CSC3315 :: Blog

I only have one comment when it comes to Ed Tech bloggers, particularly the ones that I followed: they are all web 2.0 OBSESSED! When did it get to be that EVERYTHING is about blogging, looking at other people's blogs, podcasts, videos, wikis? Such is the life of the Web 2.0 Crew I have followed. Their only communication with the outside world, apparently, is Twitter. A single slip of paper from their jail cell every once in a while to let everyone know what's going on in there.

Ok, I'm done "flaming" my four Ed Tech bloggers. The infamous lineup goes, as follows: Steve Dembo, Sean McKay, Jim Forde, and Mr. Lauer.

Steve Dembo posts somewhat sporadically, but each time is a GOLDEN post, and great information.His "Digital Passports" newest blog about Adoptic Tool 
is amazing in the great detail and information it gives about this new tool for RSS Feeds.

Sean McKay's EdTechnology, I must say, became somewhat of a disappointment. After reading some of his older blogs and deciding to subscribe to his Feed, Sean responded enthusiastically by not.. posting.. at all. His earlier links that I viewed were outstanding, but apparently his current projects are too time consuming to put up a quality post.

Jim Forde's EdTechNot.com blog was very insightful for what he posted.. IN JANUARY! Unfortunately, I was unable to get a new post from him as well! I did read over his other blog posts and was very impressed at his ability to find something relevant to educational technology on almost an everyday basis for a good while.

Finally, the most productive and concurrent blog, Mr. Lauer's, from Meriweather Lewis Elementary
is almost not even fair to post along with the ones above, simply because 90% of Mr. Lauer's posts are school announcements, and not his personal thoughts are links! I do give the man credit, however, as he posts consistently on an everyday basis!

Overall, I was impressed with the quality of educational technology bloggers we have out there. If we can get more and more people consistently blogging and sharing with one another, we will be able to learn and do a better job in our teaching fields in the future. 

I contributed to both of the Wiki's, and both of my contributions were essentially the same information. I had a problem with the wiki's, in that I don't understand why there is really a need for two different ones in the first place. Most people that are interested in that particular wiki would be educators curious to know about different tools for web 2.0, I feel that it would be best to combine the two, and keep the information relevant.

I personally contributed links to both sites, of stumbleupon.com for the social bookmarking site. This site is the best on the web, hands down. I also contributed wikidot.com, a site I was very impressed with, that I used personally.  I finally contributed WordPress.com
to the blogging site, a shocking missing link! My greatest contribution to the whole site, however, had to be unrelated to the class, specifically. I added quite a bit to the video wiki, my most knowledgable multimedia subject.

I enjoyed adding to something someone had already started. I had a sense of teamwork, of everyone working together to build the wiki. I believe that my links and contributions will be up on the site permanently, as they are too good to take down!. Wikis can be a very useful tool for professional development. Although sometimes a teacher can find themselves working with others first hand on something like this, (I didn't), most will be pleased with themselves and their class with contributing to the whole of the internet, and the cause of Web 2.0: better education for our children!

The blog for a teacher can be a great professional development mechanism, as the teacher can blog from their very first day as a teacher throughout their career, showing their progess as a teacher, and keeping track of things they did so that they can look back and improve on them in the future.

One of the main reasons blogs are helpful to teachers are because they are like a diary. If a teacher puts in the effort to log their experiences in the blog AT LEAST once a week, they will be able to see things they did in lesson plans, ways they presented, and student reactions. This data can be used to improve and better their teaching skills, or to document something that worked great in order to use the same idea again the next year.

 Another way a blog helps a teacher as a professional development mechanism is that it can be viewed and scrutinized or praised by other educators around the globe. If a teacher is able to create a large network of teachers in a similar field, it would seem to their advantage that they could view and use ideas that worked for others, or constructively criticize the data and progess of another teacher. One site that exemplifies this idea is TeacherLingo

The final way a blog could help a teacher develop professionally is that it will encourage principals and other teachers in the school district to follow their progress, as any teacher disciplined enough to keep a regular blog can prove to be accountable to the principal at the end of the year, and surely would have success in the classroom. Another great example of this is here.

 All of the above characteristics and benefits would greatly help a teacher succeed in their career, and develop professionally to a higher level. It is exciting to see the new opportunities that technology is constantly giving us!

The Web 2.0- Tools for Teachers and Web 2.0 Tutorial are wonderful tools to learn about the basics of technology for teachers.  I thought these sites were different from traditional course assigments.  I think that when you read and learn so much about a topic or subject it is so great to share something you learned without having to create an entire story or website.  To just have the access to click edit this page is power that you hold.  I loved being able to share with others what I know, and add to the page of the creater.  I really tried to flow with the information that was on the page and speak the same tone.  I sure hope that my contribution will stay there and someone might take use of it one day soon.  I also hope the creator enjoys the comments and information I added.

I really think I am going to like wikis and reading the information on them.  Especially when I know the site is built for tools to help make people learn about teaching. 

I added some attachments to the Bloom's Digital Taxonomy page on the Tools for Teachers site.  I had done research on Benjamin Bloom and Bloom's Taxonomy last semester and had a newsletter as well as a research paper that I felt could help impact the page's information.

I also added some information on the Tutorial site on the Blogs page.  I added information and facts I had researched for previous "blog" projects.  I enjoyed reading this page and learned new things.  I felt good that I could add my two cents too! 

