BP12_2009123_Tool#5Kideos

My fourth site was http://www.kideos.com/. I like the colors and the graphics on the site. As I read the about section, I teared up. The site was created for a family's daughter who was hospitalized. They were sick of clicking on video after video and finding inappropriate sites for the child. The video's are streamed through an advisory council to determine if the videos are up to standard before putting on the site.
There are several educational videos appropriate for the classroom as well as enjoyment. Teachers can use this for all subjects. I found a ton of videos on animal behaviors and educational songs. The age range is up to 10 years old. If you were studying birds of flight, there is a great video in slow motion of an owl's flight.
I have to add at the bottom was a link to Game Classroom, my other tool.

BP12_2009123_Tool#6CiteULike

CiteULike is a free site that allows you to tag articles and share them with other people. The site has become a social network for users within similar fields. It is similar to other tools in which you can access it from any internet equipped computer and your information is stored there online. But, the articles are peer reviewed and cited, so you don't always have to do the hunt and search all day. There are groups you can join, tag articles, and suggest them to others.
This site could be used in higher education for research and also teaching students how to research. As a peer taught me to find this site!

BP15_2009123_OneMinuteMessage2

Images and screenflow from Educational games, worksheets, and homework help for kids, parents, and teachers-gameclassoom. (2009). Big Purple Hippos, LLC. Retrieved December 12, 2009, from http://www.gameclassroom.com

BP14_2009123_PeerReview#2JLourenco

BP12_2009123_Tool#4WatchKnow


[Image 1. WatchKnow]
WatchKnow is my selected Web 2.0 tool of the week. Videos for kids to learn from.
WatchKnow is a collection of short, quality educational and informational videos, categorized according to subject and educational level. WatchKnow was created for teachers, parents, and students. The current count of the collection is at 13, 140 and growing.

Educators are encouraged to collect, create, and share these free video resources that explain every educational topic in any language. The committee’s goal is to offer more than 50,000 videos by the end of 2010. A media review panel reviews all videos before they are added to the WatchKnow.org collection.


WatchKnow combines educational videos from some well-known sites to educators, such as, TeacherTube, YouTube, SchoolTube, eHow, Howcast, Internet Archive, 5min Life Videopedia, Slideboom live presentations, Graspr, Google videos and National Geographic. While the YouTube selections may be blocked for elementary schools at your district, this tool allows viewers optional educational clips from the various other sources. This directory greatly reduces search time for teachers when searching for materials to reach the auditory and visual learners. What a wealth of information in a supplemental format to use as an extension of textbook. Parents can look to WatchKnow to provide a tutorial for homework help or even as a review for their own knowledge.


WatchKnow is a wiki, a new kind of wiki that allows users to drag and drop videos from category to category and can be logged and tracked like most other videos. Users can rate the videos, which is important and helpful when trying to select a video for your students or own children. Another valuable feature for teachers and parents is that these videos can be selected by various search options including an age filter option.

Users can feel confident this site was designed with the experience and expertise of Larry Sanger, who is the executive director of WatchKnow. If this name sounds familiar, Larry Sanger is an American Ph.D. philosopher, co-founder of Wikipedia and founder of Citizendium. Additionally, Mr. Sanger shares tutorial videos on the WatchKnow website for ease of site navigation and features.

I am pleased to direct my colleagues to this site for supplemental materials for their classroom. Budget cuts have limited purchases for many libraries and so WatchKnow couldn't have been released at a better time. I believe educators around the world will appreciate having this free library at their fingertips.

References
Current Site of the Week - Wikipedia co-founder launches YouTube-like web site for children. (n.d.). eSchool News. Retrieved December 12, 2009, from http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/site-of-the-week/current-site-of-the-week/index.cfm? i=61846
WatchKnow - Videos for kids to learn from. Organized. (2009). WatchKnow - Videos for kids to learn from. Organized. Retrieved December 12, 2009, from http://www.watchknow.org
Posted by Joan M Lourenco at 9:52 AM
1 comments:

Joy said...
Wow, Joan I can't wait to visit this site. I know what you mean about budget cuts. I love introducing new internet resources for the teachers and the few parents who have the internet ability to visit sites such as these. I know that the children to do visit the public library and while there they can take their list of sites to visit over the holidays and I will add this! I like the fact that the medias are reviewed by a board. Thanks Joan!

