the last five weeks. This site makes it so simple. I had all the resources, just didn't know how to search only those sites! I will be on this thing every day!

thing #11

People need feedback to keep their mind open and engaged. The beauty of and problem with blogs is that they are editorial and opinionated. Factual blogs generate no conversation and are merely postings of data. A good blog is based on fact, but includes the authors interpretation of those facts. Speaking of opinion, let me share a controversial one here that would have certainly generated some comments were it not coming in the eleventh hour. I think that one of the reasons our country's politics have become so devisive is that most people chose only to read, hear and interact with others that hold similar opinions. Any information that filters into this hermetic environment is usually skewed, incomplete and/or out of context to make that person/party/group/religion/opinion seem nonsensical. Having moved around a lot, being in a multi-racial and multi-cultural marriage (my wife's parents are both from part of India that is now Pakistan, but she was born in Uganda and grew up in London before coming here) and having had many occupations (computer data entry, day care supervisor, truck driver, army medic, car salesman, teacher, coach) I have the fantastic privelage of being in touch with the broadest array of viewpoints. I certainly dissaggree with many of them much of the time, but I find that they are seldom completely out of touch with reality (most of the time) regardless of their political/social/ethnic/religeous views. OK, I'm rambling, let me get to the assignment.

I have commented on Nancy's, Jeff's, Janie's, Margaret's and Bobo's blogs. I selected Nancy 'cause she's the boss of this thing, Jeff because I need to pick his brain to teach Physics next year, Janie and Margaret because they are also not finished yet and Bobo because I needed five. I have also made many comments to my friend Amy's blog. she is a terrific writer and has a very strange sense of reality about very common things she blogs about. I have also been commenting 4 or 5 times a day to blackboard because I am taking a UCLA class online. Many of my comments are simply encouragement when someone is feeling frustrated, some are reinforcing a blog I agree with. A few comments voice my disagreement with an opinion and (especially in my online class) I am voicing my complete lack of understanding of the topic of conversation.

Thing #10

This one was lots of fun. I've been wanting to play around with some of these sites for a while.

First one I tried had what I wanted - http://www.customsigngenerator.com/

thing #9

I tried several of these, starting with Google Blog Search and going down through Technorati (Feedster sounded too big and unfocussed, with blogs I want the opposite of what I want with book searches). I found a couple of sites that were VERY interesting right at the top of my google search, but they dropped off to useless very quickly. There were many possibilities among the results from the other searches, but they all dissappointed when I perused them. I must have scanned 2 dozen blogs before I found another one on Technorati that I thought worthy of subscribing to. I am a little confused about whether I need to use the subscribe button I dragged to my bookmark bar or will it show up on my reader if I just hit the blogger button? I will find out in time, but this class will be over by then!

I still think doing a general search with google, bing or yahoo will turn up more useful sites for me. Blogs are a little long-winded and editorial. I really need sites with downloads, apps, images, video, objects, games and/or simulations! I have more than enough opinions of my own!!!

Thing #8

Looks like a good way to keep up with some things that may have slipped by, but I'm afraid I will just never check it. If I can get it on my phone easily and quickly it might work better. I will try that later.

What I do think will be useful is if it will notify me when students comment on my wiki page. I used the comments on wiki this summer for students to notify me when they posted something on their web pages we created (StudyWiz was not set up for summer school classes, so we used Weebly) that I needed to grade. I will definitely be adding many of my colleagues' wiki sites as well to see when they post new material that I might find useful (Jeff and Mel in particular have GREAT wiki pages!). I will also be putting the generic Heath wiki page on my list to watch for changes there (I have not yet gotten to test whether I can edit that page, sorry Nancy, just soooooo busy!).

Thing #7

Does anyone think I can get through 17 more 'things' before midnight tonight? Well, they shut down blackboard so I can't work on my AP chemistry class until Sunday, so I thought I'd give it a shot. If it looks like I won't be able to do it, it'll be back to laying laminate!

I tried out Lulu. I've heard a lot about it, but frankly I found it to be a little more difficult to navigate than Amazon or Ebay. It's probably a user preference thing. It seemed to want a little more specific parameters and kept the found items list pretty small. I usually can't remember exactly what I'm looking for, how to spell it or the author or other vital information, so I really need a broad stroke kind of search to find something.

I did a search for foundation, hoping to find an ebook version of the Asimov classics I want to re-read, but it took several searches, specifying the author to even get the series up at the top of the list. I tried looking for a chemistry workbook that I want and a couple of texts that i would like to look through, but I didn't remember the exact publishers or contributors names, and so couldn't get any results. I'll just have to stick with Amazon and hunt through the umpteen million hits to find what I need!

Thing #6

Found a nice collection of mashups at http://www.programmableweb.com/tag/science

The one chemistry mashup didn't work, but there were many environmental ones that were pretty cool. One of my favorites shows potential radii of ground level nuclear blasts (I try to incorporate nuclear science at every level, because I find it is one of those hot-button issues polititians use to scare people who do not really understand it, even though we often can't quite get to it in chem or IPC).

There were several really good earth/space mashups that used google earth and mapper to show various phenomena such as eclipses and sun position relative to distance from the equator.

Thing #6: Mashups and 3rd Party sites

I'm not a big fan of these mashups. They seem to be very commercial in nature and difficult to navigate, because you have to now navigate two sites and all their commercial enterprises. I made a card, but I could not even access it immediately because I could not find it among the ads and commercial spaces.

Thing #5

Flickr is vast! It would take some real time to explore it fully. I went ahead and added a pic of my boys. It is tagged with thomas, superheros, MrT and some others. I'll let you find it.

I joined a group called creative professors. They had some pretty good content and seemed to welcome additions. I wanted to join a group started by a kid trying to get people to post pictures of them making element symbols for a periodic table project, but it said the project was due almost 2 years ago, so I figured it was not going to work out!

Hey all. I can blog from my phone!

Thing #4

Easiest one yet. Just replied to the avatar email Nancy sent and changed the subject!

Thing #3

Had much trouble with the avatar thing. No trouble setting up the blog. In fact, I think I joined the 2009 bloggers group! My problem, as usual, is trying to go too fast without reading the directions fully! Anyway, when I actually read thing 3, it had a link right to the avatar page (still don't know how Nancy got there to build the link, but I'll let that be her secret). Once there, I used my most ubiquitous fantasy football avatar (the one where I am a greek god with lightning bolts radiating from me seemed a little much in the short time we've known one another). It does represent me quite well on an average Autumn Sunday (if you figure the dragon as just my imagination doing its normal thing).

Thing #2

I was jotting notes in word as I listened and here is what I typed:

• Not a big fan of the ‘shhhh’, ‘stay seated’, be quiet’ models.
• Acting, cooking, fishing, computer
• Attitude is everything
• Never too late OR TOO SOON
• Begin with the end in mind
• You can always modify your goal
• Accept responsibility for your own learning
• Confidence in myself is no problem
• Best way to learn is to teach

I have been struggling with 'begin with the end in mind' through summer school, as I had a little trouble keeping my head above water the first week. The pacing is outrageous to try to get these kids through a semester in 11 days of school! So this weekend I made the two tests I will give this week before I even started planning and will just work backward to them! Hopefully I can also let the kids do more of the teaching, as this is the best way for them to learn. It is just hard to surrender the classroom to the kids!!!

OK, didn't realize this was through gmail. Guess I'll verify the account this time and actually start this blog!