The Google Effect in Teaching

A discussion which I often encounter in conversations with teachers, parents, or at education conferences has to do with the ability to engage students in the classroom.  This has been part of the reason for education techniques to shift from direct instruction to more inquiry based learning.  Every teacher had their own opinion of how to engage their students, and there are no guarantees that one way is going to be the answer to the engagement question very year.  There are just too many variables that are introduced in the dynamics of a classroom or school.  In an effort to research the topic of student engagement, I used Google to search the question "how to engage students".

Using the time range feature on the Google search engine I discovered that in the past hour there were over 9,000 results about this topic, over 150,000 results in the past 24 hours and over 382,000,000 results in just the past year.  This basic information tells me that engaging students is an endless topic of discussion, and almost is almost the "holy grail" of education.

Many teachers agree, and from my own experience as a student and teacher I agree that an essential part of engaging students in their learning is to bring them as close to the learning as possible.  During a medieval unit at school, we take a field trip to a history museum where the students can try on medieval armor.  When the students studied weather and tornadoes in science, they had a Skype session with school in Missouri to ask questions to other students who have experienced actual tornadoes.  Unfortunately schools do not have endless budgets to allow for trips around the world to experience all the topics covered in the curriculum.  This is where Web 2.0 and Google are able to contribute greatly to providing access to distant places on a computer screen.  

A intriguing tool I wanted to explore as part of this inquiry project was using Google Art Project (http://www.googleartproject.com/) my classroom.  Google Art Project essentially allows someone to tour art museums in the world.  On the screen is an image of a room in the museum, with the actual paintings on the wall.  By clicking through different parts of the museum, you are able to travel through the rooms as though you were walking through the actual museum.  This is the same idea as using the "Street View" feature on Google Earth where you can see real life images of the streets you are searching for.  When you see artwork you would like to explore, you simply click that work of art and the art appears on your screen in a high definition image which you can zoom in so close that you can actually study minute paint strokes.  

Take a visit to the Palace of Versaille

Choose a work of art to examine 

Then take a much closer look

Although I am not a trained art teacher, I truly enjoy having my students complete art projects in class.  It has always been my goal to use art classes to provide my students with an awareness of art history, and we therefore spend a little time studying a historical artist before starting a project based on that artist.  A recent project in class studied Vincent van Gogh and specifically his painting The Starry Night.  In order to introduce van Gogh and this particular painting, we took a virtual visit to the The Museum of Modern Art in New York City to see where the painting actually sits in the world today as well as to give a perspective of the actual size of the painting compared to other paintings.  Google Art Project allows you to locate a specific work of art from a list or you can explore the museum to find it.  

The room which contains The Starry Night.  It is hanging on the wall on the right side. 

The screen appears after selecting the painting.

Using the zoom in feature allowed the students to get very up close to see how van Gogh created the famous swirling sky.

A room that is not so exciting to visit in Google Art Project

Aside from learning that the image in The Starry Night is from the view van Gogh had while looking out the window of an asylum, the students were amazed at being able to tour through a museum and look so closely at a painting.  Using Google Art Project actually allows you to get closer to a painting then most security guards would allow.  A downside to Google Art Project at the moment is that not all works of art from a particular museum are shown as represented in the picture below.  Many painting will appear as blurs on the wall.  Also, at the moment there are only 17 museums that are available to tour.  Considering that Google Art Project was started in February of 2011, this is still an impressive feat, and something I will use often as a way to explore art in my classroom.

Completed representation by a student

How Do I Read?

I admit openly that the iPhone has changed my life.  According to a study published by The Guardian magazine in the United Kingdom;

• 47% of British teenagers and 27% of adults own a smartphone

• Sixty per cent of adults and 37% percent of smartphone owners describe themselves as "highly addicted" to their device

• Nearly half (47%) of teenage smartphone owners admit using their device in the toilet, compared to 22% of adults.  (Halliday, 2011)

I use my iPhone for multiple purposes throughout the day from communicating with people, checking the news/weather, or playing games.  Ironically, making actual phone calls is one of functions on my iPhone which is used the least.  One of my most common uses of the iPhone is checking social media sites.  Through this inquiry project, I have learned to utilize the features of RSS and Google Reader to efficiently read through various blogs and websites.  A problem I had in the beginning was that I spent more time using the iPhone then my laptop, and even though I had organized a variety of sites on Google Reader, I did not find myself checking them very often.  I needed to find a better way and fortunately after exploring a few apps (and speaking to the assistant principal/tech investigator at my school) I discovered Pulse News by Alphonso Labs (http://www.pulse.me/).  Pulse is essentially a news reader app that lets you set up the app to download articles from various news sites.  There is also a feature though that allows you to add sites from your Google Reader page.

Choosing Content

Accessing Google Reader

Pulse News lets you easily login to your Google Reader account by using the tab at the bottom left of the screen.  You can then choose which sites from Google Reader you would like to include on your Pulse reader.  Pulse lets you organize the different sources by pages which you can scroll through on the top of the screen.  When using the Pulse app, you are able to scroll horizontally through the different articles or posts for a particular site.  

You drag your finger horizontally across the posts to look at older articles. 

