It's 8.30 Sunday night - tomorrow is the deadline for completing tasks. And I've finished!!
This whole course has been amazing, and completely worthwhile. I have felt more and more clever with each task, and do not feel like such a complete doofus head in the area of Web 2.0.
Mind you, when you say this has been a "small sampling of some of the Web 2.0 technologies", it has been such a massive learning curve for me that I doubt if I could have handled too much more information at once.
I have learnt things that I now use all the time, such as my iGoogle homepage set up with all the gadgets I use, including my RSS Google Reader.
And I'm guessing that I will be using at least half of these technologies on my new venture in a school in Hong Kong.
Thank you so much to Fiona, Natasha and Felicity for all your help and for running this course in the first place. It has been invaluable.
Ok, time for me to do this on my own. First step, setting up a brand new blog ready to keep in touch with everyone when I leave Australia in July.
Thanks heaps!
Sunday, May 23, 2010
#22 eBooks & #23 Audiobooks
Hmm I'm a bit of a fence-sitter on this subject.
I was really interested to read about Project Gutenberg. What a resource, at the hands of all those volunteers!
And I quite liked the LibriVox site. Volunteering to read is something that interests me, but not right now.
I have only downloaded one book - ever - onto my iPod. I took one of the Twilight books to listen to when on an overseas trip last year. I did listen to some when on the flights, but found myself reading REAL books more. I enjoyed listening to Twilight when I got home - when I was sewing or ironing or walking on the treadmill.
Personally, I love reading real books too much to bother downloading audiobooks.
At school it is becoming more and more of a hot topic. Our teacher librarians are talking more about the issue of having ebooks and audiobooks available for borrowing. I haven't yet entered the debate - partly because I feel so behind in technology that I have no idea how to get started.
This is step one!
I was really interested to read about Project Gutenberg. What a resource, at the hands of all those volunteers!
And I quite liked the LibriVox site. Volunteering to read is something that interests me, but not right now.
I have only downloaded one book - ever - onto my iPod. I took one of the Twilight books to listen to when on an overseas trip last year. I did listen to some when on the flights, but found myself reading REAL books more. I enjoyed listening to Twilight when I got home - when I was sewing or ironing or walking on the treadmill.
Personally, I love reading real books too much to bother downloading audiobooks.
At school it is becoming more and more of a hot topic. Our teacher librarians are talking more about the issue of having ebooks and audiobooks available for borrowing. I haven't yet entered the debate - partly because I feel so behind in technology that I have no idea how to get started.
This is step one!
#21 Teachertube
Ok, I've had a better look around now. I have had a little bit of experience with YouTube and TeacherTube, but not much. Especially since YouTube is blocked at school.
I found it easier to search and browse than the Podcasting, and I found heaps of cool videos to watch. I was going to post a Harry Potter American Idol clip - very funny!
Instead I thought I'd check out Dewey clips to find one way I could use this at school. I think I'll be trying the above clip out on my primary students, I think they'll like it!
I did find lots more - some things I'd love to show the kids just for fun, some things I would use in my lessons. I'm sure someone at school can tell me the easiest way to save and play YouTube at school.
By the way, I loved the dominoes!!
#21 Youtube
An educational video clip for my blog - well, it's set in a school, isn't it?? One of my favourite Glee clips.
More to add later when I've had a proper look around Youtube and Teachertube.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
#20 Podcasts
This is one activity I found quite frustrating. I checked out Podcastalley and Mypodcast. Although they do have general categories, it was hard to scroll through the hundreds of titles trying to find something of interest. I did listen to quite a few, but found nothing I'd be interested in subscribing to.
I almost subscribed to a Learning French podcast - I thought that might be interesting! However the ones I found weren't quite what I wanted - too hard, too American, one had a strong Irish accent hard to understand!
Then I tried to find the Hamish and Andy podcast. The one I found wouldn't work. So I ended up googling it, and ended up in a whole tangle of pages. I finally found the RSS link, but so far it hasn't appeared on my Google Reader. I give up!
The other category I looked at was a K-12 category in Education. Useless. I got bored of listening to them when the description wasn't quite enough.
So I guess I won't just be browsing through podcast directories just for something to do. But if I hear of something that would particularly interest me, then I THINK I could figure out how to subscribe to it. Maybe!
I almost subscribed to a Learning French podcast - I thought that might be interesting! However the ones I found weren't quite what I wanted - too hard, too American, one had a strong Irish accent hard to understand!
Then I tried to find the Hamish and Andy podcast. The one I found wouldn't work. So I ended up googling it, and ended up in a whole tangle of pages. I finally found the RSS link, but so far it hasn't appeared on my Google Reader. I give up!
The other category I looked at was a K-12 category in Education. Useless. I got bored of listening to them when the description wasn't quite enough.
So I guess I won't just be browsing through podcast directories just for something to do. But if I hear of something that would particularly interest me, then I THINK I could figure out how to subscribe to it. Maybe!
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
#19 Rollyo
I found Rollyo to be fairly self-explanatory, and quite fun. My first thought was that it would be a bit unnecessary for me as I really don't have all that many favourite pages or places to search. But then it hit me that I often do random searches through quilting websites so decided to turn that into my "roll".
I might also do one on Hong Kong just for fun, as I've definitely done a few searches on that lately.
Educationally I would like to have one specifically for Smartboard activities, as there are many, many sites around. I'm not sure yet though if I would use Rollyo or Delicious tagging more often. I think both applications would definitely be very useful in this case, but am not sure if one is more beneficial than the other. Perhaps it's just a case of which one I like better.
Anyway the only slightly tricky bit of Rollyo was experimenting with putting it on my blog. I guess I'll see what happens when I publish this post - I might feel very clever once again! How exciting!
Saturday, May 15, 2010
#18 Wikis
It was interesting to see how schools and libraries have been using Wikis. I already have 3 ideas if I decide to create my own wikis.
1. I could use my friends as guinea pigs while I test my wiki abilities. We are organising a group holiday overseas, and this could be a great way to add information and keep each other informed of where we are up to in the planning. It would also be a great way to experiment, and see how interesting I can make the wiki.
2. Teachers could have an Inquiry Unit wiki. In our curriculum we need to cover certain topics (or SOSE units, inquiry units, whatever you like to call it). We could set up a wiki for teachers to add information, ideas, hints, tips, feedback etc. This could be useful in the short term when a number of teachers on the same year level are all teaching the same unit. And it would be handy in the long term when the same unit is taught the following year. We could build up a database of ideas.
3. Our 5/6 classes are about to start a "book club" as a way of sharing information. A wiki would be a wonderful way to incorporate Web 2.0 into the program.
1. I could use my friends as guinea pigs while I test my wiki abilities. We are organising a group holiday overseas, and this could be a great way to add information and keep each other informed of where we are up to in the planning. It would also be a great way to experiment, and see how interesting I can make the wiki.
2. Teachers could have an Inquiry Unit wiki. In our curriculum we need to cover certain topics (or SOSE units, inquiry units, whatever you like to call it). We could set up a wiki for teachers to add information, ideas, hints, tips, feedback etc. This could be useful in the short term when a number of teachers on the same year level are all teaching the same unit. And it would be handy in the long term when the same unit is taught the following year. We could build up a database of ideas.
3. Our 5/6 classes are about to start a "book club" as a way of sharing information. A wiki would be a wonderful way to incorporate Web 2.0 into the program.
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