Use of Wiki in Educational Setting

We have been using a wiki for our book study. We are reading Strategies That Work. We use it to share websites, picture books or novels we can use. We have a file of strategy lessons that we can print and use in our classroom. Because it is not on the intranet, everyone can get to the ideas from home at any time. We are also writing comments of our thoughts as we read the book.

Second Life

Snapshot_002, originally uploaded by Old Aggie 82.

WOW.....I got to swim with the sharks tonight.....all from the comfort of my recliner!!

Discovery Educators Network sponsored a dive to celebrate the start of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. It was really cool, I even got dive gear. It was kinda scary even knowing it wasn't real. This will be the only way I will ever experience something like this. Never would do this in RL!

Second Life

My husband says I am an official geek.......I created an avatar in Second Life! And it is a lot skinnier than I am in real life =)

It has been an interesting/exciting experience. When you create an avatar, you begin in the general public area and you can bump into some "creepy" characters. Now that I limit my exploring to education islands, I have had some wonderful experiences. I found an Aggie group that is raising RL (real life) $$$ through a relay walk in SL (Second Life) for the American Cancer Society. I talked with a librarian from the University of Puerto Rico. A teacher from Arizona showed me her "sandbox" where she conducts professional development for her teachers.

The potential is amazing.....the ability to network with other educators and explore sites that you can't go to in RL. (Visited the Alamo and Tech Museum)

Next goal is to find book sharing groups.......

NECC

National Education Computing Conference sponsored by ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education)

Penny S. and I spent July 01 visiting with vendors in the Exhibit Hall @ the Convention Center in San Antonio. Walking over an area that was equal to 5 football fields was exhausting. (A delicious Starbucks revived us!) We got our picture taken with Mobie @ the Brainpop booth. I know we are lucky in KISD but it was very obvious as we walked around that vendors knew our district. Some even knew people by name.

Purchased some new tech books.

Learned @ the e-instruction booth, that they now have a writing pad that allows you to walk around as you teach...really cool and I would love to have one if anybody important reads this blog!

WeatherBug

Celia C. & Diane D. attended a class for using Weatherbug in the classroom. When you click on the hyperlink (the word weatherbug), type in Roth's zip in the student section and then choose one of the KISD schools. There are wonderful activities that you can use with your students.

If you notice on the right of my page, I have a weather hyperlink on my blog. I found the directions on the home page for WeatherBug.

Web 2.0 Camp Reflections

This camp was one of my favorite classes so far. I knew these web tools existed so it was fun to create using these internet tools while collaborating with other teachers in the district. I liked the format of the class where you worked independently, yet bounced ideas around. At all times we were focused on classroom uses and internet safety. The "digital natives" in our classrooms are so comfortable with these tools that educators need to learn how to integrate their use safely into our curriculum.

The blog is a wonderful tool for sharing technology with other teachers. I also plan to start another blog for my students and parents this coming school year. I will moderate the comments to assure that they are appropriate. I designed a wiki for our PLC this year and we started a wiki for 5th grade science.

Could we still have a good PLC and communicate ideas for science? Yes, a wiki is a tool to make it easier.

Wikis

Wikis have unbelievable potential. This would be an efficient way to communicate within PLC groups. The wiki could include the administration and other special teachers in the building.

Google docs is an organized way to share documents that someone has created. Once it is posted, the person who creates the doc invites other people to edit the doc. The document stays in one place.

Flickr

I found the maroon bluebonnet through flickrstorm. This is a search engine for Flickr, which is a website for sharing your photos in an "album". You can invite family & friends to enjoy your latest shutterbug creations.

Flickrstorm could be used for journal writing. Show a picture and ask them to write their thoughts.

Let me know your thoughts on the picture:

Photos & Images

A maroon bluebonnet! Difficult to find in the wild but you can find them at the Wildseed Farm outside of Fredricksburg, Texas. One of the times we visited, they had planted maroon, blue & white bluebonnets in the shape of the Texas flag.

Social Bookmarking

Do you use Delicious (social bookmarking site)? Share it with me and add me to your network: "mawillis". Once you're in my network, you can see all my favorite website.

I always have my favorite websites on any computer and I can share these websites. Once you install the buttons in your web browser, it's as easy as pushing the "tag" button.

Delicious

Great Website!

This is an awesome website full of wonderful ideas to integrate technology into the classroom. You can also subscribe to her e-newsletter and she will send you the latest info added to her website.
Tammy's Technology Tips for Teachers

Enjoy!!

Session 1 blogger

I feel so smart. My first blog.
My goals for this class are to learn how to integrate Web 2.0 tools into my classroom. I also want to learn how to share these tools with other teachers.