BP15_2009123_OneMinuteMessage2

Here's a little video showing just one of the many things you can do with Wordle.

BP12_2009123_Tool#4(Wordle)

I looked through a lot of web 2.0 tools this week and I found a lot of really cool ones. Unfortunately, it seemed as if as soon as I got really into it and was exploring the site, I would find content created by other users that was totally inappropriate. For example, I thought I had something great when I found Overstream, which is a site where you can add subtitles to videos you find online. I thought this would be great for a foreign language class or in my bilingual class, having students work to create subtitles for short videos in English or Spanish. I started browsing and found a video that I thought would be cute, the thumbnail had a picture of Kermit the Frog. Well, let's just say that I'm sure Miss Piggy would be outraged at the things Kermie was doing. Well, at least my Spanish speaking students would be able to follow along as someone had thoughtfully added subtitles to it, not that it needed much translation. I could probably use it to add subtitles, but the true educational value would be for students to do it. GoAnimate and XtraNormal would have similar issues. The application itself is fantastic, but the content created by some people ruins it for everyone. Maybe in a high school or college you could work around it, but not at the elementary or middle school level. I'm not sure what to do about that.

Anyway, the site I am choosing to promote is Wordle. Wordle has some issues that I mentioned in the above paragraph, there are some very inappropriate Wordles out there, but I think it is a little easier to avoid them. In Wordle, users can create "word clouds" by pasting in text. The more often a word appears in the text, the bigger it is in the Wordle. You can put in your own words and make them bigger by repeating them, or you can copy and paste text from somewhere and create a Wordle that way, it is a great way to show how authors use words and repetition, and to create visual representations of speeches, poems, or songs. The picture here is of the inaugural address of a famous president. Can you guess who it is?

BP10_2009122_PeerReviewJamin

I looked at a few different web 2.0 tools reviewed by classmates, but I really like the one Jamin found - the "Visual Thesaurus" and text visualization through WordSift. Here is my comment to her post.

"Jamin, I also work with second language learners (mainly Spanish speakers) and this visual thesaurus seems like a great tool. Sometimes it is very hard for students to grasp certain words and being able to link them to other words they already know will help them reinforce new words. It also seems like it would help a lot to teach parts of speech. My students seem to have a lot of difficulty learning the difference forms of a particular word and their relation to each other. I like how this tool allows you to look at different parts of speech and turn them on or off depending on what kind of word you are looking for. With thesauruses so common in word processing programs, kids get used to clicking on words without realizing the the subtle differences between them and the power of word choice. I love words and hopefully this tool will help students to learn to love them too."

BP11_2009122_OneMinuteMessage1

Reflective video about flickr.

BP9_2002122_FlickrLesson

Images and storytelling go hand in hand. Sometimes the words come first, and the author can create images to further express his or her thoughts and ideas. Other times, images can serve as inspiration for writing. Since teaching students to write well is so essential for building a strong base for further types of communication, I chose a lesson that focuses on writing.

For this lesson, the student will have five pictures randomly generated by flickr and create a story to connect them together. In order to build up to this activity, the teacher will want to start with one picture and ask students what they see in it and how they would express that in words. The teacher would then show them another picture and ask them the same thing. After the students have examined the two pictures carefully, they would be asked how the two pictures or stories might be connected. For younger or less confident learners, the teacher might do this activity with three or four pictures instead of five. This is a great way to get students thinking and imagining different things. I know that some students will have a problem coming up with their own ideas, but with a little encouragement, they can unleash their creativity.

A lesson I have used and would like to build on would be for students to find images of weathering and erosion. Sometimes this basic scientific concept can be difficult for students to grasp because it takes place over such a long period of time. By using different images they find on flickr, they can illustrate these concepts in a more concrete way. The can learn to distinguish between destructive and constructive forces and use the images to make connections to the real world.

BP8_2009122_Tool#3(Change.org)

One of the most important things a teacher can transfer to her students is a passion for something she cares about. Teachers form a bond with their students and oftentimes can encourage them to follow their dreams and change the world. One of my passions is getting students to be involved in helping different causes, but there are so many causes that it is overwhelming for me to try and decide which is the most worthwhile. When I discover a new cause, I sometimes feel bad that so much has been happening and I didn't even know about it.

A site I discovered and quickly fell in love with is Change.org. It has online petitions, articles, and blogs for thousands of different causes. Whether you feel passionately about anything from women's rights to climate change, you will find ways to help people and causes in need. If you can't find the cause you are looking for, you can create one of your own and get other people to support you. Using web 2.0 tools to help people is one of the greatest gifts the Internet can give, and bringing different people together in support of something bigger than themselves can be empowering. This site can be a valuable source of information and a way for students to make a positive change.

