I viewed  “Games in Education” presented by Sylvia Martinez and “What Did You Do in School Yesterday, Today, and Three Years Ago?” presented by H. Songhai.  “Games in Education” appealed to me because I use games on a daily basis with my students.  Most of the games that I use are interactive games or activities with a specific teaching purpose in mind, such as role plays, or cooperative activities.  Other games are specific to a problem or issue that the student needs help with such as divorce, problem solving or teasing/bullying.  These games are similar in some ways to the type of games that Sylvia described in her presentation.  They’re an attempt to get students talking about the problem they’re experiencing, without direct prompting from me.  Sylvia’s point was that teachers need to use games in a way that get the students thinking and solving problems and not just filling up time or as a hook to get students interested in the subject before they get to the “boring” part of the lesson.  If the games aren’t an integral part of the learning then they’re a waste of time for everyone.  Sylvia also makes the point that games need to be fun, or the students won’t get anything out of them.  It takes quite a bit of work on the teacher’s part to incorporate games into their lessons and to make sure they’re tied to assessments.   To kick it up a notch, Sylvia suggests that students design the games.  There are lots of great examples of games to use with students including ones that are commercial off the shelf-type  games.

The other podcast I viewed was “What did you do in school today…”  H. Songhai described numerous ways for students to use those typically annoying devices like cell phones, MP3 players, and digital cameras to document almost every aspect of their high school careers.  He points out that students/teens use their phones almost ceaselessly so why not have them use them in a way to enhance their learning?  Rather than text one another about mindless events, he gives them a reason to use their phones in a more productive manner.  He provides many suggestions for ways that students can use their own devices to enhance their learning.

I found this great item in my reader from “Successful Teaching” by loonyhiker on Body Language.  The whole post was right up my alley as a social worker.  I work on nonverbal social cues with my students all the time.  However, I never thought to consider my own body language when interacting with my students, parents or other teachers.  Well, not never, but rarely!  It was a good reminder that I need to be aware of my own signals that I’m giving off.  My husband often pokes fun of my “poker face” because I would seriously lose the house if I ever played poker!  I have a very “readable” face and while I sometimes wish I could hide my feelings a little bit better, at least I’m honest!  I enjoyed the video and it made me wonder whether I could produce something like this with my own students.  I ran a group last year on acting and communicating and it was a lot of work but also a lot of fun. We worked on skills such as facial expression, body language, and voice tone/voice volume.  The students participated in what were essentially acting games and preparing skits for a live performance.  However, the group had a practical purpose as well, to improve the students’ communication skills and hopefully, their relationships with others.  I was excited to find this item and to think I owe it all to this class!!

I really like the idea of sharing bookmarks with colleagues, friends and relatives. What a great tool for collaborating!  I can see many uses for social bookmarking in education.  Too many times, my own kids have come home with a project that requires research on the internet.  Sometimes, the teacher has included some suggestions for possible websites to explore but more often than not, my husband and I are called upon to help them find what they need.  For working parents who have their own homework to do, this experience hasn’t been a pleasant one.  (read – lots of yelling in the Dolce household!)  We’ve frequently looked at each other with the same question on our lips, “Why can’t the teacher provide them with websites to search?”  They must have them stored on their own computers.  But what a drag, to copy and paste them for each assignment.  How much easier is it to use social bookmarking with tags for the students to access?  I’m sure the students would benefit from this practice as well.  For my own professional and personal use, the idea of accessing all of my bookmarks on the web rather than from a specific computer is something of a dream.  I see many uses for this in the very near future.  The district social workers are collaborating on revamping the current crisis manual for the district.  To be able to share articles, research, etc. with other social workers through social bookmarking will make our task much more manageable.  I’ve used this task to begin searching for those articles, anticipating our departmental meeting this week.  As far as the two options, delicious and diigo, I found both of them fairly easy to navigate.  Diigo was especially user friendly, and I loved being able to highlight and comment on the articles that I found.

my diigo

my delicious

This week (well, really 2 weeks, but who’s counting!) was actually really fun!  I guess I’m truly a visual learner because so far, these tasks have been the most enjoyable for me.  It also was the first time in this course when I didn’t feel like I was WORKING to learn!  Finally – I’ve achieved what I set out to do when starting this course.  Learn, play and have fun all at the same time!  Of course, if you lived with me, you wouldn’t have thought so.  Not 15 minutes ago, I had a major meltdown because after creating my slideshow using rockyou, I wasn’t able to save what I had created!  Even my 9-year old, Natalie, said, “Don’t yell at me just because you lost your movie!”,  when I was trying to hustle her into bed.  However, when I finally gave up on the idea that I was going to be able to save my slideshow and decided to start from scratch, I completed it in less than 10 minutes!  I guess it really wasn’t that hard.  I do find it frustrating though, when you go to push that little button and nothing happens – and there’s no answer!  I still don’t know what went wrong.  However, I’m not completely demoralized to try again.  I’m actually quite excited to begin using these slideshows to share pictures from my family’s trip to Italy this summer!  I love that you can upload pictures to flickr and share photos with friends and family and not worry that you’ll lose the photos or forget where the negatives are!   These tools are great vehicles for enhancing our students’ learning.  The possibilities are endless!  Here’s the link to my wiki so you can see my slideshows.

