Wow! what a cool experience this has been.  I would love to have more direction on a couple of items in order to become really proficient and to make useful to all of my students, parents, and fellow teachers.  I will continue working with a few of the programs like pageflakes, podcasting, and blogging to make it work in my class room. I think that there were times that I had difficulties in gaining access to the instructions, but once I got in, they seemed to be fairly good instructions.  They were easy to follow and well presented. I would like to model my directions using Jing, and other programs, to help out my students.  I hope that this will take me into the future of teaching!

In my limited review so far, I have discovered a few interesting things. One, the forum provides great opportunities to discuss with others a variety of topics. One that I found was a post by a person asking for people who have experience using smartboards and electronic slates. Since this is an expensive endeavor, this is a great question or place to research. Typically we get sold a product by the salesperson without really knowing how is works in real life. One commonality I found with the 25 responses was that neither one was worthy if there was no professional development to support it. I can speak personally to this as we have had smartboards installed in every classroom, and we have promoted ourselves as “technologically advanced” to the community, yet without much professional development, teachers are not using this technology as intended, which creates great frustration. Our professional development is based on teachers who figure out ways to use the technology on their own and attempt to “share” with fellow teachers.

I did find this link to online education database that has a list of 100 ways to use podcast. This seems to have something if not many things that can be useful.
www.http://oedb.org/library/beginning-online-learning/100-ways-to-use-your-ipod-to-learn-and-study-better

I like this “social networking” site because it gives me a place to help with a variety of issues, ideas, and thoughts that can be addressed when none of my equals, or administrators are able to help, guide, or assist. What a great place to bounce ideas and generate great ways to teach.

I have really loved the free technology for teachers blog. I have passed on so many cool things to other teachers so far. I found this one just recently about using video software to edit movies that the kids make.

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/12/7th-easy-way-for-students-to-create.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freetech4teachers%2FcGEY+%28Free+Technology+for+Teachers%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

This looks really cool. I really need to spend more time on this to get it to a workable page. I like to be able to use this as a class page as it seems to have so much more flexibility than my current blog in google sites. I do use igoogle on a daily basis, and feel that I can convert if I need to without much problem. There is so much flexibility with the design of this type of page which is great, but it is a lot of choices. I think that if I can get it mastered, simply work with one or two flakes to start with, I can “train” the kids/parents on how to use it effectively. This might be a great portal to such a variety of information all in one place. Parents might get into it as well.

http://teacher.pageflakes.com/barryasher

I have gotten so much out of this program feature. We have sent out numbers of “questionnaires” to both students, teachers, administrators, and parents. What is really fantastic is how it places all the information into the spreadsheet that you can manipulate for your specific needs. I have used it for collecting data from students, information about science fair/projects, and email info. Last week, a document was created to provide feedback on our administration with over 40 questions. This information will be able to be put into a spreadsheet without the persons information to be given to the administrators.

I have been sucked in by the youtube experience.  It is really hard not to.  Lots of funny, even stupid funny, content out there.  It is amazing to see what people are willing to show about themselves.  The downside is that we are so used to having all of our media presentations edited and professionally produced, that it is hard to watch anything made for longer than a few minuets. I have had some students from the film and video class film a lab in my classroom in order to produce it for teacher tube.  So far, they have filmed during my class, where as not having filmed under a production schedule.  I’m no film maker, but if it is up to me, I would want it to be good. Now, kids who are producing short films are more likely to occur. It would be great to have students film an experiment on their own and produce it for an assignment.

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Making the podcast was a simple process, but it seemed to take a long time to have it converted.  I guess that there are other programs that will convert it directly in order to post.  I would like to have the students create podcasts that would enable me to listen to a particular assignment on my ipod.  They could be creative, for example, showing that they understand a concept in science.  Here, they can verbalize it as part of an assessment, which might be a better way for them to express themselves.

For this assignment I previewed several podcasts.  I enjoy, and have subscribed to many podcasts, both audio and video in the past.  I love listening to feeds particularly from NPR.  What is so great, is that I can listen to my programs on my own schedule, not just when it airs.  I have used science podcasts in my classroom from NPR programs, but not from some of the videocasts that you have shown.  I look forward to using them.

I personally have never posted a podcast, but I imagine that it will be as easy as Jing, which is both simple and fun.  I am looking to have students conduct lab activities, film them, and be able to post them to my blog.  Here, students who have missed a class can experience the lab themselves.

This LibraryThing is nice.  I am not such an avid reader, although I wish I was, but I got to do some searches with my 7 year old son which was really nice.  We put in his current favorite book series, The Magic Treehouse, and in addition to the reviews, some of which were clearly written by another 7 year old, we looked at the different authors/titles in order to expand upon and grow our reading library.  I believe that my wife, who happens to read a ton, would really benefit from this. As far as my students, I could see using this as a method to look up and read science based books to discuss together, write reviews and make suggestions for other similar books to their friends.

 When I initially began using Delicious, I thought that it was really nice to be part of a collective of bookmarks which enabled me to find scores of other “good” sites without having to go through all 3.43 million hits on google.  The tagging system is nice in that it gives suggestions as well to broaden the subjects.  This if very helpful.   But, as I attempted to “teach” my 8th grade students how to use this tool, they took what was given to them, and went no further.  I believe that this is evidence of a larger problem, which we all have acknowledged, and we are attempting to address, but I digress.  I personally have used this only a few times, and it has saved me a great deal of time and energy in searching online.  I would like to see this tool used more across the department/grade level, but one difficulty lies in getting the technology dude on board with allowing us to install this on our machines.

