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: 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?

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?

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?

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.

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

B3: Be Better Blogger

A new year's resolution I can keep, B³ :  Be a Better Blogger :)

While catching up on some of my rss reads, I happened across a post, Life is One Big Top Ten, on Sue Water's TAFE site .  In it she mentioned Steve Dembo's 30 Days to Be a Better Blogger. Ok I must admit I am a total geek, but it runs in my genes.  How many people have a 88 year old grandfather that blogs? I have been totally ecstatic that our parish finally opened up a blog site!  I have been waiting for years to have an interactive site for my students.

Since the unblocking (November '08) of Edublogs, I have been focused on the integration aspect of blogging:

• Organization of blog pages


• Steps for students to earn blogs


• Trial runs with students


• Finding great widgets


• Daily Journal dilemma (keep old, use edublogs, revamp)


• and so on..

I hadn't really focused on how my blog looks to the rest of the world.  My students love it, so it has to be great, right? LOL  Ok, maybe not:)

I am officially making a New Year's Resolution to complete Steve Dembo's 30 Days to Be a Better Blogger.  Wow!  a resolution I can actually keep:)  I didn't even take a sneak peak at what was going to happen over the next 30 days of this journey. I have already completed day one which involved revamping my about page.

UPDATE:  Great suggestion @suewaters, I am going to also work through the original challenge,  31 day challenge.  From what I can tell, it won't be too time consuming to complete both.  It is also broken into two categories, so challenges are different for beginners vs. intermediate.  Pretty cool!

January's Widget

Computer Science wanted to make sure and post January's widget before they end the semester tomorrow:(

I'm sure you will really enjoy it!

http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/duck-hunt

UPDATE:  We have begun second semester, so the widget has been replaced with a link to the widget due to auto playing of music.

Student Show and Tell

Today was Show and Tell for Web Design students.  I only have one word for it, AWESOME!  I can't believe how far they have come in such a short time:)

We are working on a Game Programming unit using Alice.  This unit will be moved to the multimedia class in the future, but for this semester I was testing it out with my web design students.  Each student was required to show the current Alice world they are working on.  Then they demonstrated a "how to" on something they included in their world.

It was great to see so many of the same functions/events configured in different ways and thus producing a different end result.  Most of the student already have the inactive component incorporated in their world.  All of the Show and Tells gave students ideas.

Way to GO!

Hey, someone needs to add an Alice page to our wiki.  That would be a great place to collaborate information.  I sure wish you all could stay for next semester:)

December's Widget of the Month

My computer science class really liked all the widget available, so we are starting a widget of the month post! Of course Christmas is on everyone's minds, so here is this month's widget:

Get the Christmas Countdown widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox!

Stressed?

Well, some of you were starting to get pretty stressed on Alice today, but we had a lot of laughs with all your "learning" experiences.  I thought you might like a break during Friday's lesson:)  Of course I have to relate it to our unit, but....

My first attempt at game programming was when my brother and I created pong for our family computer. No, I wasnt a geek...we were copying it out of a book and then changed a few things to change colors and such.  Ok so we didnt have cable.  Anyway, I found a GREAT widget for you:)  

When you start feeling  aUGHHH... play a game of pong.  If it doesnt show up below then it is Smartfiltered:(

Get the Flash Pong widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox!

Unit 6 Game Programing~WD

Welcome to the world of game programming!  Of course you will find your daily directions on the lesson page, but this post will give you an introduction to the unit.  Each day will also have various demos according to the lesson.  The game programming unit takes you behind the doors of creating games and even give you hands-on practice as a graphic programmer who developes and modifies complex 3D graphic renderings.   I'm sure some of you are already thinking about what sprites you want to make and game ideas. Other's of you are in a panic thinking you only have a few weeks to learn a new programming language. This unit is just an introduction to game programming for which we will use the Alice program.   By using Alice, the first several steps of a graphics programmer has already been completed. These steps required a good grasp of math concepts such as vector and matrix math, quaternions and linear algebra.   These math concepts are really just an extension of what you are currently learning right here at MHS:)   You will be surprised at how much you will learn in just a few weeks!  



Step One: Research

Of course, we will start this unit like all others with...RESEARCH. You already know that during this unit you will primarily play some of the roles of a graphic programmer, but there are more roles behind the gaming industry.

Your first project is to create a Chat About It while researching game programming.  Check out the Mrs. D's File Cabinet for your project guidelines.

Get started researching!  As you do, make sure and add to our Game Programming wiki  on Tiderwiki.  As you find good websites, add them to your Diigo; you will need some good ones for your Chat About It:) Dont limit yourself to our class library collection!  You also have access to the MHS library, parish library, and even online libraries such as IPL.