I have also made a focus of utilizing Twitter more frequently throughout this project.  I find that I am constantly learning new ways to use this tool, and there was an initial challenge of figuring out how it could be useful for me in the beginning.  I initially did not find Twitter to be very intuitive to use unless I just wanted to read the posts of the people I happened to be following.  I knew that I would get the most use from Twitter when I could figure out how to utilize the hashtag feature.  The iPhone again came to my rescue when I discovered TweetDeck (http://www.tweetdeck.com/).  The TweetDeck app is organized in columns so that I can have different columns to follow different timelines, or hashtags.  This became important for me when I wanted to follow specific hashtags or specific people.  As I have mentioned in previous posts, I work at a school which uses Twitter as a way to share information about school events.  TweetDeck allows me to determine which account I would like to post under whether it is my personal account or the school.  I have found the use of TweetDeck to be very intuitive, and along with the iPhone it has drastically increased my use of Twitter as a tool.

By using the touchscreen, I can scroll vertically through the different columns I am following, and I can scroll vertically through the actual posts.  The thin, broken line at the top of each column shows me which columns have posts that I have not read.  Creating posts and adding columns is accessed easily through the tabs at the top of the screen.

Halliday, J.  (2011, August 4).  Facebook and Twitter fuel iPhone and Blackberry addiction, says Ofcom.  The Guardian.  Retrieved December 2, 2011 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/aug/04/facebook-twitter-iphone-blackberry-addiction-ofcom 

21st Century Library

http://central.wmrhsd.org/CUSTOM_FILES/4/images/local-library-tip-lg.jpg

As a grade 5 teacher, I am reminded everyday of the importance of reading and developing comprehension skills.  Whether working in Science, Social Studies, solving Math word problems, or Language Arts, a weak reader has an obvious disadvantage.  A lot of money has been spent on resources, and specific classroom lessons are taught to teach comprehension skills, but I have discovered an essential element to becoming a strong reader is through reading.  A student needs books or reading materials which are engaging and appropriate for the student's reading level.  Although I have always loved to read, it became a challenge for me as a new teacher to understand how to get all of my students to love reading also.  This was primarily due to an understanding of children's literature that basically consisted of Harry Potter.  I made a challenge for myself during my second year of teaching to read and obtain as many children's books as possible so that I am never stuck when a student asks "what should I read."

I have always enjoyed the social aspect of reading such as talking about books, suggesting books to friends, and learning about new books.  I make this a priority in my class because students are much more willing to try a book when I am able to talk about it and when their friends can talk about it also.  My search for children's book started using a social media tool found on www.amazon.com where I soon discovered that I could make a search for books I read and enjoyed, and one of the options that appears on the page is the "Listmania!".  Through this feature, I essentially built my classroom library.  Listmania! is a feature where users of Amazon can create lists of books that they like or that fit a similar genre.  Depending on the user, the lists can be quite extensive with comments about individual books and ideas of what type of reader would enjoy it.  I never thought that I was actually using social networking during this time, but after working through my inquiry project, I realize now this is exactly what I was doing.  My interest in engaging my students to read and learning about more books prompted me to investigate Shelfari (www.shelfari.com) as part of this project.  Shelfari takes the ideas of Listmania! and allows the user to create an individual "shelf" of book.  I immediately started to search for the books I have read in order to add them to my shelf on Shelfari.  The shelf looks very similar to the display used by Apple for their books app.  

  
In Shelfari, I am able to organize the books according to books I have read, plan to read, or that I am reading.  There are features that allow me to rate the books out of five stars, write a review, and get recommendations of similar books.  Like most Web 2.0 tools, Shelfari has much more to offer than just displaying books.  A feature which would be very useful in engaging readers and providing them with exposure to new books is the ability to create discussion groups.  Students would be responsible for contributing to the group much like a reading group in the classroom.  Casey Oberhauser, a middle school teacher in Ohio observed that "Shelfari is able to do what I often struggle to achieve: create both exposure to and motivation for reading books they normally would not read."  (2011, p.28)  My initial intentions with Shelfari involved first setting up my own shelf with books I have available in my classroom library.  Step two would be to make the site accessible my students and their families so they can discover books at home.  In the future I would be interested in using the group discussion feature, but I am not sure if this will be accessible to my fifth grade students.  I realize I have only scratched the surface with Shelfari, and I am excited about how easy it is to update books as well as add very specific comments and reviews that would be useful for my students.  I have introduced my students to the site by demonstrating on the interactive whiteboard in my class, and I hope by the end of the school year to have them accessing the site at home or on the laptop in my classroom for picking new books.  An asset of most Web 2.0 tools is that the tool itself can be engaging for students, and I hoping this is the case with Shelfari.  Oberhauser also noted that "Shelfari is so appealing to students due to its social and interactive nature that they are virtually unaware that they are maturing as readers."  (2011, p.29)  Shelfari even allows a user to post their shelf to their blog as you can see at the bottom of this blog. 


As I see more and more readers using tools like Kobo, Kindle, or an iPad to read books, I think it is more important than ever to adapt our libraries to the 21st century.  I cannot imagine society will ever lose the attractiveness of a book cover, but I can envision a time when the only way we glance through book covers is only in a virtual environment.

http://workshop.chromeexperiments.com/bookcase/

Oberhauser, C., Kist, W., Tollafield, K.,  & Rudd, L. (2011).  Updates from the classroom: Students and teachers at work.  Ohio Journal of English Language Arts, 51(1), 27 - 30.  Retrieved November 30, 2011 from http://www.octela.org/Resources/PDF/OJELA/Vol_51.1.pdf

Why Comics?

