L2W Learning Experience

This has been a very rewarding professional development opportunity for me. I have always been tech-comfy, usually tech-savvy. I know there are amazing technology resources available. The number increases daily. I have learned quite a bit throughout this course. I have ideas about how to incorporate these newly learned items into both my professional and personal life. I will be able to keep ahead of my students as I consider myself to be a digital resident. More now than before. I have some students that can do amazing things with technology, but I don’t think the number is too great, not yet anyway. Perhaps some day, the following will be true.

Google Earth and Google Maps

I had used Google Earth last year. I just played around with it more than anything else. I had never used Google Maps before working on this module. Having at least seen Earth, that is the assignment I started first. It became easier to edit the place marks as I went along. I struggled with the syntax to include a photo. I found it easier to include a photo in Maps, especially using the edit in rich text format. Earth allows you to create a tour whereas Map does not. At least, I have not found one yet. I could open my map in Earth, and it did create a kmz file for me. Maps is accessible through the internet as opposed to Earth which is a program that must be downloaded to your computer. That was another issue. I could not load the latest version of Earth on my computer at school. I was able to download an earlier version, once I found it.
I can’t really say which of these I preferred, both have their benefits and ease of use for different things. Some students would probably prefer Earth while others would rather use Maps. Go figure, students are individuals! Using Earth would allow for measurements to be taken. I didn’t find a way to do that with Maps. Of course, one could create an individual map and then open it in Earth.
One activity that might be interesting is planning a trip. Students could use Earth to measure distances from one location to another. Then we could calculate approximate driving time. Then we could use Maps and compare our results with Google. Lots of time could be spent looking for food stops and hotel locations as well. I might need to teach about budgeting as well. Interesting thoughts.

Copyright and Fair Use

Several years ago, I taught an Intel Teach to the Future class. One of the subjects of that course involved copyright. I felt I had a pretty good handle on copyright. Things have changed. I was used to being able to copy 10 percent of somebody’s work for educational purposes. This included documents, videos, and music recordings.

Creative Commons is new to me. I had never heard of it before this course. I have seen some works that had the creative commons logo while searching for items for this course. I didn’t really understand what it was before watching the video on the CC web page. I am not sure if I really understand it even now. Apparently, the “All Rights Reserved” phrase has been modified to include “Some Rights Reserved.”

I am struggling as to how to include this in my teaching. Perhaps I might get some ideas after I read some of the other blogs from the class.

Copyright, just like the internet, has changed. Some changes for the better, some that cause more confusion.

Hmmm….just noticed the CC logo when I created the following wordle. Guess that’s why it is not private.

Google Sites and Calendar

Google sites is an online way of creating web pages. It is somewhat intuitive, although using the google help made things easier. I have discovered that if you embed a presentation, it needs to be shared so people can see it. I discovered this by looking at some of the other participants sites. There were only three others at this time.

One decision I had to make was whether or not the new pages should be top level or second level under another page. I chose the latter for mine.

The calendar can be a useful tool. One thing I noticed was when an event went past midnight. It did not put the event into the next day as I expected it to. I had to enter the event for the next day so it would be included on the calendar.

Social Bookmarking

I have always been frustrated with having to search for my favorite websites.  I have lots of them.  The problem is that I have some on the school computer and some on my personal computer at home.  Now I have a way of having all of my links no matter which computer I am on.  This is going to be useful to me especially during Thanksgiving.  That is when I am planning on working on my modules.  I need to finish this semester.

Organizing can become a problem.  I will need to be creative with my choice of tags.  If I am careful and complete with my choices, my delicious page can out last me!  What a thought.

The text I chose for my wordle is:  Harleys are made for riding, not trailers!  This is the tag my brother uses in his email.  It is appropriate.  When my wife and I went to Sturgis in 2001, I was amazed at the number of trailers that were there.  All I could think about was, how sad.  Those people will never truly understand what it means to be on the open road.  Rain or shine, good weather, wind, temperature changes.  I get a connection with my surroundings when I am on my bike.

My Survey

I have used Survey Monkey in the past.  This was just as a user, not an author.  The ability of creating my own survey is opening a great many options.  I can survey my students, the parents, and possibly even AEA members. 

I find it interesting that in both the teacher survey and student survey, facebook is more popular than myspace.  I have no clue as to why that is true.  Based on my daughter, I expected myspace to be more popular with the younger group.  She uses both networks, but is more active on myspace.

I plan on using the survey in my math classes to gather data directly from my students we can use for graphing and analyzing data.  The students will likely be interested when they are vested into the data.

Personal Reflection

Searching the internet has become THE way many of our students search.  Teachers have for years been pushing the idea that students still need to know how to look for information in books.  I bet many of them have never even opened an encyclopedia.  What a shame.

Because the internet and searching is ubiquitous, we can either fight them, or embrace them.  I choose the latter.  The best thing I can do for my students is to enhance the searching skills of my students and also helping them to be critical of their results.  Through Module 4, I have increased my toolbox with new search tools and techniques.  Let me at the internet now!

Biking

Those of you that know me know what type of biking I am passionate about.  Forget that peddling stuff, too much work.  Get me out on the open road on my Harley!  What a way to clear your head and figure things out.  There have been times when I had serious issues I was working through and hit the road.  It must happen without my thinking about it because I wasn’t thinking about anything.  But when I got back home, I had ideas on how to handle my issues.  That bike of mine is much better than any old psychologist!!

By the way, this isn’t my bike.  But I can wish can’t I?

Of course it's awesome, it's a HARLEY!!

Blogs

I have heard about blogs for a few years now.  I never really explored what they are and how they are used.  It always sounded like a glorified journal to me.  Why would I want to put my thoughts down and have anyone be able to see them?  Going through this class has eased my mind a bit.  Word press, like most things that are new to me, has gotten easier as I have used it more.  There is always going to be a learning curve.  I have been a techno geek most of my life.  People ask me how I got so good with computers, and I usually answer that I tried different things.  “What happens if I click this button?”

Getting off task.  I think blogs can be useful, but like anything else, it needs to be managed.  People have said that computers will reduce paper and work.  I think it has created more paper and re-adjusted the work.  You can spend HOURS managing something at the expense of other things.  Just like anything else, you have to prioritize.

Docs

Google Docs as an instructional tool.  What a concept.  I can see creating a spreadsheet to gather information and having the students enter their data from home as a homework assignment.  Then we can review the data and possibly create a scatterplot from the data.  The students may be more interested in listening to and learning about the concepts because they have a vested interest.  I still worry about students having difficulty because of limited access.  Students might also benefit from seeing how other students are defining terms.   I can see some of my classes getting into heated discussions about why their definitions might have been changed.  This might help all get a better handle on terms and definitions.