Techie Tuesday: K-12 Online Conference 2009

Have you ever wished you could attend a particular conference or workshop only to be short time and money? There are numerous conferences with backchannels to allow you to attend on your own schedule via Ning, Twitter, Wiki, video, or website.

This week is part of the K12 Online Conference 2009. The theme, Bridging the Divide, might be termed perfect as they invite participation around the world.  As with most large conferences this one started with a pre-conference keynote.  This is followed with two week's of over fifty presentations.  The K12 Online Conference is much more than a backchannel for an existing conference.  It is an entire conference held online.

You can attend the K12 Online Conference via live events online.  What if you missed one of the scheduled events?  That is the great part!  You can watch the video or read through their ning-blog-wiki.

The K12 Online conference will also continue to host live events twice monthly during 2010 through K-12 Online Echo webcasts on EdTechTalk.  Go to their site now and check it out! http://k12onlineconference.org/

What other educational online events do you enjoy?

Techie Tuesday: A- Z Resources

While digging through some old files, I came across an old PowerPoint, ABC Teacher Resource Websites.  Of course it was fun going through the old resources, but it also got me to thinking about all the numerous websites currently available.

I sent out a few tweets, dug through my Diigo files, and the result is a current A - Z of Awesome Resources!  @melching5 also sent an awesome link to numerous resources!

Would you like to add to the links?  Visit my wiki page to continue building this list of resources!

A - Assignaday, Animoto, Alltop, Audacity	H - Hulu, Hotmail, Headerbar	O - Open Source	V - Voicethread
B - Blogger, Blabberize	I - iPhone/Touch Apps	P - Posterous, Podomatic	W - Wikispaces
C - Cozi, Calendar	J - Jing, Jog the Web	Q - Quia	X - Xtranormal
D - Diigo, Delicious, Doink	K - Kerpoof	R - RSS	Y - You Tube, Yaca Paca, Yahoo
E - Edu 2.0, Edublogs, Evernote, Elluminate	L - LessonWriter, Linkedin	S - Slideshare	Z - ZDNet, Zoho,
F - Flickr	M - My Note It, Mixbook, Moonk	T - Twitter, Trailfire, TeacherTube
G - Glogster, GOOGLE	N - Netvibes, Ning	U - UStream

Visitor Counter? NO, ClustrMaps!

Why would someone choose to add a ClusterMap to their website or blog instead of the ol' standby of a visitor counter.  You know the ones that look similar to your cars odometer.

There are several reasons I chose Clustermaps instead of a typical counter.  First, I LOVE visuals and what better way to "see" your visitors than via world map.   The map is great for not only seeing visitor locations but also their location is relation to yours.

Clustrmap also doesn't count every single visit to your site.  That, for me,  is for Google Statistics.  Clustrmaps instead counts unique visitors.  Sure someone might visit your site from two computers and be counted twice, but that is better than if a person visits once a week for a year and is counted 52 times:)

Here are some additional benefits:

• Easy to install on a website, blog, etc.


• Has an additional live Clustrmap to allow you and/or your students to see who is currently looking at the blog.


• Archives yearly, so you don't have one big red dot:)

Oh no!  You loose the map?  No it isn't lost just archived. There is a link above you map for archives.  Clustrmaps also sends you an email about the soon change.  But you can have your own archive too such as saving the image to add to post just like this one.  As this year starts to close, so does our 2009 Clustrmap.

Here is our archive for 2009:

Take a look at these awesome visitors!!

United States (US)	843
Australia (AU)	148
Canada (CA)	81
Norway (NO)	28
United Kingdom (GB)	26
Germany (DE)	14
Russian Federation (RU)	13
Czech Republic (CZ)	11
France (FR)	7
Belgium (BE)	5
Netherlands (NL)	5
Switzerland (CH)	4
China (CN)	4
India (IN)	4
Finland (FI)	3
Spain (ES)	3
New Zealand (NZ)	3
Argentina (AR)	3
Korea, Republic of (KR)	3
Portugal (PT)	3
Philippines (PH)	2
Thailand (TH)	2
Serbia (RS)	1
Ireland (IE)	1
Sweden (SE)	1
Poland (PL)	1
Austria (AT)	1
Japan (JP)	1
Malaysia (MY)	1
Trinidad and Tobago (TT)	1
Indonesia (ID)	1
Peru (PE)	1
Chile (CL)	1
Brazil (BR)	1
Puerto Rico (PR)	1
Hong Kong (HK)	1
Italy (IT)	1
Macedonia (MK)	1
Greece (GR)	1
Iran, Islamic Republic of (IR)	1
Taiwan (TW)	1
Bulgaria (BG)	1

Techie Tuesday: What's your Inspiration?

Inspiration Software has been around for several years, but have you been inspired to check it out?  For this week's Techie Tuesday we will look at Inspiration and how it can be used in the classroom.

According to their company website, Inspiration is an essential tool to visualize, think, organize, and learn.  What makes this software special?  With the explosion of web 2.0 sites, there are numerous free online graphic organizers such as bubbl.us and Mindmeister.

If you simply want to create semantic maps/webs, one of the free online organizers would probable fit your need.  If you want more, keep reading for highlights on Inspiration Software.

One nice component of Inspiration is how you can create a graphic organizer and with one click it can be changed into a formal outline.  Students can create a web with shapes and/or clip art filled with information.  Then it is transformed into an outline using the hierarchy of the web.  These graphic organizers include concept maps, webs, and idea maps.  The outline can be built upon using other components such as a dictionary.

Other key components include the following:

• Video and sound integration


• Templates


• Curriculum Packets

To get a varieties of class integration possibilities, I asked my fellow teachers for ways to integrate Inspiration in their classroom.  Of course bribing them with a free copy of Inspiration always helps them respond quickly:)  Here is a list of ideas to integrate Inspiration into your classroom:

• Draft and Revise writing assignments


• Research


• Visually explain math concepts and problems


• Planning (project, web site,etc)


• Semantic web of a Country


• Transform the semantic web to an outline


• Use the audio part for students to review


• Concept mapping


• Brainstorming


• Story maps


• Character analysis


• Book reports


• Creating storyboards for PowerPoint presentations


• Defining new terms


• Assist teachers in planning lessons or units


• Plot Summaries


• Historical Cause and Effect


• Cycles (recycle, weather, etc.)


• Developing a course or workshop


• Lab Procedures


• Show relationships


• In foreign language classes create an organizer that shows the English word on one side and the foreign language word equivalent on the other side with pictures as hints.


• When studying a poem, in the center concept list the name of the poem and the connecting lines contain phrases from the poem. The sub-concept explains the words in the phrase and the literary technique used such as personification.