Over the course of this inquiry project I have spent a large amount of time thinking about social Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter and Google Reader.  I have noted how they are used in my life, and I have spoken to a variety of people about how they use them, and I would say I have developed a better appreciation for how these tools can serve my life and the world.  A part of my inquiry project which I have yet to present about is the use of comics in the classroom.  I originally wanted to create comics that coincided with a unit I was teaching, and eventually get to the point that my students could create their own comics about a part of the curriculum.  The tool I wanted to investigate is www.pixton.com.  This site claims on it's home page to be the "World's Best Way to Make Comics."  The site is available in 12 different languages, and is extremely friendly to use.  I originally thought comic making would be an escape from the social world of Web 2.0, but I am quickly discovering that we are now surrounded by the opportunity to be social.  On Pixton, I am able to browse through comics created by authors around the world, give ratings, post comments, and post comics to Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites.  There is even an option to put any comic on a t-shirt.  The main site is free to use, and I can even log in with my Google account.  For educators, Pixton has a separate site which requires a fee and allows teachers to set up individual students accounts, private sharing, and even the options to post grades.  At this point, I am not prepared to step into the Educator side of Pixton.  There are endless options for investigation and practice through the use of the free Pixton site.

Last week at my school, I had to make a case to one of the parents that there is a purpose for my grade 5 students to read graphic novels other than just entertainment.  It was simply a coincidence that this was a topic I have been thinking so much about lately.  In the past few years there has been an abundance of graphic novels/comics which have streamed through my classroom such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Bone.  The majority of my students have loved reading them, and I have always had the belief that if something inspires a child to read then it is useful.  Being able to understand comics are part of standardized reading comprehension tests, and they are a used as a critical thinking tool for studying history such as the classic political comics from newspapers.  The video posted at the top of the page by Scott McCloud gives an academic explanation for why comics are useful.  A key point which stuck out for me from his presentation is that comics create a "visual medium that embraces all senses within it."  (McCloud, 2005)  As a teacher, I try to provide as many situations as possible which emphasize the multiple intelligences of my students.  I teach my students to write, and provide numerous opportunities for them to use show the five senses in their writing.  Comics provide yet another medium for practicing this essential writing skill.  I have yet to find a student who is not engaged by a comic.  Either when it is used to introduce a lesson, or to study a concept.  Comics can be used to engage struggling readers and writers.  In the presentation, McCloud also describes comics as a "balance between the visible and the invisible."  (2005)  After hearing that I immediately thought about how difficult it can be sometimes to teach a lesson on poetry which I feel is also a balance between visible words and invisible meanings.  Would a student be able to develop a better understanding of a poem if that student had the opportunity to create a comic about it?

While watching Scott McCloud discuss the history and future of comics from the ancient Egyptian drawings to the use of computers to create a flowing comic, I was reminded of the first time I saw someone make a presentation using the Prezi tool.  A quality Prezi has a flow which wants the viewer to focus on one screen shot at a time with the purpose of tying together the purpose of the presentation.  A comic works the same way with its individual boxes, and according to Scott McCloud this has been used for thousands of years by humans.  The two books which I used to emphasize the skeptical parent last week were The Arrival by Shaun Tan and The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick.  The Arrival gives stories of immigrants and is told through illustrations.  The author created images that expresses emotions, conversations, and thoughts without actually using words.  The Invention of Hugo Cabret uses illustrations as part of the experience of reading a novel.  Parts of the novel are told through traditional text and parts are told through the use of illustrations.  The two flow together perfectly to create an extremely creative and effective story.

'Ticket' 

'Inspection'

William Kist asks the question, "What is the relationship between entertainment and education?"  (2010, p. 118)  Kist further comments that teachers worry about the "Entertainment Factor" of utilizing new types of media in the classroom.  "By opening up their classrooms to Web 2.0 and other new literacies, they disrupt the seriousness of school and 'dumb it down.'  All this cyberspace activity is seen as too much fun for the kids and not enough 'rigor'." (2010, p. 118)  This was part of the clarification I had to defend when speaking to the parent last week.  If used appropriately much like all Web 2.0 tools, students can feel more engaged in the classroom, and even learn something while having fun.  Students can tap into their visual intelligence when reading and writing.  Students can also become better critical thinkers as they try to express or comprehend complicated concepts through pictures and minimal words.  To create a high quality comic requires a great sense of language, and the ability to express the senses through facial expressions or onomatopoeia.  Perhaps the world of comics has received a bad reputation through low quality works which often appear in the Sunday newspapers, but is used correctly, comics and graphic novels can provide an enriching and challenging tool for sharing information.




McCloud, S. (2005, February). Scott McCloud on comics [Video file]. Retrieved from
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/scott_mccloud_on_comics.html

Kist, W. (2010). The Socially Networked Classroom; Teaching in the New Media Age. Thousand Oaks, California, USA: Corwin.