I am finally having FUN in this class!  Exploring flickr and its uses was really cool!  (Sorry – I just reverted to my 16-year old self for a second!)  Seriously, I could have spent hours looking at the different photos.  For those of you who don’t know me very well, I have 2 girls, ages 9 and 11.  And they occasionally have assignments which require adult assistance (read, every other day).  My husband and I try to divide this duty as we secretly curse the teachers who inflict these projects on us, the poor parents.  Please, I already passed 4th grade!  At any rate, this weekend it was my turn.  So, my 9-year old and I spent a good portion of the day working on her biome for her science lesson.  As we were working on her swamp/wetlands diorama, I fell into using flickr by accident.  I hadn’t planned to do so, but there I was, searching for pictures of the White-tailed Deer, snails, and lily pads, as we tried to recreate replicas of them for her project.  So, I had a little preview of Thing 11, as well as a hands-on experience of using flickr for an educational purpose.  I have to say, it was hard not to get sidetracked.  Finally, when the child’s project was completed (boy, I hope I get an A!), I sat down in front of my computer to do my own homework.  I found flickr really easy to use and a great tool for educators and students alike.  My 9-year old, Natalie, and I used it to find images of animals and plants in order to recreate a 3-D model for her project.  Meanwhile, my older daugher, Mia, used it to find pictures for a brochure she was making for her social studies class on an African country.  I explored flickr for images of emotions, much like what my fellow classmate, Brittany, had done.  As another social worker, it just made sense to collect pictures of people with different expressions on their faces to use with students.  Here’s an example of one of the pictures I found:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/geko78/3927732285/ Smiling from the inside out by Geekr.  I’m looking forward to using flickr more often.

Whew!  I got it right this time.  At least, the title.  My first reaction to Creative Commons was similar to few of my other classmates.  Never heard of it, never noticed it, NO idea what it was about.  Except for some vague recollection of a common place for students to hang out in college, called “The Commons” (duh).    I didn’t really know what Creative Commons was all about.  I did gather that it wasn’t a place for students to hang out and smoke or play hacky sack inbetween classes, like the Commons from my college days.  However, even though I scored a 90% on the quiz, I’m not sure I’m all that clear on its use.  I get that it’s a way for people to take ownership of the content they post to the web.  And I fully agree that credit should be given for that content.  I also have this kneejerk reaction that the lawyers got involved with the internet and mucked it up.  The freedom of users of the internet to create and share and collaborate in an instant suddenly became burdened with the idea that “THIS IS MINE and you must give me credit for it!”  Then I explored further and discovered that it’s a way for people to be recognized for their ideas and to share them FREELY with others.  Just let people know where the idea came from.  I like the idea of share and share alike.  My other thought was that I have totally violated the Creative Commons logo in my use of material from the internet.   I don’t know that I really have, I think I just have a guilty conscience.   Most of my use of images go into powerpoints for students’ personal use, which I think is covered under education.

First, I just have to mention that every time I write the title for my post, I mistakenly write Think, instead of Thing.  Then I have to go back and edit it.  Now, however, I’m thinking that I should just leave it.  Because, I do feel like I’m thinking out loud when I write these posts.  And isn’t that the point?  Anyway, on to the purpose of the post.  Finally, a piece of technology that I feel like I know something about!  Or at least have some familiarity with.  My principal started a wiki last year and relentlessly reminded his staff to check the wiki for weekly updates.  This year, we’re using the wiki for our special ed teams to create a calendar of meetings that is used by the entire staff.  I think it’s a wonderful tool for organizing our meetings and keeping everyone informed about what’s coming up.  It’s way more efficient than emails back and forth and sending out a word doc as an attachment.  So, I was feeling fairly clever as I began this week’s task on wikis.  And once again, I was humbled after exploring what other teachers have done with wikis.  (Am I really that shortsighted?)  The more I learn, the more I learn the more there is for me to learn (what?)  Read it again, slowly.  Anyway, here’s a sampling of my favorites:

The Oregan Trail wiki produced by 3rd graders was just fantastic!  You could clearly see the student’s collaboration and it was really well organized.  I couldn’t get over the fact that it was created by 8-9 year olds!  They even had some interactive games and puzzles for you to complete.

