Wildcat Excursions

Week 9: Thing 23

2008-08-12T22:32:00.002-05:00

Yeahhhh! I finally finished! It was a great learning experience! There were a few problems (not able to use the edit layout on my home computer and intermittent internet problems), but on the whole it was a positive experience. I think a blog is a great way of communicating with students and parents on a daily basis. Wikis would be great to use for reviews and projects. I still need to figure out how to get my Rollyo and my bloglines on my blog. This program has instilled a hunger within me for more tech knowledge, and I intend to keep learning.

Week 9: Thing 22

2008-08-12T22:07:00.002-05:00

I explored the World EBook Fair's site and wasn't very impressed. I was able to find some science books, but the pdf files would never pop up. The site that actually came up with the most results required fees to get access to the books.

Week 9: Thing 21

2008-08-12T21:53:00.002-05:00

I found a podcast from John Hagee who is pastor at Cornerstone Church in San Antonio and added it to my bloglines.

I went to Podcast Alley and found a podcast for learning French and added it to my bloglines.

Week 9: Thing 20

2008-08-12T21:15:00.002-05:00

On YouTube there were many videos made by students on lab safety and I have a link to a really good one below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SdWPBTgIV0

I couldn't figure out how to transfer the video from YouTube to my blog.

Week 8: Thing 19

2008-08-12T20:20:00.002-05:00

I will need a lot more time to find all the books that I have read in Library Thing to be able to make my list complete. This is what I have so far:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/sem0528

Week 8: Thing 18

2008-08-12T19:52:00.003-05:00

I created an account with Zoho Writer. I transferred one of my worksheets to Zoho, but some of the images created by word (formulas and shapes) would not transfer over to Zoho and I couldn't find an option to insert shapes into the document. I eventually found the equation editor button on the far right side of the toolbar.

Week 7: Thing 17

2008-08-12T19:37:00.002-05:00

I do not have a password/key to be able to leave comments in the curriculum sandbox or the teacher's lounge.

Week 7: Thing 16

2008-08-12T19:09:00.002-05:00

Wikis can be used as class reviews by assigning each student several topics and then they share them on the wiki. Wikis can also be used for sharing research projects.

Wikipedia is a really neat resource, however some of the information may not be reliable and shouldn't be used in the place of an encyclopedia.

Week 6: Thing 15

2008-08-12T18:38:00.002-05:00

I loved "A Fair(y) Use Tale" even though it was a little annoying. It did explain that copyright could last 14 years to life. Fair use allows people to use the copyrighted material for education as long as it doesn't change the original work's value in the marketplace.

Most teachers tend to "borrow" images a lot of the time for Powerpoint presentations and worksheets without giving credit to the creator. I think it is important to take the extra time to give credit where it is due when preparing materials for use in the classroom.

Week 6: Thing 14

2008-08-12T18:10:00.001-05:00

Technorati is useful when you are using blogs for research. An advantage of using tagging is that it makes it easier to find the information you are looking for. A disadvantage of tagging is that you are relying on someone to correctly tag a blog. A blog may contain more information than is tagged about it, so it will not be called up in certain searches, even though it may have contained the appropriate information.

Week 6: Thing 13

2008-08-12T17:50:00.002-05:00

Del.icio.us is a really neat website! I found so many tags for just lab safety I had no time to look through them all. This is something that I can really use for keeping up with all the bookmarks that I save from work and home.

Week 5: Thing 12

2008-08-11T21:39:00.003-05:00

I created my Rollyo search roll at http://rollyo.com/sem0528/science_for_kids/

I really like the idea that I can put together a list of sites for my students to search from instead of having them do a wide search on the web and risk coming across inappropriate material.

Week 5: Thing 11

2008-08-11T19:24:00.002-05:00

I explored several of the websites listed under the Web 2.o awards. The websites that I liked were Biblio.com (helps you find rare and out of print books), Wufoo (you can create online surveys and forms), and .Docstoc (a place that people can upload forms and worksheets). I found a lot of documents about lab safety at the latter site.

The Travel IQ would really be neat for my World Geography class to play with (yes, I teach Social Studies as well as Science at JJAEP).

Week 5: Thing 10

2008-08-11T19:06:00.002-05:00

I created a custom comic using Comic Strip Generator. It was very easy to use. You didn't even need to have your own picture uploaded; they had a lot of pictures you could choose from.

Week 4: Thing 9

2008-08-11T18:40:00.002-05:00

Since I begin the school year with lab safety I wanted to find some blogs pertaining to that topic. I found a really neat blog about through Technorati http://schoollab.blogspot.com/. Technorati also had some videos about lab safety. Feedster didn't work for me and Topix and Syndic8 didn't show any results.

Week 4: Thing 8

2008-08-11T17:59:00.002-05:00

I went to Bloglines and created a RSS feed reader. I was able to gather several news station feeds, recipe feeds, and some science news feeds together. One way I could use Bloglines in the classroom is for students to look up current events for science topics.

Week 3: Thing 7

2008-08-07T14:20:00.003-05:00

One of the technology classes that I took this summer taught us how to make movies using MovieMaker. This is the movie that I made about the race to the moon.

Week 3: Thing 6

2008-08-07T14:13:00.003-05:00

I played with some of the Flickr tools. There is just so much that you can do there isn't enough time to explore everything in one day! I ended up selecting the puzzle maker as my example.

Week 3: Thing 5

2008-08-07T13:54:00.003-05:00

Well, I explored Flickr and found a lot of interesting photos. There were also some unsavory photos, such as a dog in a pot within an oven.

I love photos of outer space and one that really intrigued me was the Cat's Eye Nebula taken by Hubble: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pingnews/431430366/

Week 2: Thing 3 and 4

2008-06-19T11:21:00.000-05:00

Well, I finally managed to create my Avatar (I had to use a family member's computer because my Avatar wouldn't show up in the window on mine). It was a lot of fun going through all the backgrounds and wardrobes the Avatar could have. I was tempted to go with the penguin on a leash outfit but thought that everyone would think that I was daft.

I was a little disappointed that there were only a few templates to choose from when setting up the blog. I shall have to play with the layout some more when I get the extra time.

Week 1: Thing 1 and 2

2008-06-19T11:05:00.000-05:00

I am very excited about this class! Learning new things has always been a joy to me. Among all the 71/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners that I would have a problem with would be Habit # 3: viewing problems as challenges. I would prefer not to have any problems (wouldn't that be the life!). I need to learn to view problems in a positive light instead of a negative one.