Tan, Shaun. (2007, October 1). Inspection [pencil on paper]. Retrieved from
http://www.shauntan.net/books/the-arrival.html

Tan, Shaun. (2007, October 1). Ticket [pencil on paper]. Retrieved from
http://www.shauntan.net/books/the-arrival.html

Will Richardson (check his book and/or his blog) talks about the progression that bloggers go through from simple to real to complex blogging. What does this mean to you given your own ongoing journey into the blogosphere?

Einstein's journal

I have always kept a journal, and I have a pile of journals that I drag around with me which contain thoughts and feeling from the last 15 years of my life.  I have always used my journals as a form of therapy, and a way to just think out loud without actually having to speak to someone.  If I look back on my journals, I will see times in my life when I was truly dedicated to writing complex thoughts and working through serious life situations.  Other times in my journals are simple documentations of my daily life.  For me, the essence of blogging is a shared journal.  At least from the blogs I have read, it seems to be the primary focus.  The key to a useful journal and blog, is quantity and the ability to connect meaning from the beginning of the blog to the present state.  I feel like a blog documents a journey, and a blog without a purpose is sometimes too confusing to even bother reading.  I enjoy looking to early entries on the blogs I read to see where this blogger came from and what was the reason they started the blog.  The progression from simple to real to complex blog is a matter or the blogger's level of commitment and purpose.  Occasionally I will use the "next blog" tab on Blogspot just to take a look at random blogs in the world.  By just looking at 10-20 random blogs you can start to develop an understanding of what qualifies as a simple or complex blog.  Many bloggers are simply using this tool to document simple observations or thoughts much like a standard diary.  Then there are complex blogs which reveal deeper insights into specific subjects, and seem more like a magazine.  After looking at a few of these blogs, I start to realize that I have been looking at blog like tools for a very long time.  The Opinion section of a newspaper and magazines use the same techniques as blogs.  Blogs now allow more people to make their thoughts available, and just like with newspapers, readers eventually start to follow or read the writers they are most interested in.

With that being said, I have to admit that I have enjoyed working on the blog for this course.  Although it has been a forced assignment, I have found myself frequently thinking about what I will include on my blog while driving or taking a walk.  I get excited when I see that someone in the world has looked at my blog even though I have no idea who it is.  I have also felt like my ability to post on my blog has improved since the beginning.  I have tried to stick to the standards dictated by the course assignment, but I have also attempted to make the blog my own and to use my own voice.  I find that blogs become more meaningful when I can understand the perspective of the blogger.  I think it takes time to become a complex blogger, and I am not sure if I will ever reach that point or whether I want to.  I certainly could not continue to blog if it ever started to feel like a job.  I have to enjoy it in order to do it right.  I absolutely understand the usefulness of a blog much like I have felt the benefit of keeping a journal about my life.  The great quality of a blog is that it is always there.  If I decide I do not have a use for a blog in the next few months, I can know that there will always be the blog for me to come back to if the inspiration returns.

Only 140 Characters to Go

"I learned to follow hunches even though you can't necessarily justify them or know where they're going to go."  - Evan Williams, 2009

I have finally accepted that Twitter can be a useful part of my life.  For the past few years I heard people talk about "twitter", "tweets", "hashtags", and "140 characters".  Being a relatively introverted person, I never thought this idea would be useful for me.  I have been barely a Facebook user, MySpace never caught my attention, so the idea of checking a social networking site that seemed to be filled with mundane and random comments by people seemed a little too unnecessary for me.

I was unaware that Twitter has been in existence since 2006.  When I look at the big picture of social media I also notice that Facebook had recently arrived in 2004 and perhaps most importantly the iPhone or smartphone came into existence in 2007.  In my opinion, a site like Twitter would have been useless without a tool like a smartphone to allow people to record their thoughts instantly.  My own experience with Twitter started with the iPod Touch.  Being able to have the internet in my hands and to check Twitter while waiting at a coffee shop became as common as flipping through a magazine while waiting in line at the grocery store.  I did not become completely immersed in Twitter until I joined the world of the iPhone, and I soon discovered people to mentor me through the Twitter world such as how to retweet, use hashtags and other features.  After listening to the Ted Talk by Evan Williams and reading the 2009 Time article by Steven Johnson, I was most amazed at the truly unique feature of Twitter is how it has been adapted by the users.  Steven Johnson writes, "the key development with Twitter is how we've jury-rigged the system to do things that its creators never dreamed of.  In short, the most fascinating thing about Twitter is not what it's doing to us. It's what we're doing to it." (2009)  The users of Twitter created features that allowed them to search for people, identify people in Tweets, or to post to certain groups by using symbols such as @ or #.  The developers of Twitter simply allowed the users to create their own tool which I think is essence of a social networking tool.  Twitter also allows programmers to develop different types of software or apps that change how Twitter is accessed on computers, tablets, or smartphones.  These open ended features of Twitter are what have made it so powerful in delivering information in the world today.  Johnson writes, "the tools you're offered if you visit Twitter.com have changed very little in the past two years. But there's an entire Home Depot of Twitter tools available everywhere else."  (2009)


What hooked me on the usefulness of Twitter is realising how it can be useful for me, and this seems to be the trend throughout the world.  People may use Twitter to follow news stories as they are happening, tracking the personal life of their favorite movie star, or creating a conversation at a conference.  I am still not convinced I need to know what random people are doing at various moments of their day and so I choose carefully who I will "follow" based on whether the person provides quality opinions about topics I am interested in.  My favorite use for Twitter has been the ability to access a world of educators and resources about education.  I will often spend a few minutes in bed on a Saturday morning just reading through my favorite hashtags such as #edchat and #mathchat.  After a short period of time I typically have 5-10 new resources which I will read or investigate throughout the week.  