Westwood’s wiki was also really well organized and easily navigated.  Another great example of a good communication system for students.   There were links to student resources such as SAT prep and the Westwood Home page.  A minor point, but one that I appreciated was a small statement at the bottom of the first page, as to who could join the wiki.  I don’t know how many times I asked to join a wiki and was incredibly embarrassed to find out that you don’t have to JOIN a wiki to VIEW it.  I thought I was trying to save the wiki for future reference.  By the way, I found out how to do that at our institute day.  Whew.

I really was impressed by the 1001 Flat World Tales wiki.  This was a huge project reaching all across the globe as students wrote stories and commented on each others’ tales.  The framework was to tell such a good story that you would save your country from annihilation from aliens who have come to earth and are frankly unimpressed with the lifeforms (us).  Students reviewed each others’ stories and offered suggestions for improvement, revisions, etc. as well as compliments for parts they admired.  Each year, the finalists were published in an eBook.  I was amazed at the sheer number of students involved in this project.

I think there are a number of uses for wikis in the classroom.  Since I don’t have my own classroom, I’m still thinking of ways that I might make use of one in my work with students.  I can see the social workers using a wiki to collaborate on the crisis manual for the district.

Finally, I like the wiki for nothing else than its name.  It’s fun to say, and you can have all sorts of fun using it in place of other words.  “Have a good wiki!” or  “I could have had a wiki!”  However, I’ve noticed a rising tide of anti-wiki sentiment as reflected in some bumperstickers–”Guns don’t kill, Wikis do” or “Don’t ask me about my wiki,” or “Don’t blame me, I voted for Wiki.”   Well, you get the idea.

I enjoyed getting used to the RSS reader or feeder.  It’s like having the newspaper delivered to your door instead of having to go to the convenience store to buy it every day.  And similar to a newspaper, you rarely read every single story.  You skim the headlines and then go to the crossword (kidding!)  Well, not really, but you tend to read the cover story and then go to the items that are of particular interest to you.  I used the google blog search engine to find some new blogs.  Cool Cat Teacher was one of my finds from Thing 5.  I also discovered Hobo Teacher.  The blogs are funny and a little on the edge.  I decided I needed a laugh now and then.  

Well, after a week of blogging and reading (or feeding), I have to say I’m finally becoming more comfortable with the whole blog (or)deal.  I still feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information that is out there in cyberspace, but I discovered some really cool tips from other teachers that were worthwhile.  I also found some thought provoking blogs such as Matthew Needleman’s Misunderstanding Mr. Winkle Wakes.  This blog resonated with me as I strive to incorporate technology in my work as a school social worker.  His video was a dark but humorous commentary on schools.
Rip Van Winkle wakes up after 100 years to find that he doesn’t recognize anything in his new world except the school.  There, he discovers that nothing has changed.  It made me realize that school staff (teachers, administrators, support staff, etc) must become techno-saavy if we’re to continue providing our students with an appropriate education.  I feel a little like Rip Van Winkle myself.  I realize that even though I use technology every day, and I have been for over 10 years, I’m REALLY behind!  It’s like I overslept a little and now I have to rush to catch up!  Matthew makes an interesting observation that some individuals misunderstand the video and disagree that schools aren’t using technology.  The most important point is that while teachers might be using technology, if they’re using it in a way that simply replaces a former technology, (such as a SMART board instead of a blackboard) then they’re really not embracing the whole idea of Web 2.0 and how it can affect their teaching.  Simply using the SMART board as another surface to write on, without adapting new practices, isn’t really embracing technology and how it can affect the learning in the classroom.  We need to give up a little control and engage the students in their own discovery and learning.

After exploring several of the examples of blogs in education, I came away with several thoughts:

1) Skydaddy’s Upside down pop quiz was a great example of using a blog to share tools and ideas with other teachers. Teachers can connect and share ideas about things that worked, or things that didn’t. It depends on how open we are to discussing our failures and well as our successes. I would be compelled to try the upside down pop quiz after reading his blog entry.

2) Cool Cat Teacher’s Spies Like Us, was frankly, a little scary. The blog itself made me think that the writer is a little paranoid, thinking that her students are running around filming her all the time. I kept thinking, ok, it’s a blog and I’m reading it, but do I need to? What am I gaining from this? However, by the end, I decided that raising the issue of ethics and technology is a valid point. I appreciated her advice to discuss these ethics with our students. It feels as if we’re still in some uncharted waters.

3) Andy Carvin’s Open Letter About Cyberbullying was a serious example of the impersonal nature of bullying that can occur through the internet. His blog was an example of the misuse of the internet to hurt another person. I know in my practice as a school social worker, I caution students as much as possible about what they share over the internet, but every year, I hear reports of teasing and bullying that happens through IMing, email, etc.

4) Finally, my thoughts on using blogs as a resource. The sheer number of blogs that are being written is overwhelming. It will be important to find a blog that is well researched, thoughtful and written by someone with experience or training in the subject they’re writing about. Creating a small community of bloggers, such as the edublogs, is definitely a way to connect with other educators.