Sunny Claytor

Recently, I attended a professional development training on Second Life in the classroom.  For those of who haven’t heard of it, Second Life is a virtual environment where users create avatars and interact with the virtual environment through these avatars.  Basic membership and download is free, but to purchase land, which is necessary to build anything, one must first convert actual money in Linden dollars.  Goods and services can also be purchased within the environment, but there are also many freebies that one can get from various places. 

Second Life’s purpose is different depending on the user.  Some users use it as a social site where they can meet and interact with people from all over the world.   The purpose of the PD training which I attended focused on the educational value of the program.  Many colleges, including Ohio University (we have a branch, OUC, here in town), have a presence within the virtual world.  Learning kiosks and virtual lecture halls can be found on OU land.  It is quite fascinating what has been constructed by these universities.  A colleague of mine, who was also at this training, discussed how his Master’s program uses Second Life as a meeting place for his classes. 

We explored various places in the training including reconstructions of different places around the world.  It was really cool to walk—and fly—through England.  While the educational benefits of Second Life within the college world seems to be obvious, the benefit to a K-12 school district seems to be limited and overshadowed by the cost.  Members under the age of 18 are automatically placed in Teen Second Life, which is just for teens 13-17.  Educators can enter Teen Second Life but their mobility is very limited.  Unfortunately, teens don’t have access to many of the great educational resources in the virtual world because these are located in adult Second Life.  Also, training is extremely time consuming and unrealistic for the common classroom. Several of us from the training have discussed the purchase of some property to create a meeting place for educators in the area to collaborate, although we are concerned as to how many educators would actually use it because of the time it takes to get started.

For more information visit: secondlife.com

This is a promotional video for Ohio University’s Second Life Campus:

The SMART Document Camera is similar to an ELMO in that it will display anything you place in the viewing area; the difference is that the SMART Document Camera displays images onto a SMART Board interactive whiteboard where you can capture images within the Notebook collaborative learning software. 

The ability to manipulate the image within the Notebook program gives this device many more functions within the classroom as compared to an ELMO.  You can also record using the SMART Board Recorder software so that students who are absent can also view the lesson.

For more information:

http://www2.smarttech.com/st/en-US/Products/SMART+Document+Camera/default.htm

To see the camera in action:

Say goodbye to the confusion.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been working on something from home but wanted to finish the document at school.  I’d save the document to a flash drive and also to a folder in My Documents (I have this phobia that I’ll lose the flash drive, it will get crushed in my bag, or that something like this will happen causing me to lose all that hard work).  Well, I’d take the flash drive to school, open and work on the document, and save it again on the flash drive.  After doing this a few times, I realize that I now have several copies of the same document in varying degrees of completion.  It was time consuming to figure out which was the version that I needed and where exactly it was located.  OR I simply left my flash drive at home.  AHHHHH!!!

There’s a better way.

Google offers Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and form applications that can be created and edited online.  You can also upload documents that you’ve already created to the site.  This essentially creates an online “My Documents” that can be accessed anywhere you can access Google.  The really cool part is that you can easily collaborate on projects through Google Docs.  By adding another user as a contributor, or sharing the document, both of you can work on the document without creating dozens of copies like you would through sharing the document through attachments.  Also, the application saves a history of changes that the document goes through so that your work is never lost!  As an English teacher, I can definitely see the benefits of using this application for editing and assessing students’ papers.  It would also be great to no longer hear the excuse, “My disk is messed up and won’t open my paper!”

Oh, and I forgot to mention the best part: it’s FREE!!

Watch the following video for a simple explanation:

Read more at: docs.google.com or http://googledocs.blogspot.com/

The educational benefits of RSS feeds are limited only to the imagination. Instead of teachers or students spending time going out looking for the latest news/information, there it is waiting for you in your viewer. As an English teacher, I am very fond of the word of the day feeds which I can use as bellwork for my kids while I take attendance. I also like using news feeds to give my students practice with nonfiction pieces that are up-to-date and meaningful.