Twitter has also become a useful tool for advertising.  The school where I teach adopted the use of Twitter as an advertising tool to inform current and perspective parents about the unique events that happen frequently in the school.  This sharing of information was always a challenge in the past as it was typically accomplished through monthly newsletters.  Twitter provides a free and extremely easy way for teachers to share this information instantly from anywhere as long as they have a smartphone.  One teacher may post images of an art project at school, while another teacher is posting images about a field trip to the science center.  The Twitter feed is instantly accessed through the school website, and anyone can learn about the events at school.  


As with all social networking, the usefulness of the tool is determined by the user.  Twitter is constantly evolving and expanding as more and more people join in the conversation.  Twitter provides a perfect tool which is easily accessible and adaptable to however the user wants to incorporate 






Johnson, S. (2009, June 5). How Twitter will change the way we live. Time Magazine. Retrieved November 24, 2011, from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1902818,00.html


Williams, E. (2009, February). Evan Williams on listening to Twitter users [Video file]. Retrieved November 24, 2011 from

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/evan_williams_on_listening_to_twitter_users.html

Is Web 2.0 redefining what it means to be social?

Is Web 2.0 redefining what it means to be social?  It is still common to refer to someone who does not talk very much to other people as "antisocial."  And on the other side, a person who loves to talk to other people is called a "social butterfly."  In 1921 the psychologist Carl Jung published a book entitled Psychological Types which studies the different behaviors people possess.  From Jung's work, the mother and daughter team of Katherine Briggs and Isabel Myers began the process of creating an instrument that could be used to discover the unique personality traits of an individual.  One of the main categories in the Myers-Briggs Indicator is the introverted and extroverted qualities of a person. This tool is one of the most popular personality tools available, and I have personally taken the test a number of times.  My thought now is in regards to the word "social."  If Web 2.0 is about being social, then is it possible to be introverted in your normal human interactions but extroverted in the world of Web 2.0?  Will we reach a point in the world where a person can be considered anti-social if they are not participating in the Web 2.0 environment?  After spending so much time investigating just a few Web 2.0 tools, I have noticed that social is becoming a prefix for most of these tools, and having the ability to post, comment, and rate is a common feature to all of the social sites.  By using Twitter or Facebook, people can be more social than ever almost to the point of being too social.  On Facebook, we can truly decide who we are friends are and what information we want them to know about our lives, and when we are tired of that person, we can "unfriend" them.  From using Facebook and Twitter, I have a fairly good idea of which friends are doing well in life, who is having a hard time, what significant events are going on even though I have not heard that friend's voice for over 20 years.  Is this being social?  Is the behavior of being social changing throughout the world, and how does this effect what we teach in classrooms and how we are to act as human beings?  Those are just some light thoughts as I try to wrap up the social networking side of my inquiry project which focuses on using LiveBinder, Google Reader, Twitter, and Shelfari.




MBTI Type Today. (n.d.). About the MBTI. A mini-history of the MBTI intrument. Retrieved November 20, 2011, from

http://mbtitoday.org/about-the-mbti-indicator/a-mini-history-of-the-myers-briggs-type-indicator/.

Current Event 9

About this time of year I need a little inspiration to keep going as a teacher. This is mostly due to report cards and the onset of winter and darkness here in Calgary. These are two videos which have always helped to keep me focused and positive. The first is an RSA animate video from YouTube. RSA Animate takes lectures and puts a cartoon to them. This has always been attractive to a visual learner like myself. This particular lecture is by Sir Ken Robinson who should be failrly well know these days. Hopefully it inspires you also. The second video is Seinfeld. That's about all I need to say.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

http://cooperativelearning.nuvvo.com/lesson/9592-seinfeld-teaches-history

Current Event 8

You have to love Google Reader. It has shown me so many cool sites to check out. Here is the latest. I am a big believer in learning new languages. I have been trying to learn French for the past year and have been using the Rosetta Stone which is awesome. I thought this was a great site to practice different languages. I have not played with it much yet, but I will show it to the French teacher at school tomorrow, and maybe use it in the classroom for those students who like a little extra to do in class when they finish their work.

http://www.pronunciator.com/

Current Event 7

http://www.ted.com/talks/ali_carr_chellman_gaming_to_re_engage_boys_in_learning.html

Looks like Kevin and I were both checking out TedTalks this weekend. This was a video I watched a few months ago, and just stumbled upon it again today. A topic which seems to be big in my school lately is the education of boys. How it seems like so many of them are starting to fall between the cracks, and how to get them engaged. I think Ali Carr Chellman brings up some valuable points in this video about engaging boys and the use of gaming. While what she says is very basic and general, it serves a good place to start the discussion of how are we reaching boys who seem to be disengaged in school.

