Baffling! Thing 12

Photo editing is a joy for me. I was fascinated by the pictures my female students had taped all over their notebooks. One day after school my girls stayed after school to give me a picnik lesson! We had a ball. I had not used it much since then. This “THING” really gave me the opportunity to play with it again. So much fun!! I was inspired today when we were sizing shirts for our upcoming field trip. Miss B and I had to take a picture of these Longhorns shirts!

Not exactly sure how to use this great photo editor in class… I turned to ask my students! They had such great ideas! They were ready to diagram the parts of a wave right then and there. Picnik allows a photo editor the ability to change all parts of the pictures and add fun text and graphics. It could be a very time consuming activity…. If my students are anything like me they will just want to keep playing with all the different options.

html coding

I was very excited to learn about html coding. I maintain an active website and get frustrated when I cannot get it to look or act the way I want. I plan to start using some of the basic codes we learned to fix my test in quia. Quia is a web based testing program. I have at times wanted things bolded or italicized and did not know now to make that happen. Now I do!

As I played more with it, I realized you can search for just about any html code you need and just cut and paste it. I think that will make life much easier when coding. It also helps when trying to imbed items. It is nice to know how some of the internet works behind the scenes, but for now I will stick with a WYSIWYG for my website building needs.  

Pictures Slide Show... Thing 11

Let’s Pool it – Link: http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc/action/ExternalIdSearch?id=555504

Hess - Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rene-germany/2455154999  

Gas LOL OMG WTF - Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/a_siegel/2356136293  

Gas truck - Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kdavidclark/4366962282

old gas pump red - Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brokersaunders/3513512869

old gas pump white - Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/compujeramey/80011491

Pictures Can Inspire - Thing 10

As we enter February, I realize how much closer we are getting to April. In April I will be starting a land mark project with my students. I am really starting to feel the pressure and losing my drive. I took the recent Flikr assignments to help get the creative juices flowing again.

As I began in Flikr… I was not impressed. It didn’t seem user friendly or something that would really help me. The first hour worth of looking at pictures to find they were all copyrighted. Then once I was in The Commons, it seemed so limiting. Everything was from the library of congress, which is great if you are looking for something old. But maybe it was me….… I was looking for thinks that interest me… purple… skydiving… trees… I found things… just nothing l liked. It wasn’t until I started thinking about what I would use pictures from Flixr for that got me going.

The first picture I selected was “Pool it” by David Falconer with the US National Archives. This photograph will be one of many photos use to get students thinking. This sign was posted just outside of Vancouver, Washington as a reminder the gas shortage wasn’t over in 1974. As prices of gas today remain high, the question I pose to my students … “Have we changed much over the last 30 years?”

(I am not stating what the project is… because my students have started reading my blog. J) 

It’s mine and I am NOT sharing… or am I? Thing 9

The world of the internet has made it easier for everyone to share everything. If it is out there anyone can use it, right? Isn’t that what our students think?

I hate to admit that sometimes I ignore copyright laws to get done what I need to for my classroom. So I completely understand why it’s a struggle for our students. It is so much easier to copy and paste. In language arts classes we teach them how to cite work they use someone else’s work in papers, but what about other mediums? More and more teachers are having students create multimedia and online projects.

When do we teach students to use the internet correctly? Where is that GPS? In today’s classroom students need to know how to use internet content correctly. I believe that Creative Commons is exactly what this generation of students needs to help guide them.  Everyone always sees ©(the copyright symbol) and know that means “all rights reserved,” so we know not to use it, but what if we are creating it together? The Creative Commons licenses on sites, makes it easier to share, create, and build knowledge together.

I have never seen the Creative Commons logo on any sites yet, but I wasn’t looking either. I plan to add it to my teacher website just as soon as I have checked to make sure I am following all the copyright laws. J  CC is hopefully going to make a very positive mark on education!

Earlier this year I was looking in to getting a copyright. It was going to cost a good deal of money, but now I think a CC is a much better route. I wanted to share the content we were creating with other teachers but still wanted to get credit. This has been a great eye opening learning task.

So Many Possibilities with WIKIs! Thing 7

Wikis have changed the way I think about building knowledge, even more so after investigating Post-it Notes on Wikipedia. I have already starting using wikis in my class. When my students and I created the PeriodicNetwork, we worked together to build a site that others could gather information on the periodic table. The students did a fantastic job! After looking at other wikis, there are several things I could use to improve what we have done and use toward new wiki projects.

The first wiki that peeked my interest was CodeBlue. I worked with a similar project when student teaching. Students work in doctor teams to solve an ER case. It looked like the students were still building their site. They didn’t have any data or results posted yet, but I enjoyed the way the students explained who they were and what they were doing. I enjoyed seeing the teacher had taken steps to keep them safe online with fun doctor names.

DiRT is a Fantastic resource! I have to admit I loved clicking around on the site. (I should have set a timer!) What I enjoyed most was the explanation for each link. Sometimes you can have a list of links but not know if it is worth checking out or not. This wiki was extremely well organized and user friendly. Guide lines are clear and easy to follow.

Connecting students to outside the classroom to real people isn’t always easy, however Greetings from World does an amazing job! The stories on the wiki are fantastic! Students from around the world share their storied in many different languages using Glogs. Glogs are interactive online posters. I had to go look up Glogs… they are so cool and easy to use! I haven’t tried creating on yet but plan to soon! I’ll be sure to post one once I get it done!

Wikis have endless possibilities. I am even rethinking my blog project for the spring… a wiki might just serve our needs better. Wikis allow everyone to build together. The only thing I seem to dislike right now about wikis is they normally aren’t very eye appealing.

Let’s start building!