My delicious link is: http://delicious.com/barryasher09

I have loved the “free technology for teachers” feed.  I like that I can get a quick blurb and either go to the page, or on to the next.  I can’t tell you how many times in the past two months that I have “passed” along great web sites, tools, etc. to my fellow teachers.

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

I have found this to be an incredible group of photos to share from NASA (http://www.nasaimages.org/) which has come through this feed. http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/11/nasa-images-gallery-by-internet-archive.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freetech4teachers%2FcGEY+%28Free+Technology+for+Teachers%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

I chose quizlet.com because it is something that my students taught me in the last few weeks. I can see exactly what they type into their cards to know if they are getting the correct information. I would like to be able to edit if I need to, but havn’t figured this out yet. Most of the kids seem to like it and use it. I will try and look to see if my vocabulary test scores are going up as a result.

http://quizlet.com/my_groups/

http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=154
Link to Lani Ritter Hall New Tools “Oodles of Googles”

This session is about google tools by Lani Ritter Hall. I liked how the presenter used the “jing” type of video to create. This is a great way to show something easily. I had no idea about the notebook feature on google. I use one note, which is not online or accessable from outside my school. It was worthwhile to be introduced to a new feature. I do believe that this is a valuable method, as is the whole of the web 2.0 in disseminating information, and ideas through out our community.

Lani Ritter Hall’s blog is http://sharonsshare.blogspot.com

http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=305&cpage=1#comment-230947
Link to Prove It “Facilitating Technology Integration: A Synthesis of the Research” by Jonathan D. Becker, J.D., Ph.D. Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia, USA

man in the moon by Elvis Payne: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elvispayne/1220323175/sizes/m/in/set-72157600449513495/

Waxing Crescent by AtilaTheHun: http://www.flickr.com/photos/austinosuide/3237926824/sizes/m/in/set-72157600449513495/

P1030159 by sjfst17_photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenflowers/630763971/sizes/m/in/set-72157600449513495/

P1030128 by sjfst17_photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenflowers/630763505/sizes/m/in/set-72157600449513495/

moonphases-1 by sjfst17_photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenflowers/2204342967/sizes/m/

Friday night’s moon by The Suss-Man (Mike)’s photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8692813@N06/3584898558
/in/dateposted/
Waning Gibbous 90% of Full Moon over Los Angeles on August 09, 2 by JcOlivera.com’s photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcolivera/3803554212/in/dateposted/

4 days to full moon @ 900mm (2008-11-09_40D_100-1299v2) by akhater’s photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/akhater/3021160587/in/dateposted/

3 a.m. Moon – S3isMoon_56 by Daniel Y. Go: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielygo/419435367/in/dateposted/

Moon by Howzey: http://www.flickr.com/photos/howzey/953680127/in/dateposted/

Feb 07 Waxing Gibbous – S3isMoon_45 by Daniel Y. Go: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielygo/404690770/in/dateposted/

Feb 07 Last Moon – S3isMoon_46 by Daniel Y. Go: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielygo/405741943/in/dateposted/

Sliver – S5isMoon_4 by Daniel Y. Go: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielygo/1568580414/in/dateposted/

Moon Eclipse (Phases) by tizianoj: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tizianoj/411913693/in/dateposted/

mid-autumn festival moon by jmtimages: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmtimages/2857687945/in/dateposted/

Very cool. I feel that I am able to have some creative input into the making of this show. I feel that I can make this type of presentation for any topic. Might be worth paying a little bit for the larger version of animoto, or something similar in order to make the slideshows. Saving the pictures and all of the web/bibliographic information was very time consuming.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/miege/1708016761/sizes/l/

Photo by: shadarington

Flickr is really fascinating.  I consider myself an amature photographer, especially around my school and family.  I have loved the digital revolution and all I can get out of it.  I have not used flickr yet for my personal pictures, but I have uploaded to sites like Kodak for family to view.  I do like the search features on Flickr.  It’s amazing that there are so many “nice” shots out there by the “non-professionals”.  I chose this theme, autumn, because it is my favorite time of year.

I have never seen the cc logo except on tv for closed captioning. I really didn’t know that everything we saved/published was copywrite protected. I always thought that we, as teachers, could use things as long as we gave credit, and were using them for education, not for profit. I have “lifted” many things, especially from the web these days to enhance my teaching materials and content area. I was always under the belief that the school “owned” all of my materials, photos, projects, etc. Would I be breaking the law if I copy all of my photos (over 35,000) and took them with me if I left this school? I don’t really know how this will affect me, other than the fact that I won’t be going to jail for copywrite infringement!?!

I have attempted to develop a wiki at the end of last year, which kinda sorta worked. I wasn’t real clear on how to teach them on how to use it. They picked up some of it on the way. I have not yet attempted one this year, yet. Some of these wikis are really cool. I like the kindergarten photo counting to 100 (http://kcountingbook.wetpaint.com/). It was very simple and well laid out. I really liked the interactive wiki about the Holocaust (http://www.ahistoryteacher.com/~ahistory/apwhreview/index.php?title=Holocaust_Wiki_Project). I was facinated and felt as though those kids really put themselves there in order to provide a great amount of detail in the various families trials and tribulations through this horrific event. The wiki, Code Blue, (http://codeblue.wikispaces.com/) was a bust in my opinion. It was a bunch of links to other sites, not much interaction. I had a difficult time navigating the site, and once I found out where to go, I couldn’t really understand what the kids were trying to accomplish or learn. In looking at Reich’s chemistry wiki (http://reich-chemistry.wikispaces.com/) I find it easy to navigate, but I don’t see the interaction that the wiki is intended for. This wiki acts as a blog, which is just providing information to his class.

I feel that I would like someone to “hold my hand” while traversing through this tool. I really like what I hear about it, but am having a hard time selling it to myself.