Twitter...

I have to admit I was not as into Twitter as I was with the other tools and resources that we learned to use over the past eight weeks.  I had added sites such as US News Education, Teachers Net, the Library of Congress, Borders, and TIME to follow at the beginning, but within the last couple of weeks I had also added the suggested pages such as Badger Link, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, and Wisconsin State Superintendent of Education Tony Evers.  I also followed two educators who were in the areas of educational resources and engaging students in the classroom and collaboration.  These people were useful to follow, because they all were related in one way or another to education.  I was able to keep up-to-date on current events on education, along with taking a look at lesson plans and other educators’ opinions on topics.

·         State Superintendent Tony Evers includes a link on his tweet about Diane Ravitch.  Ravitch is a great resource in the field of education.  I read her book The Death and Life of the Great American School System (2010) last semester.

·         Badger Link provides access to online resources.

·         Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction à  I have added a few links related to Social Studies topics and Personal Financial Literacy, which I have taken training to teach within my social studies classes next fall.

·         Diane Ravitch has also been mentioned in tweets on the Teachers Net links.

·         The Library of Congress page has been something I have been following for the past month and a half, because of a workshop I am taking through my district.  I never knew how great this webpage is!  There is so much information included on the site, and I cannot wait to share this information with my students!

I have also followed my classmates, professor, and the Today Show!  The Today Show gives daily news as if you were watching the show!

Reflection on my Personal Learning Network (PLN)!

Throughout the course of Technologies for Collaboration and Learning my personal learning network (PLN) has greatly increased over the last eight weeks.  I have come to learn many new technology tools that I can use within my classroom with my students and with other teachers within my school district.

·         Voice Thread-I found this to be a very handy discussion tool.  I have participated in many online discussions throughout my college years, but to be able to actually record and listen to others’ comments makes the discussions much more interesting.  I find it easier to say my comments rather than type everything out.  Just like when I am responding to emails at school I find it much more personable and handy to just pick up the phone and make a phone call rather than type a conversation.  This would be a tool that I will use in the future in discussion purposes.

·         Blogger-I have never blogged before taking this course.  I have found it to be a great tool to use for discussion purposes.  I could see myself using blogging as a communication tool with parents in my classroom.  It would be great to post a weekly blog to let parents know what is taking place within the classroom.  Parents could also respond with questions or comments they may have at any given time.

·         Wiki-This is another great tool to use for discussion, but also for posting documents to share with others.  I could see using this tool at school, but there is one area that I am not too sure on.  This area is that pages are not locked and others can make changes to the pages that are posted.  Working with fifth graders this may be a problem.  If they are not sure what they are doing or if they accidently delete something than someone’s hard work is all gone!

·         Del.icio.us (Social Bookmarking)-I have found this bookmarking tool to be very handy.  Just last semester I was bookmarking many websites that related to my research papers and class discussions.  I would bookmark these sites on my laptop, along with e-mailing these sites to myself if I needed them at school.  By using del.icio.us I can add it to one place and access this anywhere I am able to connect to the internet.  This would be a nice tool to use with my students when working on a research project by setting up a del.icio.us page.  I would set it by adding a few sites for students to use, and as they found related sites they could bookmark them for classmates to also use for their research.

·         Google Docs-I was very surprised with this tool!  It was great to be able to work on a group project without being in the same room as your group members (because everyone is so busy now days).  There were many areas that could be used in this program such as documents, surveys, spreadsheets, and presentations.  I could definitely see myself using this within my classroom.  Students could sit at their own computers and work on a given project with others in the class.  If they needed more time they could also work from home!

·         Google Page-I have found this as a great tool that organizes all of my web pages that I use on a daily or weekly basis.  Students could set up their own pages with easy to access sites used in the classroom.

·         RSS Feeds-I have always seen the icon on my computer, but I never had set up any RSS feeds.  I found these very interesting.  I set up my blogs into my RSS feeds, and it was very easy to access classmates’ blogs when reading and responding to other blogs.  Students could add these to their own Google pages.

·         Web 2.0 Tools-There were many Web 2.0 tools that were introduced to me throughout the course.  I researched timelines tools, which would be great to use while teaching social studies.  Concept mapping tools would be great in so many subject areas to help students organize their notes and research.  I also found the online story telling tools (creating a short video) and creating a website neat to use.  There are many areas of the tools that I can use with my students in the future.  These could be incorporated into so many subject areas!

·         Flickr-I did not work with this tool much during this course, but it does look very interesting.  I could upload my photos, manage the photos, and share with others.

·         Online Conferencing (WebEx)/Scheduling (Doodle)-I found the online conference and online scheduling to be very easy to use.  I could see myself using these tools when meeting with parents.  My parent/teacher conference schedule could be used within Doodle to give parents a chance to sign up for a time that works the best for them.  In the case a parent was unable to meet in person for conferences I could set up an online conference.

Even though there were many tools that I would use with my students within my classroom there were also a tool that I found interesting, but I could not find myself using this tool on a daily basis in the future.

·         Twitter-I cannot see myself using this tool in the future.  I did find it interesting to follow others in related topics of interest to me.  But I am not a person who comments on what I am doing at various times throughout the day.  I may use this tool to find information on related topics, but I will not use it for other purposes.