• Faculty/district - responsibilities of committees

So are your Inspired?  What other software or sites for graphic organization are your favorite?

Techie Tuesday: Flying with Eagle

This week's Techie Tuesday focuses on a new online assessment tool provided for Louisiana teachers.

Louisiana, the Pelican state, has created an EAGLE:  Enhanced Assessment Grade Level Expectations.  This program provides immediate feedback to teachers of their student's knowledge of designated GLE's.

Don't worry, we are still the Pelican state!

Basically a teacher logs into the Eagle system, creates a test, and distributes it to his/her students.  All test items are aligned to GLE's and teachers can use the Eagles pre-made tests or create one using the item bank.

Creating your own test from scratch takes four easy steps.  After you fill out a test overview:  select the area of content (ELA or Math), grade level, and test name, you select "assemble test".

• Select your Content Standard, Comprehensive Curriculum, or Passages (ELA only).


• Pick a standard/unit, GLE, and items that correspond.


• Click "add to test".


• Repeat this process to add additional items.

So, you don't have time to create a test from scratch?  EAGLE has you covered.  Just go to the "Edit Test" tab and click "pre-made."  Select the subject area and grade level and this opens a list of pre-made tests including one for each Comprehensive Curriculum unit.

Tests can be pre scheduled giving teachers the option to set class and individual goals, time limits, and calculator options.  Scores are immediate for multiple choice, short constructive response, and interactive items.

You can analyze your student's performance using any of the six progress reports.

• Content Standard


• GLE's


• Test and Content Standard


• Test and Question Type


• Test Questions


• Instructional Need by GLE

Are you ready to get started?  Each Louisiana Parish has trained personnel.  Contact your Region TLTC or parish school board office.

If you aren't from Louisiana, do you have a similar program you would like to share?

Techie Tuesday: Feeling Bloggy?

A Blog, web log, has a variety of purposes in education. Why don't all educators blog? Probably one of three reasons:  they don't feel "tech savy" enough, aren't aware of the various uses, or think it will be time consuming.

Blogs are one of the easiest ways for an educator to interact with students, parents, and the community.  You are able to post information, keep an online journal, disperse information, and share.

Are you still asking yourself, "What is a blog"?  Visit this video, Blogs in Plain English,  before proceeding further.

So, what about the need for technology skills?  If you are able to send an email, you are able to blog.  Free sites such as edublogs and blogger have made it easy!  For either, you basically create an account, activate the account via email, and sign in.  For those with technology phobias, edublogs has you covered with a quick post option right when you log in.  Simply type and publish.

Are you not sure of how to use a blog?  Here are some ideas to get you started:

Share materials and resources
Create a class website
Hold online discussions
Start a book club
Invite guest student posters
Set-up student blogs
Establish a newsletter via blog posts
Create an administrator blog for your thoughts and invite guest posters
Personal webpage on your favorite topics

Check out other blogs for ideas.  Do you need even more ideas? Check these out.

Now, how about time consumption?  If you focus on your thoughts and not the coolest theme or pictures to add to posts, then it only takes as long as it would to send a detailed email.  Some of the best blogs are the simplest in form.

Are you feeling bloggy?

Under Construction

Please excuse our mess! This page is currently under construction while I separate my personal blogging and that for my students into two different blogs.

Most of the changes are on pages, so you wont notice much construction here on the blog post section.

Techie Tuesday: Top Ten Favs

As an educator,  it is often hard to narrow down favorite websites much less find new one's to test-out.  So, this week Techie Tuesday is bringing you ten favorite sites to check-out.

To select sites, I simply sent out a quick tweet to my Twitter PLN, Personal Learning Network, and as always within a few minutes my top ten list was formed.  Humm, was this just a quick way for me to get this week's blog post out?

Well I must admit, the post and subsequent message board are usually completed on Monday night, but no, this was a great way for me to get other people's website ideas.  This blog wouldn't be as fun if you just listened to me!

Let's get right to it.  Here are ten sites for you to check out including a brief description:
1.  Blabberize blabberize.com


Any picture can be turned into a blabbering picture.  Just select a picture, pick a mouth, record sound, and your picture is blabbering! What could students blabber about for your class?  How about that book you had them read or maybe last week's report.  They could even give you current events from the news or review for a test.


2.  Trailfire  trailfire.com

Do you have a list of favorite websites for a particular lesson or unit?  With Trailfire you can place a sticky note on each website.  These notes can be questions or other dialogue for your students.  Each note connects to the next webpage you want them to visit thus making a trail.  Need a variation?  Maybe your student could make the trail and add notes for key facts.


3.  Lesson Writer lessonwriter.com


Are you reading across the curriculum?  This is your one-stop-shop:)  You simply find a text you would like to use, copy and paste into Lesson Writer and it creates vocabulary, grammar, comprehension questions, and graphic organizers for you from the text.  Maybe you need help differentiating.  Yes you can even differentiate instruction!


4.  VoiceThread  voicethread.com

VoiceThread allows you to group conversations in one place from anywhere in the world.  Load documents, images, videos about a topic and share!  Comments can be left via telephone, websites, audio file, video, or voice text.

5.  Posterous posterous.com

Have you wanted a class website or maybe even a blog, but thought you weren't tech savy enough?  Can you email?  Then Posterous is the site for you!  With a simple email you add to the site.  YES, really!  The subject is the title of the latest post, and what you type is the body of information. You can add pictures straight off the internet with a simple drag drop of you mouse onto your Share on Posterous toolbar. You can see where I checked out posterous here.


6.  SlideShare slideshare.net

Have you been wanting to use slideshows in your class, but just don't have the time to make them?  SlideShare is the place where people all over the world share their slideshows.  You simply search for the topic for which you are searching.

7.  Wikispaces www.wikispaces.com

A great wiki site with the option of an educator site, so you don't have ads appear.  Check out last week's post for more wiki information.

8.  Diigo  www.diigo.com

A great social bookmarking site that allows you to not only organize your bookmarks but also to share with others, post stickies, and more. Here's another previous post for more Diigo information.


9.  Ning  www.ning.com

Have you ever wanted your own social network? Nings can be used by students or teachers. When you make a Ning it is focused on a particular topic such as a unit or subject.  Members are then allowed to join the Ning.  Together everyone adds information through posts and message boards.


10.  Twitter twitter.com

Now what top ten would be complete without a mention of Twitter especially since these suggestions came via tweet.  A special thanks @kimwoodard @sheasmith @ericcole @teachntech00 and @wavewash

What is your favorite site?