Current Event 6

Are you a visual learner like me? I instantly thought this site was well worth a bookmark.

http://www.visuwords.com/

It is called an "online graphical dictionary" and it basically works as a dictionary and thesaurus. Type a word and hit search and rather than a list of words or sentences that tell the meaning of the word, you will get a web like picture on the screen with all the words associated with the word you are searching for. You can zoom in and out on the web, and there is a handy chart on the page tht explains the different connectors used for different words as well as the part of speach of each word represented. Go ahead and search for a word. You will be amazed. I of course thing this would be so useful for my students during writing periods since the thesaurus and dictionary in my room basically just collect dust these days. Why not make the act of looking up words more exciting?

A sample of a word search using Visuwords

Current Event 5

I feel one of the more challenging issues for some teachers is to wrap their heads around the idea that video games and educational. I know that is a broad statement, but I am basing it on the people I work with and the views I have heard from them. Video games seem to be aftem seen as a time filler more than an educational tool. I happen to love video games and I happen to love math so I was exited when I read this blog posting
http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2010/03/10-ideas-for-innovative-math.html?spref=tw

This is one of my favorite educational blogs, and in thi post the author talks about a downloadable video game that can be used to practive math facts. I immediately downloaded the game and tried out the pretest. You essentially roam around a dungeon as an alien-like creature. You progress through closed doors by finding math symbols and answer facts that seem to be tailored to your math level. So far it seems cool and I will be trying it out this week with some of my grade 5 students who are struggling getting their facts.

The game is called Timez Attack and it is a free download!

Current Event 4

http://edudemic.com/2011/10/twitter-hashtag-dictionary/

So this was something I found very useful which I actually found on #edchat using twitter. I know I sometimes get confused with the twitter symbols and hashtags, and I actually found this site very useful at explaining the ins and outs of twitter talk. This article actually focuses on education and it provides a vast list of hashtags to follow. I have found so many great resources and articles just from following #edchat and #mathchat and I an looking forward to investigating more topics. Of course, an app like Tweetdeck is essential for this because it allows you to scroll through individual hashtags and stay a little organized. I have found in the short time I have used Twitter, it has become one of the most valuable sources of educational information. There is nothing like being able to tap into the minds of great educators all over the world.

How do we change?

It seems like educators spend a lot of time talking about the message in this image, but how do we actually get away from these techniques?

The Google Reader journey continues...

My young Google Reader

A major focus of my inquiry this week has been to become more comfortable with Google Reader, and the functions I can use in it.  My primary guide for this has been Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.  This book has extensive information about RSS and how to use Google Reader, and he provides excellent step-by-step instructions for how to accomplish some of the more useful features.  Unfortunately as I have discovered this week, with Google's attempt to take over social networking with Google+, a feature I was very interested in using has been removed.  I will describe the feature regardless in case someone from Google decides to read this post.  The previous version of Google Reader, which Richardson described in his book, allowed user to "share" articles from any of the blogs or subscriptions on Google Reader.  I could then provide a URL for a site which would have all of my shared posts listed.  Someone else could have even subscribed to that page with RSS.  I was very excited about this concept because it would have created such an easy resource to share with colleagues, and a place to have discussion about articles.  I suppose Google+ is meant to be the place to do this, but I think this is an area where simple may be more efficient.
After realizing that feature was gone or until my creativity helps me to figure out another way to do this, I proceeded through my list of other features to investigate.  First I wanted to play with tags.  Any article I come across can be easily labelled with tags or a quick word to help organize the article for future reference or searches.  I am very interested in the use of smartphones at school so any article I come across about smartphones I apply the smartphone tag to it and now I can group all of those articles into the same place.  Tags are nothing new and fancy in the world of Web 2.0, but I have never taken the time to use them so I am excited to organize my Reader world a little better.
Next on the list was creating a list of starred items.  Often when scrolling though Google Reader, I read a headline that looks interesting, but I do not have the time to read the whole article at that moment.  I can "star" this item as a favorite, and them pull up that list of starred items when I have more time to read them.  Another useful way to organize the hundreds of articles that appear in my Google Reader everyday.
Finally, I happened upon Reader Play while selecting random features to learn more about Google Reader.  I have always had a difficult time reading text on a website, and I have been so pleased lately with the feature in Safari that takes a website and turns it into more reader friendly text.  The Reader Play feature on Google Reader follows in this concept.  While Google Reader is a classic vertically oriented, dark text on light background website.  Reader Play takes the sites from Reader and allows me to scroll through the separate articles horizontally, and the text is white on a dark background.  It probably does not sound too innovative but it makes sense when you try it.  Reader Play can be accessed by selecting the Feed Settings drop box.

The look of Reader Play

As with all good inquiry, just when I think I have something figured out, a new path opens and I find myself spending the night figuring out how to use a new feature and whether it is actually worth using.  As a side note, while typing this post, I realized I should utilize the benefits that a good image can offer so I asked the question "how do I take a screen capture on a Mac?"  A quick search took me to a website that gave me the simple instructions I needed.  

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.


Admin.  (March 11, 2011).  Print screen Mac.  How to do print screen on a Mac.  Retrieved November 13, 2011, from http://www.printscreenmac.com/.

Really Simple Syndication

The world of education is all about inquiry these days, and I have to admit that I am not a fan of the word. I prefer to teach using a balance of many styles, and in my opinion, inquiry should just be a natural part of the day, not something I need to incorporate specifically into lessons. Inquiry should come naturally through curiosity and a desire to learn.

