I spent quite a bit of time searching through both of these for networks for elementary and science related topics but found nothing.
The Classroom 2.0 page to me is very busy. There is a lot of content on here. I looked under the forums and groups but found nothing that would be of benefit to me.
Ning was much the same but with more educational networks. Again there were no networks that provoked my interest of the few under elementary or science.
I could see where a beginning teacher might reach out to something like this or someone who has switched grade levels or subjects but you have to be comfortable contributing in forums like these and I have learned I am not.
This is another example of a tool I can see being used more in the upper and high school areas more than elementary because honestly I do not have the need to share a lot of documents with my colleagues. That said I was able to brainstorm one idea. Whenever we are doing a project in science on the computers we have to brainstorm with the tech people on websites to use for the kids. We all have to hunt for ones they can use that are age appropriate and safe. So by creating this document and inviting my colleagues to work on the document we can together add to the list of websites during the year as we find them and not play the “cut and paste via an email” game that we have been doing all year.
I did find the presentation section a lot like PowerPoint and SmartBoard in the page layout. It appears that in this you can embed YouTube videos while on the others you are only able to paste the link but you still get the same effect. When we create these presentations unless we are careful and save them to one folder they can get lost. PowerPoint is over here; SmartBoard saved there. When it comes time to use them a year later you’ve forgotten where it was saved.
I like the look of Pageflakes and it seems easy enough to use but I have to wonder why I need another “homepage” like this. My Internet provider at home provides me with a page and so does Yahoo – aren’t we reinventing the wheel?
As far as using at with parents, one of the complaints we have heard all year that everyone doesn’t have the same thing. I have a wikki page, others have a blog, and some post on edline. Everything has a different look and it becomes confusing as to what to find where.
I have heard a lot about YouTude for years but had not ever seen a video on it. Basically it is what I thought it would be – almost everything and anything out there recorded is on this in some shape or form. I know that people get great enjoyment out of watching the strange, wierd and wild and it is all here.
I was a little disappointed with TeacherTube. I was looking for more factual and statistical data on here but it is mainly science projects. Maybe if I knew a good speaker I might find them on here but I’ve had no luck so far. There was not much on the elementary topic but I did find some science. On both you can find the Diet Coke and Mentos experiment.
I can see this being used as introductory videos before a project or if I wanted to do an experiment and wasn’t quite sure how to put it together it would be useful to view someone else conducting it.
As with everything, nothing here is easy. My first attempt at podcasting fell on deaf ears – literally. My microphone wasn’t working properly so it was 15 minutes later of trouble-shooting before I finally got it recorded. Then Edublogs was “having a moment” and I couldn’t log into here to write this blog. How many more “things” are there left!?!?!
I went the science route and subscribed to Science Friday, This Week in Science and Science Weekly. Some of the topics were interesting. Some longer than others. But the idea of listening to them with no video was not all that appealing. Unfortunately I think younger children would find the same problem.
Through Learn Out Loud I listened to a podcast on birds (which 2nd grade is studying now) on Science Friday. While it is too long to listen to in class I am not sure the students would find it interesting without pictures of the birds they are chatting about.
I even found one of my favorite TV shows on iTunes but the idea of just listening to Pardon the Interruption with seeing Tony and Mike wasn’t appealing.
I’ll be interested to see what others post about this and how they can use it in the classroom.
I am not a reader. Sorry. Just don’t get any enjoyment from it so personally I doubt I’d ever use it.
That said, LibraryThing could be beneficial to my other classroom teachers as it would allow them to create a list of books (or I could do it and pass it on) related to the science topic we are studying. Then they could incorporate that reading in their classroom to supplement what we are studying in science.
At the moment, Del.icio.us hasn’t really exited me. I am having a hard time not seeing it as just another place to list my favorites (http://del.icio.us/sciencedavid). I already had tons of sites saved on Explorer. Then I found I had to have another partial list on FireFox from sites sent to me there now that we seem to be using it over Explorer. While it seems to me to be easier to just stick to one browser we have instead created a tool that combines the two.
I’ll give it some more time and maybe when I dig into my next project I’ll get more out of it. I am not one who sits up all night at home researching websites so the benefits of it right now seem limited.
Obviously I am missing something here in Blog Nation.
If I felt the need to go on a diet, quit smoking, start exercising or whatever the goal-of-the-month is, why would I want the whole world to know? Isn’t this personal? And I am not quite sure how John is Rhode Island, who I have never met, cheering me on is going to help me achieve that goal. What happened to doing something for you? for you own satisfaction? Does everything have to be completed before an audience? If no one cheers than does it somehow lose its importance. If you lose 25 pounds, people will notice. If you stop smoking, people will notice.
When I lost 20 pounds in college, I did it because I wanted to. I found the inner strength to stop eating sweets, pick up a piece of fruit instead, drink water and join a gym. I didn’t blog to the world about it. Instead I set goals and challenged myself to meet them.
I understand there is a world of people out there this could help. But it concerns me that we are becoming a society that is not reaching within to accomplish goals but relying on others. Others that we do not even know.
Finally, a week I am not completely lost!! This week’s buffet of tools contain an array of items I see uses for and are simple enough to use. I posted two in my Wiki-page at http://psscience.wikispaces.com/.
First I embedded a calendar into the main page so that I can now post when homework is due and when upcoming tests and field trips are by using 30 boxes ( http://30boxes.com). I also added a puzzle page for the students to use (linked on the left side) using Jigzone ( http://www.jigzone.com/). It is my hope that this page, along with another idea I have using Flickr, will help with observation skills.
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