Techie Tuesday: Wiki Anyone?

Most teachers and students have heard of Wikipedia, some in controversial circles.  But have you actually taken a look at wikis from an educational perspective?

Close to the same time Web 2.0 was coined, Wikipedia was blossoming into the current 2.5 million articles.  What made this encyclopedia different than any other?  The ability for everyone to collaborate in building it!

How could you use a wiki in your classroom?  Let's start from the beginning.  What is a Wiki? Basically a wiki is a website that uses wiki software.  This software allows you to edit pages in real time.  Wikis are used in a variety of collaborative tools.  For this post we will focus on uses in a classroom.

You can limit wiki membership, so only your students are allowed to add and edit information.  You can also open membership to other classrooms for collaboration.  Wiki's are for the geeky and challenged techie alike.  If you can type in Word, you can have a wiki.

There are so many uses of wikis in the classroom.  What better place to cover wiki information than the collaborative education queen, Vicki Davis aka @coolcatteacher (see below).

Wikis in the Classroom View more presentations from coolcatteacher.

One of my favorite ways to use a wiki in the classroom in as a collaborative "binder".  Previously I referred to this as a notebook, but it is so much more.  Each student has an account and instead of keeping a notebook, they are required to add to the class wiki on a weekly bases.  Each unit has a page, but today they started asking to add additional information such as "Welcome to the Classroom" to help students that enter after school starts, email directions, etc.

It will be interesting to see the changes over the next few weeks.

Here are a few more ideas for wikis in the classroom:

• Class Website


• Writer's Corner


• Research Paper


• Student (or teacher) portfolios


• Project

What is your favorite classroom wiki idea?

Techie Tuesday: Take Your Student's Online

Are you looking for a way to both save time and better meet your students' needs? How about an online classroom?

Better yet, how about a FREE online classroom?

Edu 2.0 could be the answer!   Edu 2.0 is similar to Blackboard or Moodle.  The only difference is that it is 100% FREE and super easy.  You can even create a school site to manage all your teachers and students.  There is a thorough discussion board for help as well as superb one-on-one assistance!



So, what are some of the features?  I'm glad you asked.  Check them out below:

• Class/school calendar which is exportable and all items (lessons, tests, etc) are automatically added to the calendar


• Lesson plans with ability to add files, websites, etc with just a click of a button


• Various Web 2.0 components such as blogs, wikis, collaborative groups, debates, feed, and chat


• Threaded message board


• Various assessment options such as quiz, free form, discussion, survey, and offline.  There are automatic grading options similar to Quia.

With Edu 2.0, students are able to access directions as many times as needed.  They also have access to lessons and resources at school and home.  Teachers are able to save time with auto grading and by having lessons readily accessible for absent students.

Is it time you took your students online?

Have you Diigo'd today?

With the explosion of web 2.0 sites, it is sometimes hard to pick and choose sites most beneficial for you.  When it comes to social bookmarking, Diigo is a great option for not only you but also your students.

Social Bookmarking is replacing our basic web browser bookmark function or "add to favorites".  One problem with the typical bookmark function, is the fact that your bookmarks are saved on that particular computer.  With social bookmarking you are able to access your bookmarks from any computer and there are numerous extra features!

Have you Diigo'd with your students today?

Diigo includes the social bookmarking features found in most services such as one click browser bookmarking, tags, rss feeds, and sharing.  It's the special features of Diigo that makes it stand out over other sites such as del.icio.us and make it particularly useful in the classroom.  These special features include highlighting and adding sticky notes to websites!

How can you use Diigo in the classroom?  First you will want to get familiar with it yourself.   There are numerous tutorials on the web if you would like to get an overview before jumping into Diigo.  During this time you will also want to check on your district technology policies.  Next, you will want to use the basic functions with your students. The following is a possible avenue for introducing Diigo to your class:

• Discuss Internet Safety and Digital Citizenship if not previously covered*


• Send Home Required Contracts*


• Create Student Diigo Accounts: You can apply for an educators Diigo account and create the accounts for your students which is especially important for younger students because you have control of their account, or have them create their own account with parent permission.


• Add Teacher as Friend (as needed)


• Bookmarking and Tags: Walk students through using the Diigo website to bookmark and create tags.


• Sharing: Share a bookmark with your students.  Have them share one with you.  Then have them share one with a peer.


• Diigo Toolbar: Students need to become familiar with the Diigo toolbar or Diigolet depending on your browser.  This might be an item you want to reserve for older students depending on computer access and technology knowledge. If they are not signed into a computer account that only they use, they need to sign out at the end of each class.

Next is the fun part, integrating into your lessons.  Here are just a few ideas:

• Find a website (or two) that are great resources for a unit/lesson and add sticky notes to the websites.  This is a great way to add questions for students to answer and integrate higher order thinking skills.


• Teach students about picking out key information by highlighting it on a website.  Then have them do the same on another site.


• For your next group project, have students share bookmarks for information.  Better yet, pair up with another teacher maybe out of state or country and have those students build resources together for a collaborative project.


• Point out copyright information with the highlighting or sticky note feature.


• Share a great web resource with your students for each unit/lesson by sending them bookmarks.


• When students use online resources for a written project such as a research paper, have them highlight the sections they used in their paper.  Then they can create a list.


• You can also pose a problem or have students take sides of a debate.  Then they collect bookmarks, highlight key points, and add stickies to support their side.

What ideas do you have to Diigo with students? I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas!

* It is especially important to make sure students and parents are aware of the potential danger of any online site that incorporates friends, public vs. private accounts, etc.

Sticky Note Image:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/winning-information/ / CC BY 2.0

Tweet, Tweet, ... tweet?

From the blogosphere to the cover of Newsweek, you are bound to have at least heard of Twitter.  You may have even created a twitter account just to find yourself talking to .... yourself and really not understanding the twerrific tweet fascination.

Why are some people's Twitter experience totally different from others?

Let's start first where we ask our students to begin when posed with a question--research. Before you get started in twitterverse, shouldn't you know a bit about it?

I'm a teacher, so I wanted to find out how Twitter could be used in my classroom or to make me a more effective teacher.   I started simple enough by just creating an account and watching the twitterverse from the main Twitter page.  I must admit I wasn't instantly impressed.  There had to be more to the whole "Twitter Phenomenon". How were teachers using this when every other tweet wasn't appropriate for the classroom?

Surely Google could help me out with this one!  I started searching for educational uses for Twitter and realize that my use of Twitter was probably going to be more to build my effectiveness as a teacher and not necessarily as a classroom tool for students.  Now, there aren't any set rules for using Twitter, and this was just how I decided to use Twitter.

