Anita Foster

Delicious @ Cheatham Hill

Delicious is SWEET!!! This is a great website in the Web 2.0 family that allows you to not only organize your own bookmarks, but it allows you to share and collaborate your bookmarks with others!

Today, I am presenting on Delicious at Cheatham Hill! Below you can download the files, watch the video and find your way through www.delicious.com (formerly del.icio.us, which still works).

Download del.icio.us  for pc.pdf
Download del.icio.us tips for pc.pdf
Download del.icio.us for Mac.pdf
Download del.icio.us Tips for Mac.pdf

GaETC - Google Apps for Education to Collaborate as a School System

A colleague just asked me why was I attending a Google Apps session, when I know everything about Google. NOT TRUE!! Although they have dubbed me The Google Goddess, I have never claimed to know everything about Google...As a matter of fact, I don't know if Google knows everything about Google!! Besides, Google, just like any Web 2.0 technology is always changing and doing something else...so, maybe they can teach The Google Goddess something new...it has happened before!!

Google Apps are free and the first thing to do is set up an email account. IF this is used with students, then that is a decision that the county level will have to make.

Google Apps that this county used or have access to:
GMail - Not currently using, but could transition to in the future.
Google Calendar
Google Talk - Chat
Google Video - NOT the normal one, this one allows you to securely share videos with your school.
Google Docs
Google Sites

One school is using Google Docs and Calendar to prepare for a SACS visit.

Google Apps is a great way for teachers and district level employees to collaborate. There is a lot of discussion as far as widgets and such that might be inappropriate for student use within the district network.

CAUTION: Kids at Play Podcasting in the Classroom

Students today...
need to be taught in a different way than how we learned. Students are thinking outside of the box at home to put things up on the Internet, are we teaching them out of the box in the classroom? We are using Atari to teach the Wii generation.

*Teachers began to allow students to create writings based on their experiences
*Students were and are often surprised to find out the ideas they develop are interesting.
*Students must write to develop their podcast before they can create their podcast.

Pre-Writing process was the same as before the podcasting was used. Then the class voted on the best script or play to create.

Again, as with everything else, what you do in the classroom needs to be connected to the GPS.

The Process
Brainstorming Session
Pre-Writing - Students use a Wiki for this step
Writing
Self and Peer Editing
Performance or Activity (Video or Image Collection)
Editing in Garage Band

Three Things
Students write on a sticky note "Three Things I Like About My Story" and "Three Things I Would Change"

Students rotate and are working at their own speed on the project.

What motivates a good writer?
*Believing they have knowledge to share
*Knowing that their writing will be published for others' enjoyment.
*Knowing that mastery of a skills leads to further development of their writing.

Creativity has increased by allowing students to learn the "way that they play."

Why Should We Podcast
*Deepen the level of understanding
*Transfer knowledge from one group of students to another
*Serve as culminating activity
*Increased student engagement

She is a classroom teacher who began podcasting with her 5th grade class, and is now using it with her 3rd grade class.

Three Qualities of an Effective Flipchart

Today is the last day at GaETC...It has been great...but I am exhausted!!

I am in a session for ACTIV Flipcharts and found out that ACTIV has their own web browser that you can use when you are using the flipchart. It looks pretty cool and easy to put in a link.

With any thing, when we build a lesson or a flipchart, we need to build it with the GPS.

We also need to make learning Interactive! This helps student engagement, student involvement, helps them remember things better.

Using the ACTIVote helps with Assessment

Before Learining
*Prior Knowledge
*Appropriate Level
*To plan instruction

During Learing
*Formative
*Oral Question
*Check List
*To differentiate and modify a lesson

After Learning
*To see the knowledge gained
*If skill was mastered
*To see if the standards were met
*To modify and differentiate more

Herman and Mo - Google Earth & Sky

Two of my colleagues presented about Google Earth & Sky at GaETC.