December 12, 2009 3:26 P

BP13_2009123_PeerReviewTK00Readthewords

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2009
BP12_20091203_Tool#5 (Read the Words)


Read the Words

A useful Web 2.0 is one that speak text from the written word. Both Macs and PC's have internal voices that get old after a short while. Read the Words offers 15 different voices in English, Spanish, and French, to read text from just about any document. This is very useful for students who struggle reading, students who need to learn new vocabulary, students learning a foreign language, and anyone looking for voice dubbing or ducking for videos or other presentations. The creation of a downloadable mp3 file is great because the user can then embed the file in PowerPoints, Keynotes, iMovies, GarageBand files, and host of other applications. If the user does not profit, he/she can also embed the mp3 in a web page, similar to the visual message below.

It sort of makes Fred and Alex jealous (they are standard voices on an Apple Macintosh). Please listen to our new friend, Elizabeth, as she briefly describes this Web 2.0 tool.
Read the Words is located at:

http://www.readthewords.com
Posted by tk at 7:46 AM
1 comments:

Joy said...
Despite all the work we are doing as students, I am enjoying what all of us are discovering. Tom, I can use this tremendously for my students to hear and put the words in context. I will have to talk to my tech guy, no not you, at school. I am going to visit this site as well.
Thanks
Joy
December 12, 2009 1:53 PM

BP12_2009123_Tool#4GameClassroom

"All of Game Classroom's educational content has been created by professional educators with over 200 years of teaching experience, and has been outlined using state educational standards. We hope you (and your kids) enjoy Game Classroom and find it a fun place to learn and play games!" http://www.gameclassroom.com/whatis
I decided to continue exploring educational tools for the classroom. I came across the Game Classroom site, and decided to explore. I feel I am too old for these games. The kids have better hand to eye gaming reflexes than me. This is a very educational website for grades 1-6. I would encourage my students to play the games during the free computer time and at home. I searched by the topic multiplication and the results were phenomenal. They matched NCTM standards to games for skill and mastery. As well as my students, my fellow professional teachers should use this site.

BP11_2009122_OneMinuteMessage1

BP10_2009122_PeerReviewVandyVela

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2009

BP4_2009121_Web2.0Tools

"Research Web 2.0 Tools Learn how to use the tool through the site or tutorials and use it to create an assignment you might use in a learning situation or use it to create some product."

Candy Shop

Snickers, Reeses, Almond Joy, Three Musketeers, Mars, M&M's, PayDay...got your taste buds' attention yet? Yes, I have used this analogy before… but it must be shared again. I am like a kid in a candy store, sampling these digital confections. Doesn’t this photo look like the traditional candy display? I think so…hundreds of brightly colored icons wrapping these delicious (pun intended) digital morsels. Difficult to stop the tasting to savor one flavor….

However, I have determined that I will not consume empty calories as I continue on this cyber sampling feast. Therefore, I kept my Action Research, Digital Immigrant students, and their iPhones in mind as I sampled the Web 2.0 tools. Voila – one distinct taste stood out among the rest: Apptism.

“Apptism indexes all iPhone apps from the iTunes App Store and aggregates all of the latest news, reviews, and media related to the iPhone apps. Apptism's focus is to also provide extensive searching, sorting, and filtering capabilities to help the iPhone community find and track apps within the constantly growing App Store” (Apptism, 2009). Talk about one gigantic candy mall. Did you know that Apptism is currently tracking 103,434 applications available for the iPhone? What a smorgasbord …now I am more convinced than ever that an iPhone education is worthy of research.Who can keep up?

How will I create an assignment / get others to try out this new flavor? I immediately e-mailed the link to my managers at AT&T and sent it to all the sales associates who sell the iPhone everyday to people who are hungry for more information. Daily, I give out free samples as a part of my sales presentation and then will formally serve it as an appetizer as I start my AR cycles in January.

Kid in a candy shop, that’s me. And what kid wouldn’t want to share their new candy favorite with all their buds, that’s you.