One great finding in my research was Twitter Groups.  I was able to easily join a variety of educational groups as well as groups that would help expand my resources for various units such as photography:) Day by day I started having people follow me from the various groups.  Day by day I read through great ideas and resources.  Day by day I continued to research.

One of the best suggestions came from @suewaters  One of her suggestions was to ask one of your favorite tweeters to ask his/her followers to follow you (not her exact words:).  Which also leads me to a great Twitter resource, Sue's Blog.

Twitter has become one of the best ways I have expanded my PLN.  Here are just a few ways I have use Twitter since my first tweet:

• Ask questions


• Hash Tag posts while posting on f2f workshop


• Save favorite tweets


• Attend various meet-ups and PD internationally


• Check out resources


• Answer questions


• Pretend I was attending NECC by following others NECC experience


• Post resources


• LOL


• Search for unit and class resources using "search"


• FOFL (usually @philhart or @johart )


• ReTweet and be ReTweeted


• COLLABORATE


• and my favorite....shared a pic of my boys and 81 yo grandfather climbing a "mountain" hunting for shark teeth in Kansas.  Who would have thought someone in my PLN was actually interested in visiting Kansas?!

So, are you wanting to become a more effective teacher?  Maybe you would like to save hours of searching for the right resources.  Jump into the Twitterverse!

Instruction Manual for the Classroom?

Most parents find themselves at some point wondering, "Why don't kids come with an instruction manual?" Isn't the same true in the classroom.  Imagine knowing before the school year starts:  If you need something addressed immediately,  you need to call Billy's grandfather.  Sara is having a difficult time since the passing of her grandmother, and John will harass her about it.  Jackie loves to draw so if she gets behind offer a class contract for 5 minutes of art at the end of class once her grades are up to a C.

One of the key components of high school reform is relationships.  By adding relationships through the personalization of the high school experience, not only will you decrease dropout, increase attendance, and increase successful course completion, you will also build a positive environment for student, teachers, and parents focused on success of students in real life.  

How do you personalize high school?  Create small school setting such as a Freshman Academy (school within school).  Incorporate Advisory programs where teacher keep the same kids until graduation giving them the opportunity to truly build a relationship with that group of kids.  Listen to the students and offer avenue for school involvement such as adding clubs or additional courses.  Of course the listen can go on and on.

The 2009 - 2010 school year embarks our "official" third year of High School Reform focused on Relationships - Relevance - Rigor. There is a common thread that runs through each conference, study tour, research avenues, speakers, and professional developments.  That common thread is to begin with relationships; It is the building block for all other reform.

Summer 2006 was our jump-start toward high school reform.  A group of thirteen of us traveled to the Model Schools Conference in Washington DC.  We had received a grant that suggested traveling to this conference using grant funds.  At first we were just going to send a small group and spend remaining funds elsewhere, but then we talked with another school who had attended the conference the summer prior.  We set out to take as many as possible and hoped to as much out of it as they did.

Did they give us an educational instruction manual? No, there will never be a one-size-fits-all magic potion that will transform every school.  But it did open our eyes to hundreds of successful practices around the nation and the common thread, relationships.  Of course not all high school reform "officially" falls under the 3R's of Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships.  But after several years of researching high school reform (even prior to summer 2006), it is easy to see that most any school reform can be sorted into these three categories, and the most successful practices are built first on relationships.  These relationships are not just teacher and student.  It is for everyone involved in education:  administration, teacher, students, parents, staff, community.

How have we started to build relationships at our school?

1)  Study Tours
2)  Conferences
3)  Advisory Program (TEAM Tider)
4)  Mentor Program (Minden's Most Wanted)
5)  Freshman Academy
6)  Positive Behavior Support (PBS)
7)  Freshman Orientation
8)  PTO 
9)  Added clubs according to student interest (Nature, Beta, JETS)
10)  Adding courses according to student interest (Mixed Martial Arts, Robotics, Graphic Design and Animation)

We are continuing to "tweak" our reform efforts, but have already had great success which is easily documented in our school data including dropout, referrals, attendance, and pass rates.  Though a lot of our focus has been building relationships, we have also targeted rigor and relevance.  For the 2009 - 2010 school year we are bridging the gap between us and our feeder schools as well as increasing rigor and relevance through project based learning.

Though there will never be a "fit-all" manual, we can build our own manual specific for our school.  What practices have had success outcomes for your school?

Sum-Sum-Summertime

How many summers have you looked back on to say to yourself, "Where did it go?" only to quickly answer yourself, "Work." ? Of course there is always some fun thrown into summer, but too many teachers' summers are gone before they began because this is the one time of year you can actually easily attend PD, catch up on projects from the previous year, and work on new projects for the upcoming year.

I am glad to announce:  Not this summer!  I started the summer leaving town for four days to visit family, vowing only to work on Tuesday's, and committed to finishing house projects before school projects.  I know a few of you are already chuckling and wondering, "So how's that working for you?"

Well upon returning from our trip to the beach (visiting daughter and son-in-law), I decided only Tuesdays wasn't too realistic with all the existing projects pending due dates.  So I quickly changed this to working the month of May and starting "Tuesday Only" in June. Today, Friday, June 5th I returned home from school after 4:00.  Ok, so that isn't working for me yet. But surely I've finished some home projects.  Well not unless you count bringing home paint swatches and purchasing a chair from a consignment shop.

I guess I should be pretty frustrated at this point seeing as I'm entering my third week of summer without sticking to any of my summer plans.  But I'm not. Why?  I'm a teacher, and teachers can't just turn work on and off because it's summertime.  

Sure I love going in late, working from home, and not working full weeks. I love planning for next year to be the best year ever!  I love creating new activities to stretch students' brains as far as they can possibly stretch.  And I love learning even more through my PLN and PD.  I love being a teacher because it is more than a job; it is one of society's vital organs!

Why Let Students Blog?

The ringing in of 2009 also marked my students true endeavor into the world of blogging. Though their first official post, Welcome, wasn't until late in the month of January, we began our blogging adventure several weeks prior.  To say that this adventure has been "everything I imagined" would be an understatement.  Instead this blogging adventure has become more than I could have ever imagined.

Why let students blog?  The list is infinite:  ownership of writing, connection to the world, motivation, authentic audience (not just teacher), multiple learning styles, prepare students for digital citizenship, gallery of class projects, students as teachers, parent connection,....

