BP7_2009112_Ubidesk_Media_Asset

Please check out this site and if you can not use it, pass it along to one of your colleagues who can:

www.ubidesk.com

BP6_2009_112_Research_and_Blogging_ 2.0 Tools

Palabea

http://www.palabea.net

Every year in school we ask our students to connect to some month or week that they otherwise would not pay any attention to. I am referring to Hispanic Heritage or Asian Heritage for example. Every year teachers either roll out the same material or struggle to find meaningful content for the students to connect to. As I looked at the Palabea website, I thought about how it could be manipulated to serving this need. Imagine how much more engaged the students would be to connect with someone whose culture they are studying and how much of an impact this would have in bringing the real world into the classroom and vice versa for them! I feel that this site is a valuable one for me and I will also share it with our Spanish teacher.

Ubidesk

https://www.ubidesk.com/

How many times have you heard, "Mrs. So and So, Little Johnny is not doing his part of the work for the project."? Well, I believe with this Web 2.0 tool, such complaints would be kept to a minimum because of the fact that you can document collaboration. Aside from that, it seems to be a really worthwhile tool to assist with getting the students organized and collaborating on projects both inside and outside the classroom. Admit it, it can be extremely frustration to have to wait until the next class to continue to have the students work on something, especially when you need to be a facilitator. With this tool, you do not need to worry about that because you can check on each group's progress beyond your classroom.

Sketchfu

http://sketchfu.com/

This is a fun tool that I will incorporate into my teaching to help my students learn their vocabulary words. I believe that the more time they spend with their vocabulary words, the better their retention and comprehension. Every week, I will assign one word from the week's list and ask the students to illustrate their interpretation of that word using Sketchfu. I will then take the ten best interpretations and put it up on the wall outside the classroom for one week. The students will have the weekend to work on it and turn it on Monday so that it has the chance to be on the wall for the entire week. This will excite them because not only will their classmates see their work but so will the other students and teachers.

BP5_2009_112_Flickr

Flickr is a Web 2.0 tool with many possibilities. Currently, I am thinking of using it as a bulletin board. My classroom is really small and I only have one tiny bulletin board to display students' best works. Therefore, I am planning on using Flickr in the following way:

My students are currently reading the class novels Freak the Mighty and The Giver. After they have completed the novel, I will have them redesign the front covers. We will then use the scanner in the library to copy each redesigned cover and then I will upload the images to Flickr. That way all my students can see each other's creation and their family members can share this experience with them as well. It is my hope that moms and dads will start a dialogue with their children to find out about the novel and why he or she interpreted it that way in the redesign.

BP4_2009_112_SocialBookmarking

It's funny how things work out sometimes. Case in point, I have been moved from my old classroom to a new in the new building. So there I am going over a concept with my kids and I turned to my computer to give them a visual to help seal their understanding. I go into my favorites where I have bookmarked said visual only to realize that not only was I moved to a new classroom, but I also have a different computer now. I was upset, but mostly I was disappointed in myself for not remembering that your favorites do not 'travel' with you. It was at that moment that I saw the value in social bookmarking. Since then, I have envisioned and researched the different ways that Delicious can be best utilized for me as a teacher and also for my students.

As an educator, Delicious is a tool that will come in very handy for me. This year, I am incorporating more Web 2.0 tools to help me introduce and re-teach content to my students. I also am incorporating more Youtube videos as well. As a result, I find that I need more organization and a method of having each tool and the appropriate links at (no pun intended) my fingertips. Delicious will provide that for me. Furthermore, it will also help me to easily check out my peers' bookmarks to sites that are of interest to me. In addition, I have a big poetry project that I do with my students and this will allow me to organize and have the resources available to them outside of the school without worrying that may be unable to find the link because they had to write it down or typed in a wrong character.

For my students, Delicious will provide 24/7 access to content resources in order to work on projects, research, online practices or just to stay up-to-date. Moreover, this also appeals to the students' sense of learner control as well as their learning styles.

I also see this as a tool to help with differentiated learning as content resource links can be organized to help the different learners. I look forward to working with this tool in an effort to enhance not only my teaching but also the students' learning and my own as well.

Hedreen, R. (2005, February 03). Social bookmarking in education. Retrieved from http://frequanq.blogspot.com/2005/02/social-bookmarking-in-education.html

Jackson, L. (2009, June 05). Sites to see: Social bookmarking. Retrieved from http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/sites/sites080.shtml

(n.d.) What is social bookmarking? Retrieved from http://webtools4u2use.wikispaces.com/Social+Bookmarks

BP3_2009_112_iGoogle_ScreenShots

BP2_2009_11_2_Web2.0_Tools

This assignment is quite timely for me. My students are reviewing a new list of ten vocabulary words in preparation for our weekly vocabulary quiz on Friday. As we are working through our class novels and reviewing sentence diagramming, sentence structure as well as author's purpose this week, it has become a pressured situation for me to make sure that I cover all the above and still have the students spend as much time with the vocabulary as possible. Through my experiences, I have found that the more time the students spend with the vocabulary words, the more they retain and use them. As always, teachers are generally find themselves in these types of situations. Also, in general, we always find a brilliant way to make sure we accomplish all our goals for our students and ourselves. So how do I ensure that they learn the vocabulary words with everything else going on?

Using a web 2.0 tool such as quizlet.com affords me the opportunity to create study material that is interactive, fun and allows the students to work at their own pace and run reviews as they need. In addition, to the interactivity, I can also print out the same material for my students who do not have access to the Internet. It offers five different tools to work with: familiarize mode, learn mode, test, scatter and space race. The latter two are interactive games to help students cement their knowledge and comprehension of the vocabulary words. I find Quizlet to be a very powerful tool that I will not only help me to ensure that my goals are met but also one that I will use for the rest of the academic year and beyond.

Quick facts:

• Quizlet was created by a 15 year old student in 2005.
• (2009) Quizlet. Retrieved from http//:quizlet.com/about

check out my study materials (check out each of the five modes):

• http://quizlet.com/1369270/list-7-flash-cards/

create your own study materials (its free!):

• www.quizlet.com

BP1_2009111_GoogleReader

Edublogger (http://theedublogger.com/)
-I chose this blog because as an educator, I wanted to 'hear' what my colleagues are discussing and what they find pertinent in education today.

Teaching Ideas (http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/)
-I chose this blog because I wanted a way to keep up with new and innovative ideas for the classroom and content delivery or revamped ideas as well.

Teaching and Learning (http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tl/)
-I chose this blog to find new information both for my students and myself.

Web2.0 Teaching and Applications (http://www.go2web20.net/)
-I chose this blogs in an effort to find web 2.0 tools and how other educators are using them in their teaching.

Web2.0 Tools for Teachers (http://www.scribd.com/)
I chose this blog to find out how other educators are using these tools to enhance teaching and learning.