I have learned how to use many tools and programs that I can use in my personal learning network (PLN).  I have explained above in each area how I will use each of these in the future, along with using them in the classroom and with my students.  I understand some areas may be more difficult to use in the classroom, because of the internet safety and district policies.  I will check these policies before using specific tools and programs.  I now have many more tools to use in my classroom (more than I could have imagined learning in such a short time)!  I will continue to build my PLN by adding new tools and programs as I come across them.  I am excited to learn more about the CyberSmart tool bar that I have added to my computer.  There are so many new tools that I have yet to explore!

Exemplary Web 2.0 Uses

Throughout the course of last seven weeks in this technology course I have learned to work with many exemplary Web 2.0 tools.  The tools that come to mind at this time include:  Blogger, Timeline Creation,  Webspiration, and GoogleDocs (just to name a couple).  These are the tools I am going to be using for my final lesson plan for the unit development project.  The students are able to work interactively with online tools.  These four tools alone would allow my students to use Blogger as a collaboration tool with their fellow classmates to discuss ideas of the lesson.  The students could be thinking critically and creatively by solving the problems that were presented within the classroom lesson.  The Webspiration software could be used to help students organize their information that they collected and place it in a well laid out diagram.  The students would also be using inquiry to think about how they were organizing the information in a more in depth process.  The Timeline Creation could be used as an interactive online tool to place information in a timely order in which something took place.  This information could finally be placed in the final presentation form of GoogleDocs in the form of a PowerPoint presentation.  This could also be used in collaboration with other classmates with each completing their own part of the presentation over the web.

In order to receive the support from administrators, technology staff, and other staff members I would present an example as the one above in greater detail and explain the various 21^st century skills that would accompany the Web 2.0 tools.  These skills include students discussing and collaborating with their classmates, thinking critically and creatively, along with incorporating inquiry skills into their thinking process.  Hopefully through my explanation and examples they would see the value that Web 2.0 tools would have for students within the classroom.  My example above shows the students participating in one lesson, and they would be using so many skills that they will need for the future!

My Use and Reflection of Del.icio.us

I have never used del.icio.us before beginning this course.  I am sure glad I have been introduced to this site.  I have used favorites on my own computer for years, but if I needed the site at school or work I had to e-mail the site to myself.  This way I can bookmark the site with tags to help me remember what the site contains and log in anywhere I have internet access.  I can also share these sites with others who are interested in the same information as I am!

When first logging back into del.icio.us there were many bookmarks that looked interesting from other classmates. These are a few that I added to my own bookmarks.   After just completing my internet safety my mind has been on blogging.  There was one website that caught my attention titled Landmarks Class Blogmeister, which looks at blogging related to classroom use from both teachers and students from all over the world and our country.  I noticed a website called Web 2.0 Cool Tools for Schools, which included many different areas of tools that can be used as interactive online resources.  I have also added some bookmarks to my list throughout the last two or three weeks related to my course I am taking through my district related to social studies.  I have found these sites very informational, and it is great to have them right there when I need to access them!  I have also added a few tools that can be used within the classroom such as: Webspiration, One True Media, along with creating slides, books, and websites.

When it comes to using tags for bookmarking my websites my list has definitely grown over the past couple of weeks.  My tags began as pretty basic with the web 2.0 and UWWLibmedia, but now I have extended more of my bookmarks to include what is actually in my bookmarked sites.  I do admit I have usually left the tags similar to what was tagged if I bookmarked a website already found by a classmate.  Looking back at my tags I averaged between three to six tags per bookmark.  If I had to explain tagging to my students I would tell that that tags are what the website is all about.  What are the first terms that come to mind when you look at or think about the website?  These should be the terms that you tag.  Also, how would you remember the website or what were you looking for when you searched for the site?  These would also be tags to bookmark your sites!

The tag clouds that I have used the most often (not related to the web 2.0 and UWWLibmedia, which of course are my top two) include:  classroom, timelines, tools, Twitter, education, history, slideshow, and wikis.  This concludes my top ten tags with more listed afterwards.

Yes, I believe I did make annotations while bookmarking each link.  Annotations are basically notes that I am taking while reading, and in this case I am tagging the words that are coming to mind as I am taking a look at the websites.  The advantage to this is easily being able to find the bookmarks at a later time by remembering what you were looking for when you bookmarked the site.  You will tag the site with bookmarks of what you were looking for at the time.

I could use del.icio.us to connect with others interested in the same topic by looking just at particular tags.  For example, common tags among classmates were education, resources, tools, and technology.  When using the network outside of this course I could use it with my team members at school.  When looking at curriculum lessons one of us could bookmark a site of interest with the other two easily being able to assess the webpage.  It could not only be used with the teachers within my building, but also with the other grade level teachers in the district.  I could use del.icio.us or another bookmarking site with my students through a research project.  I could log in and add many sites that I have bookmarked related to the research topic.  The students could then look at my bookmarked sites, along with adding their own to share with their classmates as they found them!

The website del.icio.us is a very handy website to know all about, and I would highly recommend it to others!