If you would like a true list of reasons for students to blog, it wouldn't take more that an afternoon of reading blogs to run across everything from the top 20 reasonsto winning a T-shirt:) You can even hear about blogging straight from the mouth of students.  Why did my students start blogging?  I wanted them to be part of social technology outside of myspace.  I wanted them to actually see "outside of the box" outside of their town, their state, and their nation. I wanted them to take ownership in their education.  And I wanted my student from a town of less than 15,000 to see that they truly are part of this world and this world is open to them.  Any classroom can have a great journal with provoking higher order thinking questions, but that journal can't interact with the students, it can't ask questions, and it can't expand students view and knowledge.

Over the last few months, my students have connected with other teachers and students around our nation and around the world.  After earning their blog, they were first introduced to Ann Michaelsen's blog as well as her students. This helped us to start small and "straighten out the kinks" such as internet filters.  This collaboration has earned a post of it's own on a later date, but basically we started with both of our classes posting about their hometown.  The students visited each other's blogs and commented including many questions.  Ms Michelsen's class was learning about American government so my students' next posts were on our government including more detail about levels and branches of government. It has been GREAT! Both of our classes are now participating in Challenge 09, in which we complete various challenges each week.There are over 1000 students from all over the world participating in this challenge.

This post actually is leading up to the week 5 challenge to teachers.Ms. Wyatt is presenting at a conference in July, Blogging Safely in the Big Wide World".  She asked teacher's involved in the challenge to answer the following questions.  I have been wanting to post on blogging for quite some time, and felt it perfect timing to incorporate these questions and responses:

• Why did you choose the blogging platform you are using? I choose Edublogs for our class blogging platform for several reasons.  First would definitely be the fact that everyone on Edublogs seems to be focused on education is some fashion.  I wasn't able to find any blogs on topics that were inappropriate for my students.  Another great safety feature is that there are different levels of blogging.  This gave my students the freedom to create their blogs yet I receive copies of all comments and posts. I also like the gmail shortcut in which I could use my own email address and add a "+#" to the end.  That way none of my student's email addresses were attached to their blog. Our technology coordinator also approved of the site and unblocked it for our freedom of use during school hours.  Last but certainly not least, would be the fact that Edublogs has a tremendously helpful group of people:  James, Dr. Mike, and Sue Waters.  James and Dr. Mike answer all you technical issues and keep everything running smooth.  Oh and fix thing that you mess up;)  Sue is the Edublog educator geru! Her blog is filled with tips, tutorials, and tons of ideas!  No matter which platform you choose, you will find Sue's blog helpful.


• What have you found most easy or difficult in blogging with students? The two hardest things for me would be internet filtering and letting go of perfection.  When we paired up with Ann's class it took alittle over a week to get her blog unblocked.  Then each one of the student blogs had to be individually unblocked (another week).  We thought we were "good to go" until a student tried to post a comment and we found that all the comment pages for each student had to be unblocked:) The other difficulty for me was letting go of perfection.  It was hard to have students post without me correcting their writing.  But I wanted the post to be their writing NOT mine.  So we stuck to the original plan:  They write a post and have a peer check.  If at anytime they have a question or want an opinion, they can ask me.  Otherwise I just hold mini writing workshops at the beginning of "blogging time."  Their writing has improved tremendously over the last few months!  Especially their attention to editing.


• What have you done to make sure your students are blogging safely? We have had several mini workshops on digital citizenship. Students have posted and commented on social and ethical technology issues. One great resource is iSafe. Students post first name last initial only. All accounts were created using teacher email.  Copies of all posts and comments are sent to teacher.


• What do you think students get out of blogging? confidence, digital citizenship, global connection, writing ownership, education ownership, collaboration, .....


• How do you find ways for students to get their global audience? There are thousands of ways to get a global audience.  I choose to stay more within an area I already knew, Sue Water's Blog. She posted a list of classes wishing to connect.  Another thing I feel helped grow our audience was getting involved with twitter.  Several of my "twitter friends" have taken the time to stop by student blogs and comment. Check out our class ClusterMap of global visitors!


• What recommendations would you give to new teachers to blogging? 1)  Get involved in blogging yourself.  2)  Look at numerous teacher and student blogs for ideas. 3)  Have a detailed plan.  Here's my class about blogging info. Ill be adding a page on this during the summer. 4)  Get involved building your own PLN through twitter, nings, etc. 5) Start small

It's hard to put into words the benefits of blogging in my classroom.  The writing element itself is enough to win over an educator.  Just take a look at any student blog and compare their first post to one of their more recent posts.  The same is true about the comments they leave on other blogs.  It has been so easy incorporating other subject matter into my class through the incorporation of blogging.  The students connection to the world would be one of the greatest advantages!

Why did you choose for your students to blog?  What benefits have you seen in your class?

Techie Tuesday: 31 Day Challenge Days 20 - 23

Anyone up to a challenge?  How about two?

I've been slowly working my way through the original 31 Day Challenge by Darren Rowse. It is hard to believe there are only 7 more challenges remaining.  As you read in my last post, my class and I joined another challenge - 2009 Blogging Challenge.  This post is actually a reflection on my 31 Day Challenge, but if you are looking for some blogging fun or maybe you would like to just improve your skills, there is still time to join both challenges. 

My last post actually summarizes and reflects on my reader survey for day 20. Throughout this challenge Ive been discussion various things with my PLN. Some of those are readers. The 31 day challenge has been a great kick start to getting readers:) For day 20,  I revisited a survey I conducted awhile back on web 2.0 and wrote a post on the results last week. I will definitely come back to this at a later date and run more surveys. I used poll daddy and it was very quick and easy.  Day 21's challenge asked us to make someone famous, like I have that ability :) lol.  I did include @ccroad in my last post and asked readers to add her to their twitter.  

I really enjoyed day 22's challenge to make readers aware of my blog basics.  There were several topic to choose from and I basically choose to cover the creation of my blog and it's purpose.  This is a great reflection to do regularly!  I am actually still working on day 23 in which we were suppose to go on a dead links hunt. I used the one Sue suggested, W3C link checker. I am still checking links. It did find categories that I had made when creating the blog, but didn't actually use.  This is a great resource.  After I finish the blog, I will be checking out our school website for deadlinks!

So are you ready for a challenge?  If so, here are two for you to consider:

1)  31 Day Challenge  

wiki:  http://31daychallenge.wikispaces.com
contact:  Mrs. D  tidertechie@gmail.com

2)  2009 Challenge

blog:   http://wyatt67.edublogs.org/2009-all-the-challenges-in-one-spot/
contact: Miss Wyatt  tasteach56@gmail.com

Reflecting About Tidertechie

My students and I are working through the 2009 Blogging Challenge.  Last week's challenge was to work on our "about page."  I'm sure this gives a few of my readers chuckles as I am also working through the 31 Day Challenge with several of my PLN friends and have already completed this task once.  Isn't it funny that you can be given the same task in a short amount of time and still find needed improvements? The experience was especially fun with all the students' inputs.  Actually as I write this I keep thinking of a couple "about page" changes I haven't yet completed.

