Gee, it's been a while! About four months, I think? Anyway, I managed to successfully drift away from the Learning 2.0 tasks (sorry Robert!) over the last few months or so and have decided it's probably time I drifted back (still got three tasks to go).
So... what have I been up to? What amazing discoveries have I made??
Aside from expecting my third child in a few months (eeek!), I've been looking at ways I can get back into teaching sooner rather than later! I had a chat with an ex-colleague of mine and found there was the opportunity to do some work with/for a special needs student in one of his classes if I was interested. My response? YES PLEASE! Most of this 'work' will take place via the 'net and at the moment I'm looking at different activities/tasks that might be able to assist this student (and other students with similar needs) now and into the future. So... Web 2.0 - bring it on! I'm intending to work some of my newly-acquired knowledge of Web 2.0-based activities into a variety of tasks over the next six months or so, depending on the needs of the student, of course. I'm just hoping it all works as I left teaching just prior to the Web 2.0 'explosion' of a few years ago so have no experience of actually implementing any of this into teaching. It will probably be a fairly steep learning curve but I guess I have to start somewhere!
So... I guess we'll see how it goes! Just keep your fingers crossed for me.... ;-)
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Playing in the Sandbox
I always loved playing in the sandbox (sandpit?) as a kid - so much fun to be had making sandcastles, playing with my brother's trucks etc - filling them with sand and driving them around, dumping the sand in my brother's shoes.... ah, the joys of childhood.
I also had some fun playing with the Learning 2.0 wiki which was a little challenging. I know I was going on a few posts ago about setting up a wiki for my family and we even used pbwiki to do it but... I have a memory like a sieve and couldn't remember how to do anything so struggled with it. I did, however, manage to put a few things in there, including my sister's Toblerone Cheesecake recipe on a newly-created "Favourite Yummy Things" page. I also added some favourites to the music page (I frequent Myspace quite a lot) and the only sporting activity I've taken any interest in over the past few months is there too on the favourite sports page.
I did have a problem doing the following also:
Add your blog to the Favourite Blogs page. That's how we'll know that you've been there. It’s easy to do if you follow this simple syntax
Example:
[ URL Title of blog]
[ http://stmbtech.pbwiki.com Learning 2.0 ]
With brackets [ ] and just a little typing, you’ve added a link - it’s as easy as that!
Actually, I didn't find it that easy - instead I just clicked on the 'link' button in the toolbar at the top, chose 'link to URL' and typed the address of the blog/myspace page/website in that box. Not sure how the above was suppose to work as I tried it but couldn't do it... perhaps I missed something?
I also had some fun playing with the Learning 2.0 wiki which was a little challenging. I know I was going on a few posts ago about setting up a wiki for my family and we even used pbwiki to do it but... I have a memory like a sieve and couldn't remember how to do anything so struggled with it. I did, however, manage to put a few things in there, including my sister's Toblerone Cheesecake recipe on a newly-created "Favourite Yummy Things" page. I also added some favourites to the music page (I frequent Myspace quite a lot) and the only sporting activity I've taken any interest in over the past few months is there too on the favourite sports page.
I did have a problem doing the following also:
Add your blog to the Favourite Blogs page. That's how we'll know that you've been there. It’s easy to do if you follow this simple syntax
Example:
[ URL Title of blog]
[ http://stmbtech.pbwiki.com Learning 2.0 ]
With brackets [ ] and just a little typing, you’ve added a link - it’s as easy as that!
Actually, I didn't find it that easy - instead I just clicked on the 'link' button in the toolbar at the top, chose 'link to URL' and typed the address of the blog/myspace page/website in that box. Not sure how the above was suppose to work as I tried it but couldn't do it... perhaps I missed something?
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
My newest friends are Blog friends!
Ok, so I'm a little 'off task'... again... but I'm up to date with the Learning 2.0 activities (well, almost).
One of the aspects of Facebook that kind of annoys me a little are the applications or at least the number of applications out there. Why? Well, it seems that almost everyone I know on Facebook loves to install a myriad of applications on their profile page, which is great - for them... but they seem to feel the need to 'invite' others (i.e. me) to get these applications too. Now I know there are some fantastic applications there (who doesn't love a good game of scrabble??), some of which I've installed and use quite regularly, but there are others that maybe just harmless fun but to me just seem to be clutter and, logging onto Facebook and seeing about 20 invitations to everything from aquariums to hot potatoes to fish tanks to movie trivia to superlatives (phew!) gets a bit tiresome!
Having said that, I did, however, find one application today that I think is fantastic - blog friends! It allows you to link your own blogs as well as the blogs from your friends (and their friends!) to your Facebook profile. The blogs appear according to your 'interests' that contain a series of keywords. Anyway, I discovered some excellent edubloggers through my newly formed connections and have been enjoying having a read of them. Might have to subscribe to some of their blogs also!
Take a look sometime!
p.s. yes - I did send out invites to some of my friends to join blog friends... but only to people I thought would use it!
One of the aspects of Facebook that kind of annoys me a little are the applications or at least the number of applications out there. Why? Well, it seems that almost everyone I know on Facebook loves to install a myriad of applications on their profile page, which is great - for them... but they seem to feel the need to 'invite' others (i.e. me) to get these applications too. Now I know there are some fantastic applications there (who doesn't love a good game of scrabble??), some of which I've installed and use quite regularly, but there are others that maybe just harmless fun but to me just seem to be clutter and, logging onto Facebook and seeing about 20 invitations to everything from aquariums to hot potatoes to fish tanks to movie trivia to superlatives (phew!) gets a bit tiresome!