They did a great job working with their website to put in how to videos and resources that you can use when you start working with Google Earth. So, I am going to jump in and participate in the session and know that you can contact me for assistance or visit their site linked above for the tutorials.

PS...They did a great job!!

ACTIV eXPRESSION

The ACTIV vote now has a new "brother" or has been beefed up to become the ACTIV eXPRESSION. The interface built in to the Promethean software on the computer appears to be very easy to use. The remotes, I wish were not black text on a gray screen (old eyes).

He is now pulling up a Brain Pop and is going to design a unit around the website www.brainpop.com

A new edition of ACTIVStudio is coming in January that will combine both version 2 and 3 into one edition.

Tips for Making a GREAT Flipchart

1. Select the standards you will teach.
2. Be flexible. Know that you can always improve and make changes if something does not work.
3. Use resources that are already created for you.
4. Keep your flipchart clear and simple.
5. Make your flipchart engaging.

Great Websites

1. Galileo and Galileo Kids
2. eThemes (eMints)
3. WebQuest.org
4. Scholastic
5. Discovery Education Streaming
6. BrainPop
7. Promethean Planet

David Warlick - Our Students Our Worlds

I am surprise that there are not more people sitting in here! Right now there are 13 of us and David normally packs out a room for 900!! This is part of the flat classroom concept and David Warlick is a guru for Instructional Technology!

Microsoft Boku gaming software brings Higher Order Thinking Skills into the classroom! They have a lot of Problem Solving opportunities built in.

He talked about how teachers are using Second Life to use as an online classroom and staff development.

Very profound statement he just made..."We need to stop worrying about teaching the students to use paper, but we need to teach them to be digital."

New Technology
Clothes with computer adapters built in.
Accessories a phone that the mouth piece slips on your pinky and the ear piece on your thumb and you hold it up to your ear and mouth and it becomes a cell phone.
GPS Toe Rings - Plug in where you want to go on your phone or portable GPS and start walking, when you need to turn right the toe ring on your right foot vibrates, when you need to turn left, the left one vibrates.

Are we preparing our students for an unpredictable future? What are the skills they will need to prosper in a world with rapid change? The world is global and cooperative, are we preparing our students for this new world when they graduate?

Richard Florida and Daniel Ping are authors that we should be looking at. The Rise of the Creative Class, The Flight of the Creative Class and A Whole New Mind. "We are moving from an industrial world to a creative world."

"Because we are shifting to a creative world, we need to be putting more funding to teach our students how to be creative in art, music, drama, and other creative outlets."

"We have 21st century children learning in a 20th century classroom!" (AMEN!!)

The Digital Divide - The students who are online and collaborating with others and learning from others are learning more and doing more advanced learning than those that do not have technology in their home.

He spent a lot of time talking about what people are doing with Gaming software and video taping when they run it or play it through their movie software (iMovie, Movie Maker). WOW!! I was blown away by what some people have done!!

Information has changed... we see it as a consumable product and children now see it as raw data that can be used an manipulated.

64% of teenagers have created an original work AND published it to the web. Our students consider themselves more literate than their teachers.

Are our classrooms flat?? Are our students networked?? Are we utilizing the new Information Landscape?? Are we addressing our students Unpredictable Future??

http://handouts.davidwarlick.com and (Second Life) http://davidwarlick.com/sl Twitter Tag - L2TNS

Patrick Crispen - Keeping Up with the Googlebots

If you haven't noticed yet, I have been attending a lot of Patrick Crispen's sessions. This session is about what is new with Google.

On Nov 4, Google Images added some tools to be able to filter your image search with faces only and also news in the last 30 days.

Google Maps now has a topographical view so you can see the lines in mountains and such. Google Maps also has traffic views to see how busy a road his. It also gives you historical traffic view so you can see what it looks like on a Friday at 5 PM in a city you have never been to.

Google Finance has the Stock Ticker LIVE (most sites it is delayed 15 minutes).