BP7_2009122_Tool#2(OnTheRoad)

A new web 2.0 tool I just discovered is OnTheRoad, a site where anyone can create their own travel journal and post pictures and videos. You can create a travel itinerary with a map and post while you are on your trip. This not only will allow people to travel vicariously with you and comment on your journal entries, but you can also go back and relive your travel experiences once you are back home.

It has some neat features like interactive maps, ability to post in a variety of ways like using your phone or e-mail, and ability to share your trip on facebook or Twitter. People back home or anywhere in the world can comment on your posts. You can schedule your trip ahead of time and OnTheRoad will even show the weather in the areas you've pinned.

I feel that students today need to become more involved globally. Using a tool like OnTheRoad, they can visit other places without ever leaving the classroom, and I could share my own travel experiences with them. Students who travel could also post and share with their classmates, and in foreign language classes they could read postings by native speakers of the languages they are studying. It would open their eyes to the outside world.

BP5_2009121_SocialBookmarking

Up until recently, I had never even heard of social bookmarking. After reading a little about it, I am slowly beginning to see some of its benefits. Students and teachers today have access to more than 100 billion websites and a trillion links (Richardson & Mancabelli, 2007) and it is impossible for even the best educators to know everything and be able to impart this wisdom onto their students.

Today's teachers are really tour guides showing their students how to navigate the Internet and find the information they are looking for. This is where social bookmarking comes in. Teachers are able to tag information, articles, and websites for their students and colleagues to look at later. Some of the social bookmarking sites even allow users to write comments or post "stickies" and make notes for others to see (Hagardon, 2007). This is a much more efficient way for instructors to dissipate information and for students to share what they learn with each other. The learning process can become much more interactive and self-directed. Students and teachers can also access the information and continue to learn long after the class is over or has moved on to another topic.

Instead of using textbooks that can quickly become outdated, the Internet is an ever-changing resource than reflect changes almost immediately. Teachers, librarians, and students can organize and classify information (DesRoches, 2007) and help each other review sources. Now no one has to wander blindly through the vast, overwhelming pool of information that can quickly swallow you up without some help.

References

DesRoches, D. (2007). All together now. School Library Journal, 53(1), 33.

Hagardon, S. (2007) A little help from my friends: Classroom 2.0 educators share their experiences. School Library Journal, 53(10), 44-48.

Richardson, W. & Mancabelli, R. (2007) High-tech inspires the read/write website. Education Digest: Essential Readings Condensed for Quick Review. 72(9), 14-18.

BP6_2009121_AntiTeaching

For the past few years of my life, I have been very concerned with how to reach at-risk kids, especially the minority English Language Learners I work with. I am constantly looking for and trying to come up with new ways to reach them and engage them in learning. I thought that getting a masters in Education Media Design and Technology would help me figure out some new high-tech ways of reaching kids.

In the course of my research, I ran across an article with some interesting information. The authors stated that several studies had shown that the technology used in education was not as important to at-risk students as the relationships those students had with their instructors. After thinking about it for a bit, this made perfect sense to me. The students who are most at-risk are the ones who have the most difficult home lives. They have absent, abusive, and neglectful parents. Their home environments are not very conducive to learning, which makes their school environment much more important. If they feel that they are not welcome at school or they don't see the relevance of school to their daily lives, they might seek acceptance elsewhere, like in a gang. Reading this article really opened my eyes. Instead of using the technology to focus on the newest high-tech gadgets, we should instead focus on using the technology to create meaningful relationships for those students that are so starved for direction and guidance. A teacher can come to mean so much more to them and that teacher can use all of these social networking tools to create a welcoming environment that will motivate students.

Students become excited about things because the people they look up to and care about are excited by things. If I were to look at my own experience, I can look to my parents and see how they helped form who I became as a learner. For instance, as a child I became interested in baseball because my father loves baseball. I wanted to learn about it because it was exciting to him and he transferred that excitement to me. My mother was constantly reading to me and some of my earliest memories are of how badly I wanted to learn to read because everyone else was reading. Later, I began to develop my own tastes, but these things were passed on to me because they were important to my parents and my parents are important to me. A child who is raised in a home with a less healthy relationship to his parents might develop different interests. If they can form a strong bond with a teacher, that teacher can help foster a love of learning that would be more beneficial to that child than any lecture.

Technology is not enough to address the needs of these students. You can give the poorest kid in the world the fanciest computer and it won't mean anything to him if he doesn't have someone who cares about him motivating him to use it.

Social networking is going to be one of the most important ways to address the needs of at-risk students. It is incredibly unfortunate that many educators view social networking as a distraction. It is a natural part of the developmental process for children and young adults to want create meaningful relationships. Instead of trying to block all the sites that allow them to communicate with each other, we should embrace this natural desire and use it as a way to keep the kids engaged in school. It is just the educators' responsibility to teach them to use it safely and effectively.