Thing 7: Wikis

Using Wikis as a Resource for Teachers

 

Wikis are an incredibly flexible tool.

• Create in online text for your classroom
• Try creating a choose your own adventure
• Have your students use a wiki to publish information about a topic that they are investigating
• Create an online presence for your school
• Create digital portfolios for students and teachers
• Create collaboration opportunities between classes across the school and across the world

 Examples of how wikis can be used in classrooms
 

Web 2.0 in Education is a wiki created in the UK and explores the way Web 2.0 can be used in education.This site is designed to provide teachers with a directory of free webtools along with some suggestions as to how they may be used in the classroom.

ePlanks is a wiki created by two Australian teachers from Hawkesdale in Victoria. It has lots of practical resources and ideas for classroom use.

edhouse wikiis another wiki created by Australian teachers providing links and resources for the classroom.

Educational Origami has been nominated for Best Educational wiki for 2008 and with good reason as it has a great list of resources around the use of higher order thinking in the classroom.

The Classroom 2.0 wiki is a companion to the Classroom2.0 that now has over 15,000 educator members. It has a wealth of links and ideas as well as announcements for upcoming educational programs.

This is a great wiki for advocates for Digital Citizenship. It provides links, ideas and resources for those who are interested in Digital Citizenship and it's importance in education. Put simply Digital citizenship is knowing how to behave safely and responsibly with regard to technology use.

Weblogged wiki is a wiki created by Will Richardson, as a resource center for his presentations and workshops. Very comprehensive overview of Web 2.0 applications in the classroom

David Warlick has created a CoLearners wiki using PM wiki which he uses in his presentations all over the world. Yet another example of how flexible and useful wikis can be.

CommentChallenge wiki is the 31 day comment challenge is a program to promote effective, meaningful comments run by several amazing edubloggers -- this is an example of something that those interested in facilitating effective communications should discuss and participate in.

This 21Ctools wiki created by Liz Davis, it has links for teachers (or anyone else who is interested) to technology tutorials. It contains tutorials on how to use applications like Delicious, Flickr, and many others.

Cool Tools for Schools is created by Lenva (twitter)

ShiftHappens is a wiki created by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod. the wiki discusses the changes that are occurring in education and the world in general. It discusses in particular the video that they created called Did You Know?

Chris Betcher's wiki Betchablog that he uses for presenting at conferences. Chris is a teacher at Presbyterian Ladies College and is a leading light in the online educational world.

123 eLearning for life wiki is created by Julie Lindsay ICT head of technology at Doha in Qatar. It has resources, links and ideas around using Web2.0 technologies in education.

Thing 6: Image Generators

Wordle

Is a tag cloud that represents visual text data, typically used to depict keyword metadata on websites, or to visualize free from text. Tags are usually single words, and the importance of each Tag is shown with font size color.

http://www.wordle.net/

Wordle Tutorial

Tagxedo

Is a free, web-based word cloud creator, similar to Wordle, but with Tagxedo the word  can be placed in a shape cloud.

http://www.tagxedo.com
 Tagxedo Tutorial

See 101 Ways to Use Tagxedo

WordSift

Is a free website that attempts to address one of the greatest challenges facing educators of English Language Learners: how to grow and enrich the academic vocabulary of their students across the grade levels, and especially through academic content instruction.



http://wordsift.com/

WordSift Tutorial

Questions

 1. How can this tool be used with your students?

 

These tools can be used in Science, Math, Social Studies, English, and Foreign Language to develop academic vocabulary or to learn challenge content concepts.

 

2. What is one assignment that you could use that includes these tools?...either as a one computer assignment or as a class assignment.