I used that curiosity this week to take on another step in my Inquiry Project. I proposed that I would investigate how the use of Google reader would benefit my professional and personal life. It seems as though with the extensive amount of websites and information available on the internet, the new pattern is to find a way to simplify how we collect and read that information. Out of that need has come the reader, aggregator, or feed collector tool. In his book, "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and other Powerful Web Tools for the Classroom," Will Richardson describes the basic function of a reader, "The aggregator checks the feeds you subscribe to, usually every hour, and it collects all the new content from those sites you are subscribed to. Then, when you are ready, you open up your aggregator to read the individual stories, file them for later use, click through to the site itself, or delete them if they're not relevant. In other words, you check one site instead of thirty." (p. 72)

In other words, a person can create their own online magazine and constantly choose what the content of the magazine is, when to read it, and get rid of articles which are not useful. I have never been one to use a reader because I still love clicking on my bookmarks and going to individual websites. There is just something satisfying about that process. Now that I am focused more on following a variety of educational blogs, I am becoming much more aware of the usefulness of a reader tool. When I first signed up for Google Reader, it just seemed unnecessary. After subscribing to a number of blogs and RSS feeds, Google Reader is suddenly a tool that I can understand. As with all Web 2.0 tools, there usefulness become defined by how much we want to delve into them. Richardson also states that ,"RSS is a technology that will change your life, if you let it." (2009, p.72) Since taking the time to investigate this tool further, I have added to my collection of professional resources which I have been able to add to my Livebinder site, and I have been able to keep up on the world of professional cycling which is a personal passion I have, all without leaving the house.

So where does inquiry fit into this post? For the past few years, I have seen RSS and the RSS symbol on all sorts of websites.

Because I have never thought I had a reason to use RSS, I therefore never bother to look up what those letters stand for. I made assumptions they stood for some fancy internet words, and I even made assumptions about what would happen if I hit the link. I never did it though. Now that I am investigating the use of this tool I finally looked up what RSS stand for, and was slightly surprised to see that is means "Really Simple Syndication." And there was my inquiry in action. I had a curiosity, I looked up the answer, and it led me down more paths to investigate this new world of readers.

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Livebinder: Day One

http://livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit?id=231548

I am officially hooked on Livebinder.  After working through a few misunderstandings such as what a tab should look like versus a subtab, I think I am on my way to producing a tool that will be very useful for me.  The sites I have added so far are from my home computer so the content is not very extensive, but I am looking forward to adding more resources this week from my school computer.

A feature which I think could be very useful from a teacher point of view is that it appears as though people can leave comments for individual tabs.  This could be a great way to get feedback from my students or their parents about the usefulness of certain resources.

Making it live with Livebinder

One of the tools I am most excited to investigate during my Inquiry Project is Livebinder.  At this point, I have never utilized a tool like this before, and I have only heard people talk about the wonders of sites such as Diigo.  There was no scientific reason why I chose Livebinder over Diigo, but I have to make a decision so I decided to go with the tool I had never heard of before.  I am one of the Internet users who will spend a lot of time looking at a variety of websites, but I rarely take advantage of bookmarks.  When I do use bookmarks on my Internet browser, I have noticed that I will often have bookmarks on the different computers I use.  I have a laptop at school with a variety of marked educational sites, a laptop which is for personal use which also has a variety of marked site both educational and personal.  Then I also have some sites marked on my iPhone.  As a teacher, I am always searching for unique and useful sites to share with my students in class, or to provide for them to use at home when reviewing concepts.  I was drawn to Livebinder as a way to organize these resources in a simple format that I can share with my students, their parents, teachers at my school, as well as for myself regardless of where I am working.


An article which recently peeked my interest in Livebinder came from one of my frequent searches through #edchat on Twitter.  The binder by Joquetta Johnson at http://livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit/3803 demonstrates the ability for Livebinder to easily organize a large amount of information and websites about one topic.  This particular binder focuses on Google.  The capabilities of Google are massive, and Joquetta Johnson has managed to organize most of the educational uses of Google into an easy to follow site.  This is my goal for the classes I teach as a grade 5 teacher.  To create a toolbox of resources that can be accessed wherever I am working.


In the Livebinder tutorial, there is a tab labeled, "Why Livebinder," which gives the information below for why to use this tool.  The rational is straightforward and user-friendly, which is another reason I am so excited to utilize this tool in my professional and personal life.

Step one in this process of discovering Livebinder is to utilize the tutorial and learn the language used on the site such as "tabs," "shelf" and "livebinder it."  This week will focus on building the initial stages of this site to be used in my classroom.

Finally there is a simple way to organize and share web content.  Here are some reasons to use.

• Binders can be created easily while you browse
• Uploads and links can be combined into a single binder for uses like lesson plans.
• Binders are dynamic and can be added to at any point in time
• Binders can be shared through email, twitter, facebook and you can put them to your website or blog
• Binders can be presented by clicking on the icon at the bottom.

Is the interactive whiteboard now old school?