Jumpstart Research Topics	Randy Pausch Video  Creator of Alice Software Project
Game Programming Roles in Creating Game Programming Top Names in Gaming Industry Top Gaming Artists Alice Software 3D Vectors Math Behind Game Programming

Step Two:  Organize

Ok this is probably your least favorite section of every unit.  Yet every unit requires some form of organization.  I have some good news, the "true" organization involved in Game Programming has already been completed for you.  I would like you to know about the organizational structure, documentation and code architecture, involved.  Once you are in the Alice program you will be able to see some of this organization.  You will need your storyboard for the planning stage, because this is where you will organize your plan using the software.

• What is the design document?


• How does data structure affect the organization of software?

Step Three:  Sneak Peak

Before you can plan your programming, you need to get a taste of the Alice software.  

1)  Download Alice

2)  Drag and Drop Alice in your Applications

3)  Open and Play:)

Don't worry, you aren't going to "mess up" the program.  You are learning through "trial and error."  There are built in tutorials you will find when you open the software.  Remember my first rabbit on Alice was going to move his arm about a meter and instead it detached from his body about a meter.  It reattached without any need for surgery!  From which I learned detail, detail, detail.  I was moving too quick, not using a tutorial, and forgetting detail.  HAVE FUN!

Step Four:  Plan

Ok, take out your storyboard and plan what your character(s) will do.  Don't leave out scene(s).  Remember to think about the detail involved in making these actions.  Do you want to include other student's characters?  

Step Five:  Create

Get busy creating.  As you learn new tricks, make sure and post about it in the discussion board.

Step Six:  Share

Game Programming Forum

[forum:2492]

Chuckle, Chuckle, ...thought of the day

I have a piece of advice that I "oh so" recently learned. It isn't a good idea to delete the title of your blog. Im sure someone is thinking, "But why would I ever do that?". Well, I was helping a student see different ways you can change up a layout with banners and such. We decided to see what it would look like to put the title of the page on a horizontal banner with links under it, instead of at the very top of the page. you can imagine the rest:)

But thanks to Edublogs and of course James:) Everything is back up and running!

Easy Print Tutorial

While I was looking for something else, I happened across a great tutorial for creating Edublogs.  It does include a mixture of Wordpress screen shots mixed with Edublogs, so if small inconsistencies panic you - just use forum searches or Sue's blog.

Of course this led me the idea to see what a google search would find. It led to a search result of almost 300,000 hits:) Here are two full tutorial sites you might enjoy:

http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/DE/Web2TL/blogging.html
http://teachteach.com/workshop/

And finally, if you are having problems organizing your classes, this page has several tips including using categories or topics (about middle of page).

Google Calendar

Well, the Google calendar is up and running:)  Make sure when you create your calendar that the events are marked public, so they will show up when you embed it.  Also, make sure to check to make the calendar public.  Follow this link for the directions to embed from Sue Water's Blog.
I made mine only show the agenda with no tabs, print, date, etc.  I will probably add a link to the full calendar right below, so students have the option to view everything.  Also, I would like to eventually have more than one calendar fed into one so each class is color coded.  If I would ever get an iphone I might even create a personal calendar.  Leslie Fisher has an excellent example of a personal professional combo deal for a Google Calendar.

Posting

Web Design is currently working on a web project and at least one group might use edublogs for their project.  Of course the students have already seen our class blog "in progress" and I have mentioned it to several teachers.  Keep watching the blogroll for even more MHS teacher blogs:)

This is a good time to mention good posting techniques.  For this, I turned to Sue Water's blog Click here for her post

As you can see, posting isn't the same as Myspace comments. You actually need to watch your grammar and punctuation. You also dont treat it like a text message either. Phrases such as "ttyl" and "brb" are not used when posting on your blog.

Make sure and visit the "about blogging" page before you start posting.

More things to try...

Everything is still going great with creating the class blog.  This week I am going to see if adding a Google Calendar is as easy as it looks:)  Of course the hardest part probably wont be adding it, instead it will be testing it at school with our smartfilter.  I hope to rss feed the calendar on my class website and this blog.

And for some exciting news, I found a wiki that works even with our smartfilter!  It is called Seedwiki at www.seedwiki.com.  The graphics are even better than wikispaces, and so far no issues with smartfilter.  Of course need to give credit where credit is due, our librarian went to a BER workshop yesterday given by Pam Berger.  I still can't believe that they had a web 2.0 workshop in our parish and I wasn't on the front row.  The workshop was for our parishes high school librarians.  Here is the real kicker, it was held at our school!  Of course Im not a librarian, so I wasn't invited.

Just Test it

The only way to learn is trial and error, so I adopted this philosophy with my Edublog:)  I have only written in once for help (not too bad) and so far I have successfully created post, pages, and subpages.  Having a parent page to create subpages was a great way to organize the pages.  I also added feeds, podcasts, and images.  

