Thing 15

I have been meaning to set up a Dropbox for months now. I have heard about it, and I had been invited by my sons, but never had the time to do it. Using the link provided by my son gave us each a bit more free storage space on Dropbox. It was very simple to create a Dropbox account with the help of the video. It also inspired me to create an account on the Amazon Cloud to save downloaded music to be accessed from any computer.

Dropbox will hopefully solve the problem of the forgotten flash drive, and having different versions of documents on the flashdrive, and in my documents at school and home. With all of those documents on the cloud, I will have updated versions (or at least the same versions) each time I work on something.

I loaded the application at home and at school and I am in the process of uploading files from school document folder to Dropbox. It is a bit time consuming, however, since I seem to be able to transfer documents and not entire folders at once that I have on the O drive. I'll get there though.

I did create a folder to share with friends... my Lake Compounce folder for our upcoming field trip. I shared it with my 23 Things leaders (I know you have no use for it, but I was testing to see if you got the invitation and could access it) and with my grade level colleagues. Although we share documents on the S drive, this enables them to check it out at home if desired. (theoretically if it worked)

My phone is basic (not smart) and I do not have a tablet, so I will have to pass on the "extra credit".

Thing 14

I spent so much time on Delicious last night, saving and tagging, that I did not have the time to post. It was pretty easy to navigate the Delicious website. The videos are very helpful to watch, pause, follow the directions, and then continue.

I entered several websites that I go to for units done in class. I have a few bookmarked, but often I just google them. Sometimes I forget which ones I have used, so this will be useful as I build my delicious bookmark site. I think this will be helpful to share sites with my grade level and department colleagues. Once the bookmarks are organized, I think it will be even more useful. Now they are just randomly listed. I hope the link works.


http://www.delicious.com/mallozd

With the option to keep some bookmarks private, perhaps this site could be shared with students so they have could use the bookmarked websites for research projects. I am not sure that is how it could be used in the classroom, but with all of the Science sites bookmarked, it might provide a starting point for student research, and perhaps I can add to the collection by discovering other sites that people have bookmarked.

I do like the fact that Delicious is available from any computer. Although I primarily use two computers- one at school and one at home, there are times when I use others. While in a computer lab at school, using my son's laptop, or using a computer while away from home, Delicious makes the websites available from anywhere.

Thing 13

It does appear that the "new way” to bookmark is much better than the current way. I have often found myself at school wishing I had the bookmarks that I saved on my home computer and vice versa. Using Delicious will take care of this, which is a great advantage. The article on tagging was also helpful because it explained how to do it. When I was trying to tag photos on Flickr a while back, I was doing it by trial and error. Tagging with Delicious will also allow me to share bookmarks with others and see what others are using. I guess it replaces sending people links to good bookmarks when you find something. It may take some time setting it up initially, but once organized, it might be very helpful.

I do agree with Jim about the tag cloud. They look like a collage of words to me that might get the attention of some of the kids because it looks different, but I am not sure about their usefulness. Maybe someone can point me in the right direction. I tried to make a tag cloud from a few things... using a URL and trying to import a word document. Each time, it made no sense, so I ended up copying and pasting  the text of our science syllabus/course introduction  to make the tag cloud.  I did notice that it does not keep phrases together either. Critical thinking and problem solving came out as separate words. Perhaps I can display this tag cloud image at open house next year while I go over the syllabus with parents. I am open to other suggestions about their use.

acceleration atmosphere charge circuits circulation circulatory composition continuing critical digestive diseases dissection earth electricity experiment forces frog fronts function genetics immune inheritance laboratory law life-cell magnetism methods momentum motion movement muscular noninfectious nutrition problem reproduction science scientific sheep skeletal skin society solving structure study system technology text thinking third weather

created at TagCrowd.com

Thing 12

Here we go again, and hopefully no frozen computer this time! Thanks for the suggestions, but I could not retrieve it even though I thought there was autosoave as well.

I did create a Twitter account the other night and subscribed to several Science and Health  related sites (tweets... I do not know the right terminology)  I imagine once I get used to Twitter I might try using it next year for a few short assignments. Perhaps I could tweet a science current event or news of a medical breakthrough and have students respond to it. Another possibility would be to have students write a brief summary of an assigned article to read. Without a smart phone, I must limit my reading of tweets to my home computer.

I have a Facebook already that I created last summer. I was always curious about what kids were talking about, but resisted for quite some time. When my oldest son got an internship at Facebook last summer, I decided I needed to be on board so I knew what he was doing and could talk about projects he was working on. It was also nice to see the photos he posted of his summer in CA. He will work at Facebook full time upon graduating from college this month.  I have declined friend requests from current and former students who are at WHS, but I have reacquainted with former students who are "all grown up" and it is nice to see how they are doing. I have also connected with former classmates out of state and relatives in Canada and Germany. For me, relationships online through Facebook do not replace face to face relationships. They are additional contacts that perhaps I ordinarily would not have. I imagine for some people though, certain online relationships can be very meaningful. Others have thousands of "friends"... I do not see how that can be meaningful!

Social networking sites are very popular with kids today because they seem to be more of a "me" generation. Kids want to share everything about themselves and get the attention of everyone around them in some cases. They also get the instant gratification of near immediate feedback. It can be a positive thing though, if done in moderation. Kids can learn social and technical skills that they need to be competent in this digital age. It allows them to explore interests, communicate with others who have similar interests, and experiment with different forms of self expression .

Thing 11

For part A, I chose to create a Google Site, trying to be consistent with google and therefore keep the same username and password. To tell you the truth, I am finding it hard to keep track of all of them! I try to keep them consistent, but it is hard. I am not sure if I will ever use the google site. I considered setting up a classroom website last summer, but was reminded about edline on the horizon, so I waited. Three teachers on my team have google sites or another class website that they link to edline, but I do not see doing that.

I did explore Wix and looked at many of their featured websites... they are pretty amazing! Again, although they are pretty impressive, I do not feel the need to have a classroom website like that. There are too many other things to do and that would be one more thing to keep up with.

I must say that I just love colored pencils. They come in such pretty colors and when using them for a classroom project, I never have to worry if the network is down or if there is a computer lab available! (occasionally legitimate concerns)   All I need is a sharpener... I also need to investigate edmodo further. Apparently it is the leading social learning network for education. It seems like many educators use it for posting assignments (but we have edline) or for projects. Maybe it can be used by students to look for extra help. I am not sure where it fits yet.