Thing 7: Web 2.0 Communication Tools

Of the communications tools covered in “thing” 7, I use email the most. I currently have two email accounts – my school email and my personal email (oh wait, I had to set up a new yahoo email account to use Flickr, so I guess you could say that I technically have three accounts, but actively use two). Email can be a big time sucker. It can take up to 45 minutes to type out the perfect message that could have been said in under one. I do use email a lot, both personally and professionally. I definitely think it has its time and place. There are things I like about it, like automatic documentation, especially when communicating with parents. But, it is not the be-all and end-all of communication, and sometimes I resent that I am included on emails that have absolutely nothing to do with me or any action I need to take, as I feel like it is a waste of my time.

I utilized IM and Web Conferencing when I was working in the corporate world. The IMing I did, though, was personal in nature. It is impractical in the world of education as we do not sit at our desks all day, making IM no better than email. Web Conferencing also has its pros and cons. I was in Training & Development, and conducted and attended training sessions via Live Meeting. The big pro: bringing people in multiple locations together without travel. The big cons: you have no direct contact with the other participants. As a facilitator, it is difficult to be engaging when there is nobody in the room with you As a participant, it is too easy to continue other work while “attending’ the webinar.

Text messaging is supposedly irrelevant to my work with students since school policy requires cell phones be turned off during school hours. So, my only real interaction with students and text messaging is when they are breaking school rules, not paying attention in class, or texting each other the answers to a test. My personal use of text messaging is pretty limited, too. It seriously takes me about 10 minutes to type out and send a message. I’d rather just call whomever I need to communicate with.

Thing 6: Online Image Generators

I created the football jersey and the license plate using Image Chef and the trading card of my cat (isn't he cute?) using Big Huge Labs. I can see these tools being useful in the classroom as a teacher tool or as part of an assignment. The trading card in particular lends itself nicely to the Scientist Project that my students complete - researching a scientist of their choice and presenting that person's discoveries and impact on society through their choice of a final product.

Thing 5: Fun with Flickr

snapdragon puzzle
Originally uploaded by micstein

The fun tools available on Flickr again seemed more geared toward my personal use. Since I didn't have a lot of time, I created this jigsaw puzzle out of my snapdragon photo from "thing" 4. One possible classroom use that I experimented with briefly was to create a slideshow of photos. This could come in handy especially during my Earth Science Unit in which we study earthquakes and volcanoes. In the past, I have spent a ton of time searching google images for pictures to show the kids, without a lot of luck and with concern about proper copyright use. Another possibility would be to assign the creation of a slideshow to my students.

Thing 4: Flickr

IMG_1248
Originally uploaded by micstein

I took this photo of snapdragon flowers on my deck because they relate to the Genetics Unit I teach in my 7th Grade Science Class. While Gregor Mendel's famous experiment was done with pea plants, he also studied snapdragons. His experiment with snapdragons identified the concept of incomplete dominance, where red flowers crossed with white flower sproduced pink flowers. I found flickr pretty easy to use. It took a few minutes to set up an account, but before I knew it, I was posting my photo to my blog...pretty easy. The organizational features available in flickr are really appealing to me, mostly due to my scrapbooking habit. I am not sure how to utilize this with students. Perhaps an assignment where they take photos they identify as examples of things we are studying in class and posting them to a blog? Nothing that would require me to do a lot of searching. Something where I can make the photo assignment "come to me" instead of me "having to find it" out there somewhere.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Thing 3: RSS

I set up a Netvibes account for thing #3. I like the tabs at the top of the page and used them to separate my personal stuff from my school stuff. Adding personal feeds was fairly easy, but I struggled to find professional ones. Most of the websites I found when I searched for "inquiry-based science education" or "middle school science teaching" or even "middle school education" didn't have RSS feeds available. I think that I can probably add those when I get to the social bookmarking "thing"? I do think that utilizing a reader would allow me to access more information in less time, once the reader in set up with useful information...something I am still struggling with. But, since I still have 20 more "things" to accomplish, I am going to move on while trying to figure it out.

Thing 2: What is Web 2.0 & Why Should I Care?

I liked Sarah Houghton's definition of library 2.0 on John Blyberg's blog:

“Library 2.0 simply means making your library’s space (virtual and physical) more interactive, collaborative, and driven by community needs."

Isn't that how we should be defining our classrooms? I think a lot of Blyberg's arguments can be applied to the classroom too. As I read his logic, I kept thinking, wow - you could just substitute the word "library" for the word "classroom". We are educating kids who come to us with a completely different experience and skill set than we grew up and were educated with. That alone should give any educator the motivation to want to learn about and utilize these tools. The kids already use these tools. If we want to be able to "speak their language" we need to use them too. If we want them to be able to show us their best work, shouldn't we allow them to utilize their generations technologies?

Thing 1: Create a Blog

Welcome to my blog for "23 Things on a Stick". I am taking this online class to learn about web 2.0 tools that will help me teach science. I am hoping to learn enough to keep me up-to-date with my students and to find ways to incorporate these tools into my job. The purpose of this blog is to document my learnings. I hope you find something valuable here.