Thing-23

From Blogs, RSS, Flickr and photos, online video, widgets, tagging, Delicious, Google Docs, Slideshare, Podcasting and Wikis this has been a great journey. It’s not always been easy but it has been so worth it! So often the technology is an add-on that teachers don’t have time to include. But here’s what’s emerged as the connector that 23 things encompasses and why we need to include this as part and parcel of what we do. It’s all about the 4 Teaching and Learning principles from the Michigan Curriculum Framework;

1. Higher-Order Thinking: Instruction involves
students in manipulating information and ideas by
synthesizing, generalizing, explaining or arriving at
conclusions that produce new meaning and
understandings for them.
2. Deep Knowledge: Instruction addresses central
ideas of a topic or discipline with enough
thoroughness to explore connections and
relationships and to produce relatively complex
understanding.
3. Substantive Conversation: Students engage in
extended conversational exchanges with the teacher
and/or peers about subject matter in a way that
builds an improved and shared understanding of
ideas or topics.
4. Connections to the World Beyond the Classroom:
Students make connections between substantive
knowledge and either public problems or personal
experiences.

I have developed higher order thinking, some deep knowledge, had substantive conversations, connected, and learned about Web 2.0 tools and beyond. Thanks for all you’ve done to organize the course in such an engaging and thought provoking way.

Thing-22

My wiki is https://thepoint.wikispaces.com/. This is a nice way to collaborate. In a blog others respond to what I write. In a wiki I put my work out there and someone else adds to it revises and edits and deletes. So you have to be okay with peer revisions!!. I would definitely use wikis.

Thing-21

I went to Examples of Educational Wikis. Wow!! I explored a really well done wiki called "Cool tools for schools". The wiki organized web 2.0 tools at one site. Each idea had a separate button that linked you to information about podcasts, wikis, etc. I think the hurdle for me will be sheer numbers. Where to go? What to look for? There were search tools but I tended to scroll through the list and never got past the C's. Still I liked the wikis.

Thing-20

This is the first time I have really explored iTunes. I liked the video and audio choice...something for everybody. I plugged into NPR's fresh air and then tried to access some video but no luck.

Thing-19

Podcasting seems to be taking on a life of it's own. looked at David's K-7 science expectations. He's a pro.

Thing-18

Leadership Lessons slideshare

Leadership Lessons

View more presentations from Bob Schultz.

I like slideshare. I used the education link and first started exploring some very interesting presentations on visual mapping. I do get engaged in the content and tend to lose my way! I appreciate how the content is displayed just below the presentation. That helped me know exactly what I might be viewing. And, that might save me some time.

Thing-15

RSS is becoming easier to understand. I had subscribed to a newsfeed earlier, but I took some time to clean up what I had. There's so much in there and it's taken me awhile to understand how this is organized. I like the idea of reading later and keeping things to go back to....If only I remember to do that!

Thing-14

I set up my account in delicious and my user name is jbonne. I liked exploring the collection of sites and searching by tags. I'm a fan of James Burke. He has a knowledge web loaded with connections built with some great visual mapping tools. Patrick McKercher, a professor of gaming and writing, helped build the interface. So I did some searching and exploring and included these in my collection. I think the time saving piece of the delicious collection might be helpful. But, I still found myself drifting to many interesting sites and getting lost in interesting ideas.

Thing-17

I looked at bubbl.us. It's fun and reminds me of inspiration. No problems getting it to work. I think kids would like it and it's free. I could use it for organizing my thinking for presentations and just for fun!

Thing-16

I like google docs and have been using it in our department as a way to share and record our work. The issue that comes to mind is that it's abit cumbersome to move around in. For students the issue might be that the boxes might be limiting when they're trying to record information.

Thing-13

Tagging is a good way to organize thinking and content. It reminds me of going to the library and using the catalog to find information.

Thing-12

I really like the widgets. I found one, posted it, and then went back and found one I liked even more. The widgets really caused me think about my work and what I was trying to communicate. So I began asking myself these questions; Why am I doing this work and why am I doing my work this way? Who am I trying to connect with?

Thing-11

Writing blog comments requires you to be thoughtful and reflective. It makes me synthesize my thinking to try and organize in a way that efficiently and effecively communicates my ideas. Receiving comments is the feedback I need to know that my ideas were or were not communicated.

Thing-10

Sir Ken Robinson on creativity in schools...

Thing-9

I love YouTube. I get lost in the content because there's so much there. But I did find some videos I can use right away and some I'd forgotten were there. What a way to learn and enhance learning.

Thing-8

I used Big Huge Lab to create the Andy Warhol image. It was fun, easy, and intriguing.

Thing-7

I will use Flcikr and I see potential for use in my work. It's a nice tool for organizing pictures and remembering where they are!! I'm not sure if my tag RESA23 is working since I only grouped 4 pictures. But I'm going to look right now. This is my favorite thing so far.

Thing-6

I love Flikr. Pictures help us tell a better story.

I chose this picture because 23 things is like a sunrise, a new day. And..I love yoga, too.

Thing-5

This was a challenge. Thanks to team work and Bruce Fay I was able to find and organize some great feeds. Speaking of teamwork and collaboration....what a great way to use blogs to help each other.

Thing-4

The sheer number of RSS's is overwhelming. Folders can help to organize the information but there's a step ahead of that. I think it best to "start slow and slow down." Choose one or two to follow before jumping into the whole pool. A lesson learned.

Thing-3

Blogs are mediums of communication so the first question I need to ask is; What do I want to accomplish? If the blog can extend, enrich, support understanding that's the way I'd use it. I'd like to start blogging by writing and reflecting. The blog needs to be a tool that supports learning.

Thing 2-Create your own Blog

What a great way to learn. I so appreciated the multi media introduction to blogs from the article, to the video, to the actual "performance" of creating one! I love learning about and using the technology. It enhances what I do, but also helps me think about better and richer ways to help kids learn! I'm wondering about literacy especially writing. Will this medium contribute to improved writing? Different writing? More people are publishing than ever before. What about the quality of the writing? Hmmm...cause for pause.