Jigsaw Puzzle of Olympic rings

I had to do a puzzle; which I embedded into my wiki page and linked on my blog above.

Most of the tools I found on the list were great for me personally, but I am not sure I would use them for professional reasons. I would like to play around with the newsletter tool, http://letterpop.com/. I fear that I would spend 4 hours preparing something that will take 2 minutes to read. I checked out the writeboard http://www.writeboard.com/,- which would be a great help to kids doing group projects. The 30boxes calendar site could be helpful to some – but I like plain old paper for my organizer. I will probably delve into toondoo and mixbook with my son to make some cool books and things as he starts kindergarten.

I visited two sites using the K12 online conference site. This is a fantastic idea and could help so many teachers that don’t get the chance to go to conferences because of financial issues within their school districts. One conference I visited was on sustaining blogging in the classroom. The lecture was geared to finding ways to keep kids blogging and gave ideas on grading blogs with a rubric. I liked part of the lecture that suggested blogs should be for conversation and not just a journal entry. The other lecture I visited was on RSS feeds. I learned a little more on other sites – but it basically reinforced what I had learned in that section of this course. I am finding that I stay interested when I am watching someone live – instead of taped or audio – but this is an easy way to keep current with technology issues in the classroom.

My slideshow has an olympic theme.  It took me a while to figure out the embedding… but I think I got it!   I would guess these get easier the more you do.  I am sure the kids would be very good at it and I would love to see them make slideshows with their own pictures relating to the topics they are learning in class.

http://k12l20sandbox.wikispaces.com/incognito

My slideshow is living currently in my wikispace.  Please view and enjoy.

photo by striatic

As I am getting geared up for the 2008 Olmpics – I tried to finds some cool pictures of past olympic games. Can you say OVERWHELMED? I am wondering if you can narrow your search after your first search? I couldn’t figure it out… I found either no pictures or literally millions of pictures. I think I need help with this one.

I had never heard of creative commons before this course and had never noticed the cc trademark on any webpages.    I LOVE the MIT open commons site and would find it very helpful in classes for the kids to use as an additional resource and to use in class as an additional learning tool.   I am sure the motivated kids would use the idea and run with it and the less motivated kids would just USE other’s ideas.   So, once again the resources are available – it is up to the teacher and the kids on how these resources will be used to actually improve their education.

I enjoyed looking at the different wiki pages given.  I think it would be a great help for kids that are not catching onto classroom lectures.   I think kids love to learn from each other and the wiki spaces would help do just that.  I also think you learn more by helping/teaching others.  I found some sites a bit confusing to manuever – but it could be because I am new at looking at these sites and navigating around them.   I reviewed the math site,  learned from the history/economics sites and laughed at the dr. seuss site.

One thing that may be helpful that I would try to add to a math site is showing common errors that kids may make and showing why they might make them.    It is a great learning tool for kids that tune out with the traditional style of teaching.  I am sure some kids that are savvy on the computer would love to tackle a math problem using the computer and helping others tackle the same problem.

I have enjoyed this task using the RSS feeds and have found the google reader to be pretty easy. I equate this new reading as getting the clift notes to all the books that I have always wanted to read- but haven’t had the time. I particularly like the fact that I can catch an article in the NYTimes a week after it was written, as that might be the first opportunity I have to read it. I will be playing around with different sites until I find the four or five that I can read and find use for. I can tell from the amount of reading that I have already done on the first two weeks of using this tool that I need to keep my subscriptions to a minimum.   I am also excited about the blog for the olympics,   http://olympics.blogs.nytimes.com/, as I find great inspiration in reading about athletes as they strive for the highest competitive level.

As I read through many of the example blogs we were given,  I lost track of focus and began to wander into other sites… and realized I was reading something on the hercules beetle when I started out reading about the debate between saving our water or sending it to the unlucky (or lucky)  fish in Florida.   Once again,  I am overwhelmed at the amount of information out there and finding the time to look for what I want.    Although the information out there is fantastic and I am excited about how many things my son can discover from the internet ( as we found a hercules beetle or something like it the other day)  I have felt with some of these blogs that I am sneaking into someone’s diary.    At first visit, it seems I will be using the blogs more to get me to where I want to go and not so much to read what others think of topics or issues.  Maybe I’m wrong… I’ll keep looking.

My initial thoughts on web 2.0 is that you could lose yourself in a lot of work and not get a lot of content out for what  you want your kids to learn.   I am interested to see what is out there for real life applications for medium to upper level math courses.   I also think web 2.0 can be used quite productively in learning through others – both mistakes and successes.    I guess at this point in the class I am wondering how it is different from several chat sites and how you sift through the helpful and the not helpful/untrue pieces.

The easiest habit for me in the 7 1/2 habits for lifelong learning will be to accept responsibility for my own learning.  I may not get tasks done quickly – but they will get done!

The most difficult habit for me will be habit 4 – having confidence in myself as a learner.  I get easily frustrated with learning new technology and am easily overwhelmed with everything I don’t know about the internet and resources on the internet.

The most important habit for me will be habit 1 – begin with the end in mind.  I need to stay focused on what this course can do for me professionally:  in and out of the classroom.    I hope to work through the confidence issue and play with these new tools throughout the summer.