Wikispaces is a great site to get started for teachers, educators, or just friendly users.  Wikispaces has a free basic account that anyone can join and start right away.  There are also other options that users can upgrade and pay per month/year.  Depends on the space you want or need and the accessibility you want.  You can install the program yourself and use the wiki immediately.  

The great thing about wikispaces for teachers is that they can filter and control practically everything.  For example, they can block peoples' pages or their own from any viewers.  You can also select the options for getting notified immediately if your page gets edited or if you are added to someones' favorites list and other features like that.

The user can edit the page and add comments at any time.  Also wikispaces also lets you upload images, files, and anything that pertains to the amount of storage selected when joining.  Obviously the more you pay and the bigger the upgrade, the more storage.  You can customize any editing and make it very selective.  This makes it really nice when you just need to fix one or two things on the page.

There is a most active spaces/viewers page that comes up every time you visit your home page.  Also there is a "history" tab that will remind you what the original looked like, when the page was updated, and how long it took.

This is a great way to get started for your first wiki.  I am excited and still learning about the site. 

 Here is a document that has question and answers about wikispaces:

wiki_review_sheet.doc

Wikidot.com is a great tool for making a wiki for your class. It allows you to host your own wiki with your username (ex. treythomason.wikidot.com). You are allowed to invite others to edit your wiki as well, and can have up to 10 pages, but more if you ask.

Once editing a page, you have 15 minutes while editing that no one else can edit at the same time. Once you press submit, however, the timer automatically shuts off. Wikidot encourages the use of numerous tags in order to attract more hits to your wiki. Wikidot also gives other suggestions to increase site traffic, and goes into detail about Google analytics to help you get more hits to your wiki as well..

Iwould suggest Wikidot for any educator wanting to start their own research within their classroom, as it is one of the best FREE tools there is. 

Mindomo is a mind-mapping tool that is very useful for mapping out ideas for the user. You can create new maps meant for brainstorming and organizing ideas. You can add symbols, add sub-topics and relationships, and switch these at will. You can also look at and model your mindmap after another user's on the site.

As a free tool, I would highly suggest Mindomo to anyone looking for a very user friendly mind-mapping tool. Teachers and students alike could both use these to prepare projects and organize and brainstorm ideas.  

Wikidot.com is a great tool for making a wiki for your class. It allows you to host your own wiki with your username (ex. treythomason.wikidot.com). You are allowed to invite others to edit your wiki as well, and can have up to 10 pages, but more if you ask.

 Once editing a page, you have up to 15 minutes while editing that no one else can edit at the same time. Once you press submit, however, the timer automatically shuts off. Wikidot encourages the use of numerous tags in order to attract more hits to your wiki. Wikidot also gives other suggestions to increase site traffic, and goes into detail about Google analytics to help you as well.

 I would suggest Wikidot for any educator wanting to start their own research within their classroom, as it is one of the best FREE tools there is.

This wiki as I remember it, has really changed with the site update (free vs. premium member categories).   The previous wiki I made during Feb 2007 was no longer available, although my registration and login was still intact.

The new and revised PBwiki 2.0 is still an easy way to construct your own pages for your private or public use.  You still maintain overall control of the wiki and can allow users privileges from editor, writer, etc. for specific pages and even for specific folders (2.0 even lets you set per-folder and per-page access controls).  This update in version 2.0 gives much more flexibility and control to the wiki as well as providing for a stronger site security.

The 2.0 version is still being fine-tuned and recently released an update in May 2008 that includes an undo button, remove formatting capability, sorting table options, footnotes, and more.  You can add or edit AJAX tags without having to change into the edit mode.

Overall, this site can help you make your own wiki for various uses and with the updates of 2.0, it is a better option for increased group interaction in a specific setting (school, classroom, business, etc.)  I like the new folder options where you can place and store specific pages that require group interaction.  Being able to limit the access of users to specific areas of the wiki is a definite benefit!  Check out these “webinars” to see PBwiki 2.0 in action.

See my review sheet here. 

I added an entry into the Social Bookmarking section of the wiki, "Welcome to Web 2.0 - Tools for Teachers".  It wasn't a lot, I just included the site we have been using in class, www.diigo.com and gave a short explanation of how this is a very user-based bookmarking site. 

I also added a link for PBwiki in the wiki page.

I didn't want to include too much info, as I'm not sure about how the wiki author intended the pages to progress.

In the wiki, "web 2.0 tutorial"  I also added a link for the PBwiki site.  I added a link to A Wiki Walkthrough by Teachers First in the recommended reading section and had earlier entered a couple of links for wiki uses in real-world classrooms.  After rechecking the site moments ago, I found the two real-world teacher/classroom wiki reference links were no longer on the wiki. 

I feel in this case of adding information to wikis of an individual or group that is unknown to me is a bit difficult.  Having no knowledge or experience in the philosophy or intentions the wiki owner has, I found it hard to add content that was "vanilla enough" to someone else's project.  

As evidenced by the removal of some of my contribution items, and rearrangement of another, I think the wiki is destined to remain in a group or single use environment (classroom or other specific school activity).  It is a page that presents itself as a whole, but can quickly change into fragmented pieces without strict monitoring by the owner.  On the surface, it does not give the contributor credit for input unlike a blog, where one's name is prominently displayed.  In the vein of the Read/Write web, a wiki has its purpose, but I feel blogging is a far more effective way for individuals to contribute.