I strongly feel that all senior high school students should view this blog before they graduate from High School. Have a watch and see if you agree.
Find more videos like this on The Educator's PLN
Monday, January 11, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Out with the old, In with the new
The skies were clear, and the explorer was in a state of peace. It was time to review her travels to date, and to bring her vessel up to spec - "shipshape" as they say.
She spent the afternoon reviewing her journal entries, adding special links and descriptive details to her previous posts using the blogging link tool and SnapShot. She wasn't sure how some of the tools would affect her Captain's log, but they were worth a try anyway. A bit of rearranging of the widgets and gadgets might also make the Blog run more smoothly, she thought, and so it was done.
She finished tidying her vessel with a TwitStamp, which, to her delight, came in so many colours! At the end of the day, the explorer decided to share a photo that she found in the blogosphere. She thought that this photo was a great example of WCYDWT - translation: What Can You Do With This? She thought it could inspire some wonderful lessons on the diameters, radii and circumference of circles in her mathematics lessons back in her homeland of Edutopia!
Friday, January 8, 2010
Charting the Lands
The explorer is finding her way, learning the language and ways of Cyberia, exploring and charting the vast, varied, and valuable tools of the web 2.0 lands that she visits. As she woke with the morning sun rising over the horizon, it dawned on her that she was coming to know this world of Cyberia, to understand the powers it influence, mentor, and lead her people. She felt semi-fluent, enough to communicate with fellow journeymen from around the world, and even to invite new shipmates to join her along the way.
The map through the blogosphere, initially void of information, was beginning to bloom with the locations of previously undiscovered waters, islands, and tribes from around the land - the purpose of the voyage becoming ever more apparent and exciting. With all of this now chartered territory, the intrepid explorer understands her role in this journey. She is creating new connections between her prior duty, as a 'filler of vessels' to her impending role as a champion to the underdog, leader of the gifted, providing opportunities using the tools of the Web 2.0 land to unleash passions, untap minds, and showcase talents of her disciples.
The explorer passed the day in the land of animoto, where she creatively recorded in the Captain's log her new understandings using audio, video, and written methods--and the indigenous people of the animoto tribe even put her work to music!
She has come so far in such a short time, and yet there is much to be discovered. But this explorer needs no more convincing..... the wold of Cyberia, the blogosphere, and the newly discovered trade tools of web 2.0 were here to stay!
The map through the blogosphere, initially void of information, was beginning to bloom with the locations of previously undiscovered waters, islands, and tribes from around the land - the purpose of the voyage becoming ever more apparent and exciting. With all of this now chartered territory, the intrepid explorer understands her role in this journey. She is creating new connections between her prior duty, as a 'filler of vessels' to her impending role as a champion to the underdog, leader of the gifted, providing opportunities using the tools of the Web 2.0 land to unleash passions, untap minds, and showcase talents of her disciples.
The explorer passed the day in the land of animoto, where she creatively recorded in the Captain's log her new understandings using audio, video, and written methods--and the indigenous people of the animoto tribe even put her work to music!
She has come so far in such a short time, and yet there is much to be discovered. But this explorer needs no more convincing..... the wold of Cyberia, the blogosphere, and the newly discovered trade tools of web 2.0 were here to stay!
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Full Steam Ahead!
The explorer was beginning to feel confident and excited on this voyage through the blogosphere! During the short period where her ship floated idly in the waters of cyberia, she took a few moments to take stock of the gifts, words of advice, and directions that fellow blogosphere travelers offered.
Without realising, the explorer found herself sitting on a veritable bounty of treasure! In her treasure chest, Screenr, Vodpod, Flickr, Clustrmaps, Twitter feeds and so much more were icons waiting to be coveted and exploited. As she polished these treasures and displayed them proudly on her Captains web 2.0 Learning Blog, she reflected on the wonderful digital mentors who gave her these gifts. There was @tasteach Queen of the Student Blogging Challenge in the distant isle of Tasmania, @lasic, a wizened journeyman and Moodle expert from the same region as herself, @AngelaMaiers, of the 'habitudes' tribe and gdavis from the @RepublicofMath. And the explorer could not forget @busynessgirl, of the Muskegon people who as a fellow mathemagician not only helped her to set course in the right direction, but to leave no mess behind as she went!
Bright skies and all clear ahead - the journey continues. Stay tuned for more.........