 

Last week's class challenge along with day 22 in the 31 day challenge has me reflecting on my overall blog. I started this blog as an extension of my classroom website to bring in more interactive elements.  The process seemed grueling at first not because of the blog itself, but instead the red tape to get the site unblocked for use at school.  I can honestly say I had an entirely different outlook trying to add this element back in November versus in years past.  In the past after one (or maybe two) attempts to get something unblocked I would move on to another avenue that would be "good enough".  This time was different.  If they wouldn't unblock it, I would just give my students a weekly blog assignment.            

 

Yes, I realize that many students don't have computers at home, but this would give them 7 days in which to complete the relatively short weekly assignment.  We are in a small town with a community center and library within walking distance of many homes.  I also talked my husband into my "much needed" iphone. Thus if a student couldn't use the resources, they could just use my phone internet to read and post comments.  During January and February, the phone actually came in handy with our connection to Ms. Michaelson's Norway class.  It took over a month to get the class as well as the individual student's blogs unblocked.  Then I had to request the comment page for each student:)

 

Why a new attitude?  First was my "get out of the box" moment when I decided to  get involved with web 2.0 elements even if I couldn't incorporate them into my class because of internet filter limits.  Next, as I became more involved in web 2.0 elements such as twitter and meet up sessions with people from around the globe, I truly understood that my student's were being left behind.  

 

When I first started to design the blog, I had trouble deciding what to include.  I wanted the blog to be just that, a blog.  So I started by revamping our class website.  I striped it down to the basics.  Then I started on the blog.  I decided to record the process through "creating a class blog" posts. Ok, this posting thing is pretty cool, so I quickly decided I would not only use posting for my student information but also for various personal interest in education.  My personal posts (as well as many others) have become great post examples for my students.  Though I don't post as often as I would like, I know this will change during the summer!  

 

 The students started by learning about blogs We used the blog daily for assignments.  Then, they each had the opportunity to earn their own blog. The addition of student blogs was definately a highlight to our class blog. We actually change to a Web Design course this week, so I hope we will even have more time for the blogs in the upcoming two weeks.

 

If you would like to follow our blogging adventure, click the apple rss feed icon on the top right of the page.  To learn more about rss feeds, including setting up your own igoogle page, see Sue Water's post.

Techie Tuesday: All Aboard? Survey Results

Towards the end of January, I wrote an All Aboard? post asking for opinions on helping other teachers "see the power" of learning more about web 2.0 and creating their own PLN.  This post included a Poll Daddy survey of the following:

• Where would you suggest a teacher get involved first?


• What is your favorite PLN or Web 2.0 website for newcomers?


• What web 2.0 tools should a teacher not be without?


• List an activity you would include in a workshop for teachers.

Are you ready for the results?

Some interesting facts about this survey include the fact that all of the respondents took a little over 6 minutes to complete the survey and represented at least 5-8 countries.  The exact number of countries can't be determined because three respondents were listed as an unknown location.

Here is the breakdown of the results:

• Where would you suggest a teacher get involved first?
  
  
  
  • Workshop x 3
  
  
  • Twitter x3
  
  
  • Other x 4
  
  
  • Blog
  
  
  • Forum
  
  
  
  


• What is your favorite PLN or Web 2.0 website for newcomers?
  
  
  
  • Del.icio.us
  
  
  • Classroom 2.0 x 3
  
  
  • Wordle
  
  
  • Sue Waters PLN sites x 5 Edublogger Personal Blog PLN Wiki Mobile Technology in TAFE
  
  
  • Don't have one- difference for different participants
  
  
  • Michele Martin
  
  
  • Tech4Learning Connect
  
  
  
  


• What web 2.0 tools should a teacher not be without?
  
  
  
  • Del.icio.us
  
  
  • Diigo
  
  
  • Twitter
  
  
  • Digital Camera
  
  
  • Blogs:  example - Edublogs
  
  
  • Google:  igoogle, google docs, google earth, etc.
  
  
  • Voice Thread
  
  
  • Skype
  
  
  • Virtual Classroom:  example - DiscoverE
  
  
  • Wikis:  example - wikispaces
  
  
  • Forums
  
  
  • ask500people
  
  
  • Audacity
  
  
  • Notaland
  
  
  • Prezi
  
  
  • Photo storing and sharing:  example - flickr, animoto, bubblr
  
  
  • Podcasting:  example - audacity, podomatic
  
  
  • Wordpress
  
  
  • PBwiki
  
  
  • Screencasts
  
  
  • Ning
  
  
  • Facebook
  
  
  • YouTube
  
  
  • RSS reader:  example- google reader
  
  
  • Zoho
  
  
  
  


• List an activity you would include in a workshop for teachers. For these responses, I copied their ideas below.
  
  
  
  • Activity 1:  Pass out or take out your digital camera. Ask participants to form into small groups and give them a simple photography assignment. Give them fifteen minutes to go take the photos and then report back. I've done this, you can't get them back in the room! They laugh, they have fun, they run all over (we took over the hotel lobby where I was doing the workshop!) and they learn how energizing, interactive and useful it can be to use digital photography and visual literacy in the classroom.
  
  
  • Activity 2:  Voicethread...learn how to develop one and try it out with students. Share it with parents.
  
  
  • Activity 3:  Create and add to a collaborative wiki. (suggested by two survey participants)
  
  
  • Activity 4:  I have never done this, but I just think it is the greatest idea.  I can't remember where I learned it from- giving out your twitter name and mobilenumber and getting delegates to text your twitter account with instant feedback throughout the day.
  
  
  • Activity 5:  Start a blog with a local topic flavour.  Get them to begin posting and commenting before they leave. Then show them examples of educational blogs that are in use.
  
  
  • Activity 6:  Live interaction with others worldwide - eg through Twitter, Skype or virtual room
  
  
  • Activity 7:  Use blogs and wikis for teaching
  
  
  • Activity 8:  I would literally walk participants through setting up a blog and writing a post so that they could see how easy it is.
  
  
  • Activity 9:  Voicethread - find up to 3 images (use creative commons search if that doesn't make it too difficult) and use it to describe a belief that you have about how students learn. Include text and voice recording. Invite someone in the room to make a comment on your voicethread. (Or, a small group could create a joint Voicethread of their main beliefs.)
  