Google Earth you can use Google Earth plugin without downloading Google Earth. code.google.com/apis/earth
And sky.google.com is also web based and you can view in Inferred, Microwave and Historical views. You can also see Hubble images.

Doctype is a wiki for web developers code.google.com/doctype/

Google Translate translates between English and other languages (Including Elmer Fudd). translate.google.com
You can also translate a website. So, if you have a website in a different language you would like to read in English, you can. I must warn...it is NOT perfect, but it is close.

Google Help google.com/support has support for tasks you are trying to complete on the Internet.

?fulldump=1 at the end of the url will give you the help document in one document rather than multiple little documents.

Google Mail Goggles allows you to have to put in answers to various questions if you try to email during certain hours. You will have 60 seconds to answer the questions...this is to prevent sending mail when you have been inebriated.

Goog411 - 1800-GOOG-411 gives you business information on your phone for free. It will even connect you to that phone number (for FREE) and will text message you the information if you would like. It can also send you a map to your phone. This only works for business directory NOW...but it is Google!!

You can search archived News articles at news.google.com

I feel Patrick and I are on the same wave length (or just both addicted to Google)...why??? He just talked about iGoogle, Google Books, Google Scholar, Google Knol and Google Educator all of which were just in my session on The Google Classroom!

Search Tools

Advanced Search you can now search for things copyrighted under Creative Commons. That way you have the copyright to use that image, or presentation or whatever you were searching for.

Google Suggests filters down what you are looking for and gives you suggestions for that request so as I type "P" it will suggest recent searches and top searches that are using the letters I type.

See...even the Google Goddess can learn a new trick or two!!

The Google Classroom at GaETC

This morning was the presentation and it went GREAT!! It was sitting room only....meaning people were coming in and sitting on the floor.

Herman Blogged about it here.

Patrick Crispen - Google 201: Advanced Googology

Since I am doing The Google Classroom presentation in the morning, I thought I would check outPatrick Crispen to see this presentation and see if there is anything I might need to tweak. You can visit his link and download his presentation.

I will put on here anything that might be new to me...

*He spent some time talking about how Google searches works. Google uses your search to search in phrases. So, it will find websites that has your phrases exactly the way you typed it. It scores phrases found together higher than words that are found adjacent. The last thing Google looks for is how many times those words are found in phrases and adjacent. However, Google will not use websites that try to use the same word repeatedly in order to get a "hit" to their site. Then Google only shows you the top 1,000 sites.

*PageRank tells you how many times a website is linked to other sites. If a website has a lot of websites linking to it, then it will score higher in PageRank. However, if a website has a lot of pages it links to, then those websites it links to has a lower rank because it will link to just about anyone. The higher the PageRank, the higher on the Google search your site will be.

*Search Engine Math
1. Be specific in your search (or end up with garbage).
2. Use "quotes" for phrases. Since Google always looks for phrases, this should only be used if you want the words exactly next to each other.
3. Use the + sign to
require an exact match. Since Google looks for phrases, this is really not needed since Google already looks for all the words in your search phrase.
4. Use the - sign to
exclude.
5. Combine symbols as often as possible.

AND is defaulted in Google, but if you can't find what you are looking for, put OR (in caps) in between each word. Google is not case sensitive with your search items.

Google no longer has a 10 word limit, so if you want to search for plagiarism it now goes up to 32. However Patrick suggests sticking to the 10 word limit.

If you don't know a word you can put in a * in the place of that word. So, if I searched for It's a * world. I would get any phrases that have It's a ___ world.

Since it looks for phrases, then the order of your keywords matter.

Advanced Search Operators

Query modifiers
filetype:
intitle:
inurl:
site:
synonyms ~before your keyword

Alternative query types
cache: searches a website held on Google's cache site (in case a website is offline)
link:
related:
info:

Other information needs
phonebook:
stocks:
define:
Google Calculator
weather
movies:

Unfortunately, my battery is about to die...so I am saving in hopes to keep everything I have typed!!