P.S. If you or someone you know is a web 2.0 novice like me, send them my way! I am having a lot of fun with this! You can find me on twitter at jjfreo.
Without realising, the explorer found herself sitting on a veritable bounty of treasure! In her treasure chest, Screenr, Vodpod, Flickr, Clustrmaps, Twitter feeds and so much more were icons waiting to be coveted and exploited. As she polished these treasures and displayed them proudly on her Captains web 2.0 Learning Blog, she reflected on the wonderful digital mentors who gave her these gifts. There was @tasteach Queen of the Student Blogging Challenge in the distant isle of Tasmania, @lasic, a wizened journeyman and Moodle expert from the same region as herself, @AngelaMaiers, of the 'habitudes' tribe and gdavis from the @RepublicofMath. And the explorer could not forget @busynessgirl, of the Muskegon people who as a fellow mathemagician not only helped her to set course in the right direction, but to leave no mess behind as she went!
Bright skies and all clear ahead - the journey continues. Stay tuned for more.........
P.S. If you or someone you know is a web 2.0 novice like me, send them my way! I am having a lot of fun with this! You can find me on twitter at jjfreo.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
IS SO HARD TO STAY ON TASK IN THE WEB 2.0 WORLD!
Waylaid Once again!
Or in the words of the explorer, the voyage through Web 2.0 was proving arduous at best. Steering clear of the spammer reefs, detouring to those enticing tropical new blogs which draw the explorer in with the promise of visual snacks, animated apps, and smooth,clean layouts. Hours are lost on these detours, delaying the so longed-for arrival at the destination of web 2.0 proficiency. And yet, each detour also brings new surprises - meetings with digital natives, new friends, connections, comments, and the sharing of gifts.
Back on the waters of web 2.0 cyberia, the explorer continued on her quest to acquire knowledge and skills enough to interface competently with these new and yet to be discovered web 2.0 natives. On these high seas she was battling to declutter her cyberjunk, update her profiles, while still maintaining the true course to Native Cyberia. Alas, tragically, the journey has encountered an obstacle - the explorer's crew had somehow ploughed through the gigabytes that fuelled the vessel, which currently lies adrift, in the waters off cyberia.
Stay tuned for the next episode when the explorer once again fuels her vessel......
Or in the words of the explorer, the voyage through Web 2.0 was proving arduous at best. Steering clear of the spammer reefs, detouring to those enticing tropical new blogs which draw the explorer in with the promise of visual snacks, animated apps, and smooth,clean layouts. Hours are lost on these detours, delaying the so longed-for arrival at the destination of web 2.0 proficiency. And yet, each detour also brings new surprises - meetings with digital natives, new friends, connections, comments, and the sharing of gifts.
Back on the waters of web 2.0 cyberia, the explorer continued on her quest to acquire knowledge and skills enough to interface competently with these new and yet to be discovered web 2.0 natives. On these high seas she was battling to declutter her cyberjunk, update her profiles, while still maintaining the true course to Native Cyberia. Alas, tragically, the journey has encountered an obstacle - the explorer's crew had somehow ploughed through the gigabytes that fuelled the vessel, which currently lies adrift, in the waters off cyberia.
Stay tuned for the next episode when the explorer once again fuels her vessel......
A Visit to YouTubia
While continuing her voyage on the high seas of Cyberia, navigating the waters of the blogosphere, the explorer reflected on her limited previous experience with the seas.....those were the good ole days, surfing the waters of YouTubia, catching the video fish in the water, watching some swim, capturing others to share with her family for the evening meal, and throwing others back in the water - not quite up to her high standards.
One video did capture her fancy, despite a bit of vulgar language of the dialogue. Its message was true - and it mirrored her own personal reasons for embarking on her journey in the first place.
Finding Your One Thing
One video did capture her fancy, despite a bit of vulgar language of the dialogue. Its message was true - and it mirrored her own personal reasons for embarking on her journey in the first place.
Finding Your One Thing
Monday, January 4, 2010
Digital Decluttering: Clean up those profiles!
Exploring Thing 7 - Write about anything technology
Before setting out on this journey, the explorer found herself participating in and playing with all kinds of web 2.0 sites and tools! So many accounts, images, profiles left at each little island on the voyage. Well, in an effort to 'leave no trace' the explorer decided that it was time to make an account of all of the web 2.0 identity eggs that she left at each island on this short, arduous journey and take responsibility for all of the cyber clutter that was floating out there in the vast waters of cyberspace.
