Internet Learning Resources Week 3

The last couple of weeks have brought up some interesting topics. The first one was the quote from Tom March about the Internet being "an embarrassment of riches" and is useless without teachers. There were some interesting reactions to this quote from class members and the diverse thoughts were great to read.

The other big topic that was interesting for me was the Wikipedia debate. Wikipedia is one of those things that seems to bring out very strong feelings in people. It is almost like discussing religion or politics. Some people are adamant that Wikipedia is no good while others try to find a use for it. Again, I really enjoyed reading these comments and am anxious to see how Wikipedia evolves and whether or not it becomes accepted in education.

I also really liked getting in back into the group work. I was again joined up with Brian and Kylie who were in my group in the first class. We have all come a long way since then and it was good to catch up a bit with them.

One of the items we reviewed was virtual classrooms. We strayed from the assignment a bit and reviewed an alternate online classroom. We decided to see what WebEx could do for education. It is widely used in the business world for trainings and meetings but could that be adapted to education? We found that it had most of the same features that Elluminate did. Depending on what tools you wanted for your online classroom, it could be used for online classrooms.

Once more week and we have finished our fourth course in this program. Hard to believe that we have already come this far. I am already looking forward to the next class.

Internet Learning Resources Week 1

This is the first week of a new class. After a few glitches with our first lecture we are now off and running with our first group of assignments.

Understanding what Internet Learning Resources are is key to this first class. We all have ideas of what they are but I think that most of us expanded our definition after looking at the links provided to us.

For a few years, I have been providing my teachers with resources like MIT's OpenCourseware and iTunes U. Teachers have used these lesson plans, videos, activities, and handouts to enhance, and in some cases, replace their lessons. I now have more resources for them so they can continue to improve their classroom.

Technology Tools Week 6 - Course Review

Once again, this was a very informative class for me. A couple of things really stand out and are things that I will use in my job.

First, the software evaluation tool review was extremely helpful. Right now, I have to know about the programs, research them, and decide if they get installed or not. By using an evaluation tool, the teachers need to do the research and get the all of the appropriate information to make a decision. This will save me a lot of time when deciding on software for the classroom.

Another item that was really helpful were the guidelines for professional development. I need to create some professional development courses for our staff to introduce new initiatives like Open Office and Google Apps. Using some of the guidelines in the book, I will be able to produce helpful and meaningful professional development courses.

Finally, I really learned a lot about using Google Apps spreadsheets. Now that we are moving forward with implementing Google Apps in our school, it is important that I know how to use the programs.

Overall, I thought this class was very well done. Thanks to everyone in my group for working so well together to accomplish our goals.

Technology Tools Week 5

After a long break, it is finally time to get back to work. This week we looked at software evaluation tools. At my school, the teachers come to me with the software, I review it, and purchase and install if approved. There is no real formal approach. It is just done via e-mail or phone. Looking at these evaluation tools gave me some things to think about.

Some of these evaluations were very simple, asking only basic questions about how it will be used and if it applies to state standards. The evaluation tool from Sun Prairie was definitely the most thorough tool and the one that our group chose to be the best. It covered the cost and standards and requested input and approval from administrators. In larger districts, this is probably a good idea. In a smaller situation, like mine, I fill the role of most of the people on the sheet.

I think it is a good thing to have some sort of process in place for evaluating and purchasing new software. It is something that I will put on my to-do list for summer.

Technology Tools Week 4

I viewed an InTime video called "Opera on the Net: Collaboration and Performance." This project allowed students to work together with a school in Sweden to create an original opera via e-mail and video conferencing. This assignment was created in 2001 and seems like it was ahead of its time.

Our school received a grant about 5 years ago to install distance learning equipment. We now have the ability to talk to people all over the world. Our students now collaborate with others around the state and they have participated in activities around the world. This project is a long-term assignment and allows a greater connection between students than what our students currently experience. The assignment seems to be very involved and requires a lot of preparation from the teacher, like taking a summer course from the Metropolitan Opera Guild. It seems to be as much a collaboration between teachers as it is between students.

Students took on roles to develop an opera, from music, to costumes, to staging. In the end, the students from Sweden flew to the US to rehearse and present the opera to the community. What a great opportunity for all involved.

Technology Tools Week 3

Week 3 brings some good resources for me. This week's spreadsheet assignments forced me to use and try things in Google Docs that I had not yet tried. After trying it, I can now comfortably go to my teachers and tell them what I like and what I do not. I feel better about my knowledge of the product and my ability to help them.

NetTrekker was also very helpful to me. I have been researching web sites with lesson plans for my teachers for a number of years. NetTrekker was a great resource. In the past, I have recommended sites like Teacher's Domain, Curriki, and MIT's Open Courseware (specifically for the high school). This is a much better resource than any of my pages. This is something I would like to look in to as a future resource. We have plenty of resources in our library and labs for students like databases, computers, and books. We do not have nearly as many resources for our teachers.

Once again, I found the readings to be the most difficult thing for me. I am not one who learns by reading and answering questions. I am a much more hands on person.

Technology Tools Week 2

Again, this week's class offered up some interesting new technologies. The biggest thing for me, and I would bet for others, is using a different search engine. Most of us probably use one search engine for everything, usually Google. I was not aware that there were so many different search engines out there. While I have used many search engines like Lycos, Google, WebCrawler, Yahoo, and Bing, I didn't know about the others. A quick look in Wikipedia under the term search engine listed all known search engines by their creation date. Very interesting list.

After researching that list for a while, I chose to try out the engine called Cuil (pronounced cool). I chose it mainly because its name interested me. While it is a good search engine and its results format is different than Google, it is not as thorough as Google. I may try some meta-search engines like Dogpile later this week. If it can really search many different search engines and get better results, that is great.

As for the online word processing services, I was already pretty familiar with those services. There were really not any surprises in this area. I am now excited that I have an entire suite of online services. Between Google Docs and some of the others we learned about I now have presentation, word, graphic, and spreadsheet services available to me. While they are not as advanced as something like Microsoft Office, they work for me. I am a basic user, not an advanced one. For the most part, these services will work fine for me and I am looking forward to sharing this information with my teachers.