 

a. English language arts lesson vocabulary such as "irregular verbs"
b. Creating a content concept through the image art such as"learning the primary colors"
c. Science project such as "States of Matter"
e. Math formulas such as "Area and Volume"
f. Social Studies topic vocabulary such as "Civil War"
g. Conjugation verbs in Spanish language such as "Verb To Be - Ser or Estar"

Thing 5: Image Mashups

A mashup, in web development, is a web page, or web application, that uses content from more than one source to create a single new service displayed in a single graphical interface. For example, you could combine the addresses and photographs of your library branches with a Google map to create a map mashup.^[1] The term implies easy, fast integration, frequently using open application programming interfaces (open API) and data sources to produce enriched results that were not necessarily the original reason for producing the raw source data. The term mashup originally comes from British - West Indies slang meaning to be intoxicated, or as a description for something or someone not functioning as intended. In recent English parlance it can refer to music, where people seamlessly combine audio from one song with the vocal track from another—thereby mashing them together to create something new. The main characteristics of a mashup are combination, visualization, and aggregation. It is important to make existing data more useful, for personal and professional use. To be able to permanently access the data of other services, mashups are generally client applications or hosted online.

Source: Wikipedia

Thing 4: Image Sharing

Discovery Exercise

What Flicker offers?

Flicker is the cheapest and largest option for storing digital photos, and arguably the most photo- centric.

How tags and groups work? 

Flicker doesn't make its own phone, laptop, tablet, or other device, so the owner or the user must to get everything up there, but once the photos are in, Flickr's photo organizer help to manage them through the use of tags.  The user can classify the photos in events or albums for further searching or sorting. The term "geotagging" is associated with a geographic photo location and it is often done automatically by phone cameras or other devices. Photo sharing groups is another characteristic that Flickr offers. Groups of people are invited to discuss a photo topic publicly or privately. 

Who is using Flickr and why? 

A lot of serious photographers use Flickr, due to they can store lots of large images. Its unlimited plan could be a better deal. Comparing with Picasa, displaying photos online, the photographers can find that Google offers better bargain.

Comparing prices Picasa and Flickr?  

Picasa and Flickr have two different pricing schemes. Flickr limits free accounts to certain uploads per month. Picasa operates mainly on a storage free and small pictures does not count towards the quota. 


Example of "My Summer Flicker photos" 

Our trip in Corpus Christi

Tutorials

How to use flickr tutorial

Thing 3: Working with Digital Photos

Working with Digital Photos

Digital image

After a deep research looking for the most appropriate web 2.0 tool for digital photos, I found that I needed to understand first the definition of "Digital Image." I found digital photo is an electronic file that displays images in two-dimensional matrix of thousands or millions of pixels each of which has its own address, size, and color representation.

Digitizing a photograph means converting or capturing its image electronically through a scanner, digital camera or any other electronic device.

There are several web 2.0 tools for hosting digital photos. The user can manipulate images, personalize photos, create picture books or picture videos and more.

It is a versatile way to keep and share photos with friends, students, coworkers, relatives, etc.

Working with Digital Photos

1. "23 Photo Sharing." Making it easy to share photos.  

2. "Aviary." Make photos Magic. This web help to create in seconds frames, stickers, and touch-up in the photos. 
3. "Be Funky." Funky ways to express yourself. In this tool the photos can be converted into cartoons, avatars, or even play with videos effects.
4. "Cameroid." It is a tool to use a webcam to take photos online! and then play around with them.
5. "Photo2 Text." Upload a photograph and it will turn it into text for you. 

The Best Web 2.0 for Classroom Users

1. Dropbox

2. Flicker

3. SmugMug

4. Wistia

6. Animoto

Example

After reviewing each source suggested in this list, I wanted to experience with "animoto." Here is an example what this web 2.0 tool can offer. 

See My Picture Video Picture 

Thing 2: Blogging

Creating a Blog

 1 Select a Blog host. Select a blog host, or website platform to start blogging. There are plenty of free hosts and blogs with fees. 

Free blog hosts

• WordPress selva
• Blogger
• Posterous
• Tumblr

Free blog hosts:

• GoDaddy
• Bluehost
• HostGator
• Hostmonster

2 Determine how much control you want control over your URL. If a free blogging platform is used, the URL is going to look like this:

www.myblog.wordpress.com/

3 Know the difference between free hosting services and paid hosting. Mainly, paid hosting services offer much more control over the look of the website design, as well as offering more web tools. In contrast, free hosting services offer a few basic pre-made templates for bloggers to choose from when designing the look of the website. Paid hosting services generally offer a greater variety of templates to choose from, as well as giving the blogger the option of designing the look of the website from the bottom up. 