Outside the classroom, I like RSS feeds to keep myself updated on the current educational news. I used to subscribe to countless magazines and journals that I rarely had time to read. They cluttered up my desk, my house, and my car. Now I have all of those sources in one location, and the best part is that it’s paperless!! I can quickly sift and sort information, keep what I want, and get rid of what I don’t. Try doing that with magazines and journals.

I am using Google Reader because I recently fell in love with Google Docs. It is easy to use and right there with my other Google tools.

Of my classmates blogs, I have subscribed to the following: Karin Day, Linda Stevenson, Kelley Shadley, Megan Pfleiderer, and Andrew Armstong. I also have subscribed to Mr. Trusty’s blog as well as several podcasts, educational sources, and news sources.

EdTech 101 is a great little podcast where the creator, Brian C. Dvorak, briefly discusses various topics related to educational technology. He covers everything from ideas and resources to evaluation of hardware and software. His goal is to share his knowledge of technology  to make it easier for educators to integrate technology into the classroom.  Mr. Dvorak’s website states that he is a technology facilictator at a public school in Fresno, California and has worked in K-12 education for 12 years.

The specific episode I chose to listen to was episode 24 from June 22, 2007. It happened to be his one year anniversary of the podcast. The topic was SmartBoard Friendly Websites. He featured the website SmartTech.com, which lists pages that are interactive or contain interactive lessons that work great with a SmartBoard.  In addition to listing the pages, SmartTech.com also categorizes the pages by both level and subject area which makes searching much easier.  Mr. Dvorak also mentions that he has listed two other websites that do something similar to SmartTech.com but doesn’t mention the addresses in the actual podcast. These websites are: http://www.topmarks.co.uk/Interactive.aspx and http://www.theteachersguide.com/SmartBoards.htm.

I was very excited to find this podcast.  I like Mr. Dvorak’s ability to pass along great information in a brief amount of time. The topics are also things that I am very interested in and am very likely to use or try learn more about.  This particular podcast was great because I use my SmartBoard on a regular basis and I am always looking for new lessons for use with it.

http://www.epnweb.org/index.php?request_id=1156&openpod=2#anchor2

Walk up to anyone on the street and ask them if they know the names Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (also known together as Brangelina) and I’d be willing to put money on the fact that they’d be able to tell you who they are.  But try asking them if they know the name Vint Cerf, the father of the Internet, or Ward Cunningham, the inventor of the wiki.  What does it say about our society that we can name celebrities but we know very few of the people who have greatly impacted our lives and the education of not only the current school age generation but all generations?   

Three people whom I consider to be prominent in educational technology are:

 Howard G. “Ward” Cunningham

Mr. Cunningham invented the first wiki in 1995.  Wikis are pages or a collection of pages that allow users to create, modify, edit, and remove content.  They are essentially collaborative learning pages.  The most popular today is Wikipedia.  While Wikipedia is not always 100% reliable, it a great starting point for research. There are other sites out there that are more stringent about the validity of the content in their pages.  Wikis have also become a feature of the Blackboard Academic Suite, allowing for easier collaboration on projects.

Check out the following for a better understanding of what wikis are and how they are used: http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=51aeb480ecbd988cd8cc

 Matthew Pittinsky and Michael Chasen                                                  While the debate is pretty heated at the moment as to whether or not Blackboard was the first in e-learning, it does hold the majority of the market and has been the most marketed.  Most colleges and many K-12 schools are utilizing Blackboard to aid in the education of their students.  Blackboard is used for a wide range of purposes, and has begun to change the face of education.

Bill and Melinda Gates

In addition to the many educational uses for Microsoft’s products, Mr. Gates has been prominent in the realm of education through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has brought technology to students who would otherwise not have been exposed to it. 

According to the Foundation’s website, since it inception the Foundation has had $17.3 billion in grant commitments.

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