A useful twitter contact led me to this site:
Digital Decluttering: Clean up those profiles!
My challenge - to 'clean up my act' before moving on to Cyber Thing Island 8!
Before setting out on this journey, the explorer found herself participating in and playing with all kinds of web 2.0 sites and tools! So many accounts, images, profiles left at each little island on the voyage. Well, in an effort to 'leave no trace' the explorer decided that it was time to make an account of all of the web 2.0 identity eggs that she left at each island on this short, arduous journey and take responsibility for all of the cyber clutter that was floating out there in the vast waters of cyberspace.
A useful twitter contact led me to this site:
Digital Decluttering: Clean up those profiles!
My challenge - to 'clean up my act' before moving on to Cyber Thing Island 8!
Things 5 and 6 achieved!
hings 5 and 6 were all about using Flickr and Flickr mashups as a photo sharing tool. The Journey took her to Flickr - a place that she had only experienced through email invites from distant relatives. Discovering the Flickr site, and creating an account was eye opening, as was the in-depth exploration with Montagr and Spell with Flickr.
The flickr site shows huge promise for this explorer, as a place to post, tag, and upload photos to blogs that I may interact with. The mashups, while entertaining, were time-consuming, and unless there is a way to capture the mashup beasts for use as background images, or blog images may prove too unwieldy.
The Land of Flickr
Land Ahoy! The large colourful island of Flickr loomed ahead. Upon landing, the explorer disembarked and stared in awe at the visual wonders before her. There werel images in this land that could satisfy the thirst of a thousand camels - and they were all there for the taking!
The explorer helped herself to one of the mathematical wonders that she thought her minions in her homeland of Edutopia would enjoy. She carefully packed her new treasure, Isometric Cuboids in her treasure chest for future use.
Isometric Cuboids
Originally uploaded by maureencrosbie
The explorer helped herself to one of the mathematical wonders that she thought her minions in her homeland of Edutopia would enjoy. She carefully packed her new treasure, Isometric Cuboids in her treasure chest for future use.
Isometric Cuboids
Originally uploaded by maureencrosbie
The explorer thought that this isometric drawing would challenge and extend her Edutipian disciples in the ancient knowledge of geometry and mathematics.
Scrambled Eggs! - reblogged
The explorer was asked why she began this journey by her ship's crew. She felt, that rather than spend hours storytelling about all of the mysteries bouncing around in her mind, she would read them the story she wrote in the Educator's PLN.
My brain feels like scrambled eggs! 6 months ago I didn't know what web 2.0 was. I asked my school ICT teaching and learning coordinator to set up a blog page for me and my students (I was not even sure what a blog page was) because instinctively I knew that it would be a great way for my students to communicate with each other, and for me to communicate with them in a logged, written format. My only previous exposure to blogging was due to the purchase of an iMac (you gotta love a piece of technology hardware that comes with NO instructions! I mean, I was always a 'read the instructions' kinda girl). Well, the paperless world of Apple, and online support opened me up to the world of information beyond Google Search!
My ICT coordinator pulled through though, and created a class blog for me on Sharepoint (I am still not sure what sharepoint is, but I think it is some kind of platform that the school network can support). SEE WHAT I MEAN? I AM A NOVICE, scared and excited at the same time, hungry for more, frustrated that I can't make some things work. What I can say is I am becoming an expert on determining the ease of the 'user interface'. I so wish my school would move to Apple! Anyway, I was launched into the web 2.0 world (at least within my little school, because of worries about going public with ANYTHING work or student related). I learned a little about how to create a wiki (and what a wiki actually was), how to use the blog to store documents, make announcements to the class, and share photos. Needless to say, my first foray into setting up a class web page compared to what I am doing now is like comparing the size of a grain of sand to the planet Jupiter!
Although my school is not' teaching and learning' web 2.0 savvy, they have been smart enough to set up a fully wirelessly networked system, and have removed all filters with the idea that we as teachers and students must be fully responsible and ethical with the use of the network in the school. We are not a tablet school, or a laptop school, but we have enough laptops on portable trolleys and open plan learning stations that using ICT is possible 100% of the time in 90% of the classrooms. Pretty good, if I do say so myself. And yet, the wonderful resources that have been made available are way underused. There are really only a handful of us in the school who are really ready to take the risk and lead the school into 21st century learning. And guess what, yours truly, THE NOVICE, is helping to lead the way - the Web 2.0 world is my oyster!