4 Get familiar with the ins and outs of whatever hosting service you decide to use. When you start blogging, the following questions will help you in the process of designing: How will I create an outbound link to another website? How I can italicize a title?. Being familiar with you blogging platform will increase the more you blog. Explore the different options you have with your blog. You often don't know what is possible until you try it.  Some blogs offer interactive video or slide show to new users. Many tutorials are packed with useful tips and hints, and will get you blogging faster and better.

Example:  Creating a Blog.

This information was obtained from:  http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Personal-Blog

Thing 1:  Life Long Learning

 1) Always have a book.
It doesn’t matter if it takes you a year or a week to read a book. Always strive to have a book that you are reading through, and take it with you so you can read it when you have time. Just by shaving off a few minutes in-between activities in my day I can read about a book per week. That’s at least fifty each year.

2) Keep a “To-Learn” List
We all have to-do lists. These are the tasks we need to accomplish. Try to also have a “to-learn” list. On it you can write ideas for new areas of study. Maybe you would like to take up a new language, learn a skill or read the collective works of Shakespeare. Whatever motivates you, write it down.

3) Get More Intellectual Friends
Start spending more time with people who think. Not just people who are smart. But people who actually invest much of their time in learning new skills. Their habits will rub off on you. Even better, they will probably share some of their knowledge with you.

4) Guided Thinking
Albert Einstein once said, “Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.” Simply studying the wisdom of others isn’t enough, you have to think through ideas yourself. Spend time journaling, meditating or contemplating over ideas you have learned.

5) Put it Into Practice
Skill based learning is useless if it isn’t applied. Studying painting isn’t the same as picking up a brush. If your knowledge can be applied, put it into practice.

6) Teach Others
You learn what you teach. If you have an outlet of communicating ideas to others, you are more likely to solidify that learning. Start a blog, mentor someone or even discuss ideas with a friend.

7) Clean Your Input
Some forms of learning are easy to digest, but often lack substance. I make a point of regularly cleaning out my feed reader for blogs I subscribe to. Great blogs can be a powerful source of new ideas. But every few months I realize I’m collecting posts from blogs that I am simply skimming. Every few months, purify your input to save time and focus on what counts.

8 ) Learn in Groups
Lifelong learning doesn’t mean condemning yourself to a stack of dusty textbooks. Join organizations that teach skills. Workshops and group learning events can make educating yourself a fun, social experience.

9) Unlearn Assumptions
You can’t add water to a full cup. I always try to maintain a distance away from any idea. Too many convictions simply mean too few paths for new ideas. Actively seek out information that contradicts your worldview.

10) Find Jobs that Encourage Learning
Pick a career that encourages continual learning. If you are in a job that doesn’t have much intellectual freedom, consider switching to one that does. Don’t spend forty hours of your week in a job that doesn’t challenge you.

11) Start a Project
Set out to do something you don’t know how. Forced learning in this way can be fun and challenging. If you don’t know anything about computers, try building one. If you consider yourself a horrible artist, try a painting.

12) Follow Your Intuition
Lifelong learning is like wandering through the wilderness. You can’t be sure what to expect and there isn’t always an end goal in mind. Letting your intuition guide you can make self-education more enjoyable. Most of our lives have been broken down to completely logical decisions, that making choices on a whim has been stamped out.

13) The Morning Fifteen
Use the first fifteen minutes of your morning as a period for education. If you find yourself too groggy, you might want to wait a short time. Just don’t put it off later in the day where urgent activities will push it out of the way.

14) Reap the Rewards
Learn information you can use. Understanding the basics of programming allows me to handle projects that other people would require outside help. Meeting a situation that makes use of your educational efforts can be a source of pride.

15) Make it a Priority
Few external forces are going to persuade you to learn. The desire has to come from within. Once you decide you want to make lifelong learning a habit, it is up to you to make it a priority in your life.

source: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/15-steps-to-cultivate-lifelong-learning.html