I came across some articles this week about interactive whiteboards while looking through #edchat on Twitter.  I am always drawn towards talks about inefficiencies in education because I feel like it is one profession that is so good at staying inefficient.  I have been an Activeboard user for the past 4 years, and I remember when it first came out, I was a little blown away.  I never imagined my laptop could be turned into such a powerful device for displaying information.  Then I was able to use the voter eggs for the board and thought my teaching practice had changed forever.  I appreciated these articles because they forced me to sit back and think about my use of the interactive whiteboard and reveal to me what it really is in my classroom.  


Since being introduced at my school and adopted by a few "savvy" teachers, the interactive whiteboard has been installed in every classroom to the disproval of some teachers. Ferriter writes "hanging them on walls and showing them off like proud hens that just laid the golden instructional egg."(2010) Parents are indeed amazed when they see what an interactive whiteboard can do, and the students love to use the pens to draw pictures, but up to this point, I would agree in some ways with Ferriter's views that the interactive whiteboard is really just an expensive tool that allows the teacher to spend more time standing in one place. “I’m willing to argue that even with time and training, interactive whiteboards are an under-informed and irresponsible purchase. They do little more than reinforce a teacher-centric model of learning…make presentations, give notes, deliver lectures…I ask you: Do we really want to spend thousands of dollars on a tool that makes stand-and-deliver instruction easier?” (Ferriter, 2010)

Heather Wolpert-Gawron writes on her Tweenteacher blog "while these boards were initially meant to help less-tech savvy teachers to embrace technology use, their hefty training time and prep time serves as its own gatekeeper for more than just tech tentative teachers."  (2011)  I found that using an interactive whiteboard was incredibly intuitive, and I enjoyed finding new resources to use in my beginning days.  Lately, I stick with what I am familiar with to support my lessons.  Technology has always been intuitive for me though, and I am constantly amazed at the time dedicated in my school to using the activeboards.  I wonder if Wolpert-Gawron is on to something when she talks about using all that money and time in other places to improve other parts of their teaching.  Is technology something we need to force onto teachers to use if they survived a long time teaching without it?  


I started using the interactive whiteboard a few years before the iPod touch and the smartphone and ipad, and I definitely got caught in the naive scenario of thinking the interactive whiteboard would be the game changer.  As with all technology in the classroom, the game changer is the teacher and these days schools do not have the funds to support new technologies as easily.  I know how much of a game changer the smartphone was to my personal life, and I am so impressed with the apps and technologies being developed to use these tools in the classroom.  I dream of a day when each of my students has an iPad on their desk.

"As for the future of educational technology, we must guide our purchases to reflect the world around us. We must support the learner on the go. We must support individual use, not teacher-only use. We must support inexpensive options that give us access to the most information, easily accessed and easily presented. Smartphones, (and, I believe, eventually iPads or other tablet options) permit us to assume more and more that learners have access to the same information and opportunities."  (Wolper-Gawron, 2011)

I have the fear that I am taking for the granted the so called efficiency that the interactive whiteboard brings to my classroom.  I feel like after 4 years of use, it is time for me to evaluate the worth of this device and whether it is helping to improve the learning which occurs in my classroom.

Wolpert-Gawron, H. (2011, October 3).  How the interactive whiteboard is really ed tech's laserdisk. Tweenteacher.  Retrieved October 26, 2011, from  http://tweenteacher.com/2011/10/23/how-the-interactive-whiteboard-is-really-ed-techs-laserdisk/

Ferriter, B. (2010, January 27).  Why I hate interactive whiteboards.  Education Week.  Retrieved October 26, 2011, from http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2010/01/27/tln_ferriter_whiteboards.html?tkn=Q%5BRFGmQux6XnMebDMl4nddRDutTae13KtmNE

Current Event 3

www.pixton.com

I am always looking for ways to engage my students in unique ways. I have been amazed lately with the number of students who love graphic novels such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Big Nate. It seems like both boys and girls love this genre, and I am continually reminding my students to put away the Calvin and Hobbes books during class although I can remember being the student who would just try to sneak in one more comic before starting my work. I was so excited to discover the Pixton comics website. There seems to be so many out there right now, but Pixton was the first I was told about so therefore it is the main site I have explored so far. It is free to use, and extremely straightforward and easy to use. There are so many options for creating different sorts of comics. Here is a link of another teacher who had his students create a cover for some guided reading books using the site.

http://mreclassroom.edublogs.org/pixton-comic-maker/

I have not had the chance to let me students play with the site yet, but I told them the basics of it and showed some examples and they were so excited. I will post examples of their creations as soon as I can.

Current Event 2

http://www.typingweb.com/

I had a goal this year at school to have my students practice keyboarding skills once a week. I teach grade 5, and it has reached a point that many of my students choose to complete written assignments on a computer, but at this point they can handwrite the work faster then they can type. So I set out to find a program that was cheap, easy to use, and allowed me to monitor their progress. This site is the best I have found so far. I am able to give each student a username and password, and I can easily see what they are doing. The site does not give a large amount of useful information to the teacher, but the basic lessons are free. You can of course pay for more detailed information. So far we have used the site once in class and it worked well. It was easy to understand and navigate, and there were no major issues.

As of October 24, this program has become a weekly part of my classroom. Every Friday we get out the computers for a period of typing practice, The students love to compare their accuracy and words per minute. I will also login and type on the Smartboard so my students can compare their times with mine. This program has also been very useful for homework practice and the students know I am able to login and check what they have done.