  
  • Activity 10:  Form small 'creative clusters' so that people join with a friend or two to practice something new like Delicious or Google Docs. The biggest impact activity we have done recently is to Skype in another educator to join the chat.
  
  
  • Activity 11:  Just Tweet:)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  What does this tell me?
  
  
  First, I want to visit some of these sites that I haven't incorporated.  I have checked out a few, and they were blocked by our Smartfilter:( Second, I should have found a way to incorporate "other" with a place to type the "other".  I wonder if those three people in question on were referring to the same great place, and I just missed out on it.
  
  
  I'm really glad that "workshop" was one of the desired methods to lure other teachers.  We have one this summer and I hope it is met with a great response. I'm trying to get a few twitters out of the faculty before school lets out.  We have one so far, @ccroad.  She hasn't had time to see it's full potential yet, so drop her a line or two, and a follow.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Lastly, I am extremely thrilled with the fact that the results show that I am on the right track with web 2.0 integration!  To think, this journey really just started in November.  The activity ideas are great, and will be implemented in same fashion.
  
  
  Was anyone surprised by del.icio.us ranking as one of the favorite web 2.0 site, but Diigo didn't?  I am a Diigo user, so I would like to know if I'm missing something by not using del.icio.us.

Techie Tuesday: 31 Day Challenge Days 12 - 20

Yes, I realize that today isn't Tuesday, but why not get a jump start on next week's blogging?  

I have finally completed another week of the 31 Day Challenge.  This was definitely a "one thing leads to another" challenge week for me.  I have gotten very good at day 12's task to introduce myself to other bloggers.  This task was much easier due to my twitter addiction:)  I decided to branch outside of my PLN and googled to find someone blogging about high school reform.  I found Mike's blog post about small learning communities.  I quickly emailed him an introduction and question about his work.

For day 14 we were asked to analyze our blog competition.  Mine is so new that I actually spend more time looking at other blogs for ideas not for competition:)  Day 15 asked us to make our posts sticky by adding rss feed to the bottom of posts.  So I created this feed image.  Im still working on getting it to work correctly.



I wasn't able to complete the day 16 challenge, because I can't add the code to my blog.  It was still informative to sign up and learn about the heat map. I might create one for our school website:) This led me to my most time consuming task...day 18:  sneeze page.  I decided to create a sneeze page about the 31 day challenge hopeing more of our teachers would decide to join at a later date.  When I went to add the page my theme caused the nav link to no longer be one nice neat line and instead became a double.  Im sure some of you can guess that this led me to searching for more themes...which led to creating a new header...which led to editing my widget sizes....

I guess it was time for a new look, but I really wanted to wait until summer to venture into a new theme.  I really want a three column so maybe that will come later.

Thank goodness the next two tasks were easy enough:) I already respond to all comments on my blog and interact with my PLN and readers frequently.  Ok, not so frequently over the past few weeks but I was snowed under:)

Adding the ACTION to Lights, Camera, ...

With some sadness we are officially ending our photography unit and moving on to applying some of these skills to our new unit Movie Making.  If you would like to see some of the photography projects, stop by my student blogs to view their photo books.  I was out the day they uploaded, so some might not be published until Monday afternoon.  

OK students, it is time to begin our Movie Making:)  Are you surprised to know that we are going to apply some of the same principals to movies?  Is there a particular photography technique you think movies, advertisements, etc use?

For every unit, we start out with research and move to organization.  We will combine these two for this unit and thus you will not complete a "Chat About It" for Movie Making.  We will start with two group storytelling activities and move to learning more about storytelling using the below video.

 
 

Then on to complete a quick storyboard using a movie clip.  You will complete this unit in four day, so it will be important to stay focused and ASK questions immediately!  Are you curious about your project? Well, you know I was at an apple training last week. Do you ever wonder what we do while we are gone?  Here is a hint:

Smoking Kills

Watch it a second time and count how many cuts (changes in camera view) there are in the movie.  What do you think our story starter was?

Your unit project will be a group movie with a common story starter (given in class).  Here are our standards and objectives for this unit:

Standards:  1, 2, 3, 6

Objectives (9-12): A, E, G, H, J, K

Getting Connected!

Have you ever wondered what life was like outside of your hometown?  None of my multimedia students have traveled outside of the US and most have travel experience limited to the southern states.

How can you travel the world in a US high school?  One class at a time:)

During December, Sue Water's wrote a post on connecting classrooms through Skype. I eagerly signed up even though I wasn't sure if we could connect via Skype due to current blocking by smartfilter.  I even purchased an iphone over the holidays to be used as an alternative. You can imagine my surprise after the holidays when I discovered that Twitter had been unblocked.  I quickly contact one teacher I had corresponded with about the alternative to Skype.  The celebration was short lived as Twitter only remained unblocked for about a week:)

Thank goodness I signed up for comment responses to be email to me!  Ann Michaelsen contacted me January 21st through Sue's original skype post. She had difficulty using Skype due to time differences.  We both corresponded on various ideas.  Ann's students in Norway are working on English in Social Studies.  They were ahead of us with blogging which served as great examples for my students.

All my multimedia students now have blogs and wrote their first post,  welcome message, Monday. We are working on a photography unit, and the students are excited about adding some of their own photos to their hometown post.  Ann's students are also writing a hometown post this week.

Due to internet filtering, we are having difficulty correctly seeing Ann's blog as well as her students.  Our parish unblocked the site, but their is a hang-up with the theme or something.  They are working on it, but it won't slow us down.  Starting today, my iphone will be used for students to post comments on the Norway students' blogs.  Many of my students have already stopped by this morning to show me the pictures they took to add to their own hometown post.

It is so exciting seeing the students really light up about this opportunity.  I hope you will stop by to visit their newly created blogs.  You can access them by following the tab, student blogs.  Their hometown posts will vary according to their likes and hobbies.  My students are showing our hometown "Through Their Eyes."  If it is someone that enjoys the outdoors, then you will probably learn about out trees, hunting, etc.

I am so excited to the world being opened to us through web 2.0:)

Techie Tuesday: 31 Day Challenge Days 6 - 11

Oh, the irony I found in day seven's challenge.  Have you ever been lackadaisical about something only to have it bite you back?

While completing day seven's challenge to plan the next week's posting, I thought to myself, "This won't take long 'cause I already have it figured out."  Maybe I should have stopped right then and gotten started on actually writing because an entire week flew by while the plan remained just that a plan.