Yummy!

Retrieved November 30, 2009, from http://www.apptism.com/

Retrieved November 30, 2009, from http://www.go2web20.net/

BP9_2009122_FlickrLesson

Most of the articles I found gave the students the opportunity to communicate and collaborate through the use of flickr in the classroom. The lesson I would create would ask the students to search the pictures or use pictures of their own to look for celebrations with cultures. In my classroom, a second language room, it would give the students as well as the parents a chance to be proud of their heritage. The fact that the students can use their own photos and share with others will give the students self-confidence. Skills such as compare and contrast would be great to apply to the different celebrations and give the students appreciation for one another.

BP8_2009122_Tool#3DropBox

The third tool I chose to explore was http://www.dropbox.com. This tool has a great combination of uses. The user downloads a box on each computer they use and have the ability to drop photos, documents, etc. You don’t have to email to your job any more. The information is accessible on any web device you use. I would utilize dropbox for my students to share files and work collaboratively. The research that students do at home can be shared with each other at home and at school.

The images are from my personal computer dropbox.

BP7_2009122_Tool#2wordsift

The second Web 2.0 tool I decided to explore was http://www.wordsift.com. I enjoyed the tool thoroughly and can definitely use it in the classroom. During seatwork, the students have to visit centers and I would incorporate this as a website for them to use with their vocabulary intervention.

When you type in a word or words to the box and click on sift, the door is opened to the esl student. There are videos, pictures and the visual thesaurus is now on the screen with an abundance of examples on the sift.

As my lesson in the room, this site would help the students create flashcards and answer any questions they needed with more visual support. Any teacher could use this awesome Web2.0 tool in their room for every subject.

Img src=http://www.wordsift.com/visualize

BP6_2009121_Anti-Teaching

The education system is constantly changing for the learners, but as it is constantly evolving, is it effective? Our students are constantly assessed and the educational governing bodies are taking the scores and holding it against the teachers. Several of the rss feeds I receive are from other states’ board of education. States around the country are debating if teachers’ salary should be based on their students’ learning gains. According to the readings in our classes there are several ways to successfully teaching the learner addressing their multiple intelligences. Our current personal learning environment addresses several of the learner approaches.
In our class, Multiple Learning Theory Applications, as teachers we need to differentiate instruction across the curriculum. The problem I am finding within my personal classroom is the ability gap. There is a 4-year gap between in reading levels. How do I plan for 4-years of reading instruction and all at various levels? I have learned and applied to the different learners in my room. My planning is ranged and I use my students as teachers.
I strongly believe there is no concrete solution for every learner because as the years pass by, the “learner” changes unpredictably. Education is like a revolving door. You can go forward and you can go backward. The path of the door remains the same; just as learners are tested and analyzed. Round and round we go…Sometimes the view out the glass is different, like each learner comes from a different environment with unknown forces acting on him or her.

New schools should include the top of the line technology and mostly “green.” The technology should be available to the parents as well, possible a lab or evening courses. Technology will not be the answer but with educators who are fluent in their subject areas and enjoy their teaching position. Alas success for the learner and the teacher would be phenomenal.
PLE’s and CMA’s are great management systems for instructors as well as the students. As a student myself, I feel that my learning is rushed and pushed to the limit. But part of me wonders would I do it if the enforcement and deadlines were not there? The article “7 things you should know about…Personal Learning Environments,” put my feeling and thoughts into perspective. I was acting and educating myself not realizing it. There is a greater emphasis on metacognition in my learning as I write my thoughts, another learner is reflecting and responding. The Internet becomes a crystal ball to shape my own opinions and be enlightened by others’ input. Every school of the future must be built to last and ready for the changes as time goes by producing successful learners. The final results would be the outcome and application of the learner in the real world.

One example would be the blog we are required to post and the follower who shares my opinion or differs. Another would be our online wimba sessions, where we discuss, collaborate and learn from peers and instructors.

References

Flack, J. (2009).Screenshot8.png.[Frame]. Retrieved December 2, 2009, from personal documents

Flack, J. (2009).Picture8.png.[Frame]. Retrieved December 2, 2009, from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/results.aspx?qu=door&sc=20