So why is this post titled scrambled eggs? Well, in 1 month I have acquired 80 twitter followers, and am following 175, I have 2 lists, and have been listed 6 times, I have diigoed, delicioused, facebooked,vodpoded, animoted, you-tubed, yahoo'd, g-mailed, PLN'd, classroom 2 'd, webinar'd edchatted, edteched, edublogged, wikispaced, wordpressed, linkedin, - I HAVE SO MANY ACCOUNTS I CAN'T KEEP TRACK OF THEM ALL! And the problem is, that this wonderful, exciting, motivating, energizing world of social networking and professional development, and the amazing people and websites I have visited in the last month are turning my brain into SCRAMBLED EGGS!
Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining, just need a little help in moving to nice little organised groups of poached eggs! Just making this post, my very first on PLN, has lightened my load. Stay tuned for more eggs to follow.....
My ICT coordinator pulled through though, and created a class blog for me on Sharepoint (I am still not sure what sharepoint is, but I think it is some kind of platform that the school network can support). SEE WHAT I MEAN? I AM A NOVICE, scared and excited at the same time, hungry for more, frustrated that I can't make some things work. What I can say is I am becoming an expert on determining the ease of the 'user interface'. I so wish my school would move to Apple! Anyway, I was launched into the web 2.0 world (at least within my little school, because of worries about going public with ANYTHING work or student related). I learned a little about how to create a wiki (and what a wiki actually was), how to use the blog to store documents, make announcements to the class, and share photos. Needless to say, my first foray into setting up a class web page compared to what I am doing now is like comparing the size of a grain of sand to the planet Jupiter!
Although my school is not' teaching and learning' web 2.0 savvy, they have been smart enough to set up a fully wirelessly networked system, and have removed all filters with the idea that we as teachers and students must be fully responsible and ethical with the use of the network in the school. We are not a tablet school, or a laptop school, but we have enough laptops on portable trolleys and open plan learning stations that using ICT is possible 100% of the time in 90% of the classrooms. Pretty good, if I do say so myself. And yet, the wonderful resources that have been made available are way underused. There are really only a handful of us in the school who are really ready to take the risk and lead the school into 21st century learning. And guess what, yours truly, THE NOVICE, is helping to lead the way - the Web 2.0 world is my oyster!
So why is this post titled scrambled eggs? Well, in 1 month I have acquired 80 twitter followers, and am following 175, I have 2 lists, and have been listed 6 times, I have diigoed, delicioused, facebooked,vodpoded, animoted, you-tubed, yahoo'd, g-mailed, PLN'd, classroom 2 'd, webinar'd edchatted, edteched, edublogged, wikispaced, wordpressed, linkedin, - I HAVE SO MANY ACCOUNTS I CAN'T KEEP TRACK OF THEM ALL! And the problem is, that this wonderful, exciting, motivating, energizing world of social networking and professional development, and the amazing people and websites I have visited in the last month are turning my brain into SCRAMBLED EGGS!
Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining, just need a little help in moving to nice little organised groups of poached eggs! Just making this post, my very first on PLN, has lightened my load. Stay tuned for more eggs to follow.....
In the beginning....
There was a very confused explorer! She had spent nearly a month learning about all sorts of web 2.0 tools, but they were just a big jumble in her head! She even managed to write her first blog post on the edublogger educators pln , and called it Scrambled Eggs!
But something was missing - and then she realised - her brain was a massive mind map, with no core goal. But thanks to cheap advice found in twitter and google wave, this explorer cottoned-on to a website (or should I call it a web theme) called 23 Things.
Being a math teacher, the explorer thought this was a great hook or title for a website, so she traced the idea back to its origin - the PLCMC L earning 2.0 website. And although the website started at Thing 23, she was smart enough to look at the very bottom of the post for Thing 21 (she is a math teacher after all :) ).
And so the Journey has begun. Things 1 and 2 are accomplished. And the explorer, in her journey already made some amazing personal discoveries - like HOW COOL IS Articulate as a presentation tool to accommodate differentiated teaching and learning styles.....but, best leave that sideways journey to another day!
The teacher realised that the web 2.0 world was like a candy store, and she wanted it all...NOW! But words of fellow teachers kept gnawing at her...Keep it simple, start small! And so, the explorer determined that she must stay on course on her travels.
And now.......Destination Thing 3!
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