I really enjoyed the day 8 challenge to comment on a blog that I haven't commented on before.  I visited everyones blog or emailed them.  I tried to do this again last week, but seem to have too much on my plate.  On a good note, I did get my daughter wedding invitations created and mailed on time:)

Declutter?  I can't get my house decluttered much less my sidebar.  I did switch around a few things on my sidebar for day 10.  Honestly I need others to comment on likes and dislikes to know where to go from here.  I do have two category links, but wasn't able to get one to delete.  Maybe someone reading will have a solution to this!

I LOVE Google statistics!!!  It is so great to be able to see where your visitors are arriving from and what they look at while visiting.  The students are amazed at all the locations that are popping up on our cluster maps!

As far as the actual statistics that I went through, my bounce rate was lower for twitter visitors and the about page statistics have gone up tremendously since the start of this challenge - thanks challenge participants;)

My favorite two challenges so far have been the about page and the google statistics.  What is your favorite challenge activity?

All Aboard?

You are standing in a room full of teachers.  What can you say about PLN or Web 2.0 to make them see it's power?  

Think about it.  Before you even begin, five are already lost in the latest gossip.  You begin talking and three more are lost asking, "hey do we have to do this stuff?"  You start talking about a "tweet" and the nature club sponsor begins to be lost in a fog of bird calls.  


I value my PLN's opinion.  I would like to have your feedback on ways to open other's eyes to the world of web 2.0. Please complete the below survey.  I will post on the results next week.  

 




 Thank you so much for your help! If you would like to share even more, we would love to hear your comments below.

Techie Tuesday: 31 Day Challenge Days 1 - 5

A few week's back I was catching up with my google reader feeds and spotted Sue Water's post, Life is One Big Top Ten In it she mentioned

One of my Top personal blogging I want To-Do’s is to revisit the 31 Day Project by working through Steve Dembo’s 30 Days to Being A Better Blogger!

Oh cool, there are directions to being better at blogging without all this trial and error (oh, and error). I started the 31 Day Challenge by myself while out for Christmas break.  I was actually also working the Steve Dembo challenge to Be a Better Blogger.  I thought hey these are quick little tasks, I can do two at once:)  



Reality check!  I first of all spent more time than I originally thought completing the challenges.  Not that they are hard.  I just have a very active brain and one challenge leads to another idea, and another, and you get the picture!  So I decided to only complete the 31 Day Challenge and then skim Steve's.

Via Sue's Suggestion, I tweeted that I was starting the challenge to see if anyone else wanted to join in.  That is when I met Bill and then we met Ana and Pam.  Basically one thing led to another and then Sue posted about the challenge and we are currently up to 15 participants.  Of course, that could change any minute.  

So how has the first 5 days gone?  GREAT!

I feel that day one is a vital part of building your PLN.  Each email, comment, or twitter response acts as building blocks to build your Personal(professional) Learning Network.  Day two I will probably visit several times during this challenge.  The audit of a blog by people outside of you local support system (or family) is GREAT! I loved Jenny Wood's idea to post a poll and then send out a tweet.  I need to change a few things from my latest audit via Sue Water's.  Then I want to tweet and poll:)

Joining a forum (day 3) is a great resource.  I found it helpful to search for various topics as well as expanding my PLN members.  The interlink activity for day 4 is a great idea I had never thought about. I will do more of this as I add posts to my blog.  Of course there had to be another challenge I would want to visit more than once, about page audit (day 5). I completed this challenge and am already ready to revamp again.  I think I might be visiting day 2 and 5 every week:)

Worldly Wednesday: Go Green!

How many pieces of paper per year does the average teacher use?  How many sticky notes are sold per year?  The average tree produces 80,500 sheets of paper.  That seems like quite a bit until you compare that to the annual use of paper.  It requires 786 million trees to produce the worlds annual paper supply.



Is your classroom Green?  I really hadn't given this much thought, because I am not worksheet teacher. Ok, now that I think about it, I am quite a sticky note fanatic.  Oh and when writing grants I tend to print numerous copies to write all over. Maybe I am being pretty wasteful.

Can our class really make a difference?   YES! If you recycle 2 sheets per day for a year, you would save approximately 42 trees.

Our Class Challenge
We are going to go green for the first nine weeks of this semester to see how close to paperless we can get.  How are we going to do this?

•  Notebooks kept on computer


•  Student Jumpdrives


•  Parents communicate by phone and email


•  Class handouts using Box Widget


•  Online quizzes

How much paper do you think we will use?  Please give us your feedback by participating in this poll:



 

 

 

What other steps could we take to conserve paper?

Techie Tuesday: 2.0 Red Tape

Do you ever feel like you are wrapped in red tape so tight you are unable to move?  In order to implement an innovative classroom technique/project, we sometimes get so caught up in trying to "straighten out" the red tape that we end up with eyes focused on the tape instead of our original  innovative idea.

I have been fortunate to work with excellent principals who are "all about the students" and allow the freedom to dream big.  When I began teaching at Minden High, I had a one computer classroom. Implementation of technology to broaden skills was key to reaching student learning styles.  My first purchase was an Averkey in order for all students to participate in tech rich lessons by connecting our channel one tv to the class computer.  By the time I took over the computer education courses, my math classroom had grown into a model room which included a class set of Palms, Smartboard, projector, mini lab, and CPS.

Why then did I get so focused on the red tape of web 2.0 implementation?  While I searched for a blog, wiki, etc that would be ok'd by the "internet filter committee," I totally revamped the class website four times in three years.  Each time making it just alittle more interactive with approved components and each time falling way short of what I was imagining.  Granted the students didn't mind; they were perfectly happy with a class website and the ability to journal and message the teacher.  My eyes were focused on the compliance within smartfilter.

November 2008 marked the first time that a blog was allowed to be added to the website approval list and thus not blocked.  You guessed it...Edublogs!  To say I was ecstatic would probably be an understatement:) I quickly started building the blog and learning about all the new widgets and such I could add to this now interactive site. Of course it would have taken much longer to learn the ends and outs if it wouldn't have been for Sue Waters, James, and Dr. Mike at Edublogs.  To finally have these great tools to use with my students was like a dream come true, but I also quickly realized that there was a lot I had missed out on waiting to cut the red tape.

So what would I do differently?  First of all I wouldnt have focused on smartfilter compliance and instead would have had my eyes on the world of web 2.0.  To do this I would have read more, researched more, and reach out more.  Secondly I would have focused on my own PLN instead of only focusing on student's use of web 2.0.

What components do I think would have been my first stop?  That one is pretty easy.  I would have created my igoogle page  (for organization) including the google feed, and joined Twitter(for socialization).

More on these first stops on next week's Techie Tuesday.

What first steps would you recommend for a web 2.0 newbee?