Having said that, I did, however, find one application today that I think is fantastic - blog friends! It allows you to link your own blogs as well as the blogs from your friends (and their friends!) to your Facebook profile. The blogs appear according to your 'interests' that contain a series of keywords. Anyway, I discovered some excellent edubloggers through my newly formed connections and have been enjoying having a read of them. Might have to subscribe to some of their blogs also!
Take a look sometime!
p.s. yes - I did send out invites to some of my friends to join blog friends... but only to people I thought would use it!
Saturday, September 29, 2007
"will we wiki?"
This was a question I posed to my family via email about six months ago when I first heard/saw what wikis were about. I thought it would be a great way for us (my 10 siblings and myself who live in various locations around the state!) to keep in touch, share pictures/stories, plan family get-togethers etc. The result can be found here (yes, I use pbwiki too!). It's still very much a 'work in progress' (but I doubt that a wiki is every really 'finished'... is it??). So far we've used it to share photos of our kids as well as jokes and there's even a recipe page (you HAVE to try my sister's Toblerone slice - it's AMAZING!!!). I set up the sidebar with some instructions for those less 'techno-savvy' than myself (ha ha... right...) so they could add pages etc. themselves without too much trouble. In the future, there's the hope that our kids (some are primary and high school age) will be able to have their own pages and put up some of their work from school or just about anything else they want to share with their cousins etc. We're also hoping to have an annual 'get-together' which we may use a page on the wiki to plan - anyone can add comments or ideas on where we can go etc. We'll see where it goes in the future...
Anyway, having had some experience of setting up a wiki for personal use, I had a look at the ones listed in the Learning 2.0 activity and saw some uses there I'd not considered (i.e. 'choose your own adventure' story - interesting!). Something else that also became very clear to me was the importance of making the wiki 'look good' (so, yes, I thought I'd better go back to my family wiki and improve the look of it!). The Room 15 wiki, for example, was much easier to look through than the others and also had some interesting pages in there (there's even one for teachers!).
I can see wikis being very useful for students to publish their work in many different ways (i.e. text on a page or podcasting etc) and it also has the benefit of keeping it organised. I recall many occasions, teaching Studies of Religion and having the students work on groups to research part of a topic and then 'report back' to the rest of the class. This also involved getting copious copies of notes etc for the other groups in the class and general required huge amounts of time (which we didn't have!). Having the students do something similar in a wiki would be a fantastic way to save time as well as make the work accessible for other students as well. It is also accessible to anyone who has the internet at home (that would be most students these days? Or is that too big an assumption to make??). Another use could also be for groups within the school (i.e. St Vincent de Paul or Student Representative Council) to report on or give information about events or other things they were doing.... the possibilities are endless! And just makes me wish I could get back into it all sooner....
Anyway, having had some experience of setting up a wiki for personal use, I had a look at the ones listed in the Learning 2.0 activity and saw some uses there I'd not considered (i.e. 'choose your own adventure' story - interesting!). Something else that also became very clear to me was the importance of making the wiki 'look good' (so, yes, I thought I'd better go back to my family wiki and improve the look of it!). The Room 15 wiki, for example, was much easier to look through than the others and also had some interesting pages in there (there's even one for teachers!).
I can see wikis being very useful for students to publish their work in many different ways (i.e. text on a page or podcasting etc) and it also has the benefit of keeping it organised. I recall many occasions, teaching Studies of Religion and having the students work on groups to research part of a topic and then 'report back' to the rest of the class. This also involved getting copious copies of notes etc for the other groups in the class and general required huge amounts of time (which we didn't have!). Having the students do something similar in a wiki would be a fantastic way to save time as well as make the work accessible for other students as well. It is also accessible to anyone who has the internet at home (that would be most students these days? Or is that too big an assumption to make??). Another use could also be for groups within the school (i.e. St Vincent de Paul or Student Representative Council) to report on or give information about events or other things they were doing.... the possibilities are endless! And just makes me wish I could get back into it all sooner....
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Off task?
Sorry if this is a little off task but...
I discovered how to make this really neat slideshow thing from a friend on Facebook and then worked out how to put it on my blog!
More pics of my kids - that's about all I take photos of these days!
I'll get back onto Learning 2.0 soon.... I promise!
If you'd like to have a go at it yourself, you can find it here.
I discovered how to make this really neat slideshow thing from a friend on Facebook and then worked out how to put it on my blog!
More pics of my kids - that's about all I take photos of these days!
I'll get back onto Learning 2.0 soon.... I promise!
If you'd like to have a go at it yourself, you can find it here.
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Thursday, August 16, 2007
Fav.or.it
Like lots of people I tend to get a bit behind on looking at Google Reader and keeping track of all the blogs I subscribe to. Today, however, I noticed one of the blogs mentioned a new RSS reader that was going to be available soon, called fav.or.it. I haven't had a chance to really have a good look at it yet but it looks like it will have some interesting features...
"fav.or.it is our answer to the current separation of feed reading and commenting. We have built a web interface that lets you read all your favorite content and at the same time take part in an interactive community." (click here to see more)
Yum!
I've been using del.icio.us for a while and have found it to be quite useful. I must admit, however, that so far I've set it up and only added a few different things to it that are of interest to me. I know it's easy to just 'tag' different websites as you're looking at them and save them to del.icio.us but... most of the time I forget to do it! This means if I want to go back to that page later I need to go searching for it again...
Like lots of Learning 2.0 tools, I can easily see the benefit of using this for teaching - huge potential! But for now I guess I'll just keep adding tags slowley as they become useful to me.
Like lots of Learning 2.0 tools, I can easily see the benefit of using this for teaching - huge potential! But for now I guess I'll just keep adding tags slowley as they become useful to me.
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