I really only have two tech tips.  Try uploading images and such both ways. I was only able to get it to work using the browser upload.  Secondly, if you are adding a rss feed and are copying the url, take out the "feed:" if it is on the url.

I am SO excited about how easy everything is on edublogs!  Im sure we are going to have many teachers jumping on the "edublogs wagon"

Research, Research, Research

What journey can truly begin without research?  My last few weeks have basically been spent doing just that-RESEARCH.  My computer science class had just begun their podcast unit, so I basically searched for everything from podcasts to websites to books on the Flat Classroom and Web 2.0. Somehow in this journey I ended up at Edublogs:)  It is a perfect addition to our class website, currently undergoing yet another remodel.  Im not sure which I remodel more my house or our class website!

I began a simple word document and folder.  The word document is just a copy paste of informational bits I've come across in researching.  Everything that had a pdf, I printed and saved in a folder along with keeping a digital folder.



If you havent already made your way to Sue Water's blog, it is a must!  Click here for Sue's Blog
Another "must stop" is searching the Edublog forum.



The research process is still ongoing, and Im already up to 4 pages of notes.  I will have to get them in less of a "rough" state before sharing them online, but here are a couple of highlights on the subject.  

There are hundreds of Web 2.0 components could be incorporated into a classroom.  The difficult part is selecting what will work best for your classroom.

Wikis and Blogs
One of the best suggestions I found was to use wikis for facts and blogs for opinions.  Wikispaces has a free version for classrooms.  I plan to begin each unit with a paragraph on the unit topic.  The students will each have an account and add to the topic throughout the unit. I am going to use Edublog to add to our class website.  It will be used for my blog, student journals, lessons, etc.  It will also incorporate rss feeds and widgets such as news and diigo.  Students will have their own blogs after the first few weeks of class.  I first wanted them to get familiar with incorporating a website, blog, and wiki.  Plus they need to complete internet safety and etiquette lessons before having their own blog:)

Other "Stuff"
There are so many more items that could be used, but Im still researching these.  Some things to think about include:  polls, widgets, google calendar, student online organizers, and photo feeders,

One of the largest obstacles in our school is finding components that are not blocked by smartfilter or are allowed to be added to the "safe list".

Leading up to the Journey

The actual journey began pretty simple a teacher wanting to expand her class website to include more interaction.  Over the past three years I have changed our class website each year trying to find something that the parish smartfilter would allow and yet would include more student collaboration.  

I guess I should give a little background here.  When I first began teaching at our local high school I had a large yet typical class website.  There were links to lessons, activities, philosophy of education, helpful links, etc.  By second semester, each student had their own gaggle email account.  Of course I was very excited about my little space on the web and truly feel it helped land me my job:)  This job began as a one computer classroom and you wouldn't believe where we are today!  But that will have to wait for my "Growing from a One Computer Classroom" segment.

Gaggle was later blocked with an upgrade to our parish smartfilter.  So each year I seemed to be trying to adding more and more to the site, doing site makeovers, and wishing it was more.

About five years ago I grew restless with the whole black marble composition book for journals, and set out to find a way to integrate our journals into the class website.  Of course everything I found seemed to be blocked by our parish smartfilter.  It turned out that I was just a phone call away from my answer. I called our regional TLTC center to see if they had any ideas.  Janet had just recently been introduced to Nicenet at a training.  Of course it was being used for teacher collaboration but it was perfect for my class.  I simply added a link to Nicenet on our newly remodeled class website, added all my students as users, and began to post daily journal rather than write them on the board.  I also adopted a policy from one of my Blackboard Professional Developments; each student had to respond to at least two other posts.  By this time my one computer classroom had already grown to include a student computer center consisting of 5 computers.

Again feeling restless for more, I began to search for more ways for student collaboration.  About two years ago I found out about Chalksite while attending the state LACUE conference.  I had always turned away from these "cookie cutter" websites because I wanted my class site to be unique:)  Chalksite had recently been unblocked by our parish, could be personalized using html, and had a way for me to email (within the chalksite system).

This year I reverted back to my own website and integrated a parish created message board.  I did break the site up into blogs where the students could see everything about their class in one spot, but their only contribution was through the message board and posting of their work. 

I created an area of the message board for our teachers to access information about professional development, technology tips, how to's (fixing technology), etc.  While posting to this portion of the message board, I followed a link sent from central office about a "good reading".  One click led to another, and some how I found myself reading about creating a flat classroom.  It was ironic the timing because Janet, the former TLTC director, had just left my classroom the day before wanting to pow wow ideas for a new unit.  We were working on a multi classroom collaborative project using a twist from the Flat Stanley book and wanting to incorporate numerous areas across the globe.  I quickly printed numerous bits of information on the Flat Classroom.