BP12_2010023_One_Minute_Message

This a one minute commercial I created for Carrot Sticks. This company provides a web 2.0 tool for students to use and teachers to share with their students.  This tool allows teachers to increase the math skills that students have.  You can create avatars as well as the student so you may compete against other student locally or internationally.

When deploying this tool, it is very easy to loose track of how much time you have spent using this application.  You will need to inform students of the elapsed time feature and their progress.

BP11_2010023_Link to Comments_on_Paris'_Blog

Click on the link to my comments on Paris' Blog.

BP10_2010023_Link to Comments_on_Zeigler's_Blog

Click on the link to view my comments on Zeigler's Blog.

BP9_2010023_Web2.0T3_Carrot Sticks

Aren't we all looking for something that will provide our children and students an edge in life - especially when it comes to mathematics?

While researching for Web 2.0 products that were either free or very low in startup cost, I discovered a math game that involves students to learn and to compete against other students worldwide.  I needed something that kids from the Middle School could brush up on easily and quickly.  I tested it on some of my 9th Graders and they found it funny and interesting.  Without them knowing, they were actually practicing and improving their math skills through competing against each other.

Carrot Sticks, prompts you to create your own simple avatar while providing you creative options to represent yourself. Once you have created your character, you will then be brought into solving basic mathematical operations. As you improve success rate in solving problems proficiently, you will be prompted to compete against other students. These students are either local, domestic, or international. It provides a safe environment for young students to interact with each other.

You can carry on simple-type conversations and setup group competitions. If the student prefers practicing at first, then they can. Once the student feels that his skills is at a competitive level, they may compete. Skill levels are reordered and compared to other students who are logged on at the time. With 25 different levels, a student would find this very enjoyable.

Carrot Sticks takes the effort out of motivating students make an extra effort when it comes to improving their math skills. It makes it fun and enjoyable. This is an enjoyable program for students from grades 1 through 5 combined with tutor support for additional monthly fees ranging from $3 to $6 per month.

BP5_2010022_Web2.0Tool2_Apture

Apture Software application is a web enabled plugin that allows you to truly integrate video, images, context, audio, more onto one platform.  It allows you to integrate many different ideas an educator would have to maintain the focus of any student. (2009). 

The instructions are straightforward and easy to follow. My suggestion is to visit the Apture Experience section and select Education, Sports, and Music.  These sections will provide you an idea what doors this plugin opens for you. When educating students, you find yourself using various applications at once just to provide interest to your students. This is important if you wish to keep your students motivated. What makes it more difficult for you is that you will more and more ideas as you deeper into your project. You find that it does take longer for you to complete your project, but it is all worth it, to keep students engaged in the lesson.

Teaching Honor’s Geometry is an intriguing subject especially when you have students that yearn for more. In a class of students that constantly want to work hands on, I was able to put together over the snow break a presentation that allowed me to show interactivity as I was moving along through the lesson. I found out that I needed to play with the application a lot more, before embarking on my project.  While working through some components, I discovered other features that were available.

Flash type features incorporated with mouse-overs, is the biggest feature that excited me.  I was able to have formulas pop-up without clicking the hyperlink.  I was able to display video animation without leaving the pages.

References:

Showcase (2009), See who’s using Apture, Apture Demo, Retrieved February 
                       15, 2010 from http://teachersfirst.com/20/getsource.cfm?id=9301

BP7_2010022_Comment_On_Another's Blog

Click here to view my comment for Tamara.

BP6_2010022_Comment_on_Another's_Blog

Click below to view my comments on Erica's Blog. 

BP8_2010022_One_Minute_Message

The is a one minute commercial I created for EduSlide.net.  This company provides a web 2.0 tool for teachers to use when deploying training or online lessons to students.  It is easy to use and comes along with great features such as messaging services, video deployment, course cataloging, security, professional templates, and searching features for students to use.  There is a lot more so you may want to try it out for free.

BP5_2010022_Flickr

While visiting various websites concerning on how to use Flickr, I have come across many sites discussing and sharing ideas on how various subjects can be taught to students using Flickr.

One site in particular discussed how Flickr was used in a World History class.  The History teacher would present images to students while the student would write an essay explaining what the images represent in relation to the subject.

In addition, the teacher would assign projects to the students where they would use the flickr site to post images and share pertaining to historical events. Using flickr as a collaboration tool for the students to share photos found.

In a High School setting, I can see how this software application can be used in a English Literature classroom.   A teacher would setup a flickr work group and assign all the students their own account that can only be viewed by the students.  This would provide the students with some form of security, making them feel comfortable with images that they may post.  An assignment for the students could be for them to go out and find, within the flickr network, copyright free images that students could share as part of their group discussion.

The discussion would generate great interest especially when you inform the students that they cannot use the same images. With each image being unique, you would be able to view a great abundance of images submitted by the students.

An example would be asking the students to find an image representing the love that Romeo and Juliet share. Have each student submit an image representing each Act listed in the love story. Finally, have each student defend the reason for the selection.

Flickr is free, until you need the additional bandwidth that would be necessary to accommodate the file storage, group account, and video accommodations.

References:

AuCoin, P (2008), “Using flickr.com in the Classroom”, Teachers Network Retrieved 2/10/10 from http://www.teachersnetwork.org/NTNY/nychelp/technology/flickr.htm

Baby Test

BP3_2010021_DiscoveringWeb20Tools

Eduslide Pro is among the many various software and web-based applications that are available under the Web 2.0 Tools. This particular application allows you to create interactive applications such as surveys, exams, tutorial applications, exams, progress reports, and online community forums. Being able to experiment using their 30-day free trial, I was able to create a chat room community where I may share online presentation using PowerPoint or Keynote presentation software.  

Combined with the email capabilities, I have found that I am able to share video and audio files and assemble them as an online interactive library.  

This application has many great uses that I discovered.  As students wish to be home-schooled, this Web 2.0 tool would allow an instructor to provide private online courses to particular students. A progress report can be issued along with report cards grades to the student to view and share.

The draw back is that if you are not familiar with software developing or has the time create a product; Virtual Training Corp can support you. Virtual training Corp is the developer of EduSlide Pro. They will provide you 160 hours of provided support with the $5000 per year price tag on this application. The Virginia based company provides remote access from anywhere around the world. With this freedom, you can provide educational services to unlimited users as long as the bandwidth does not exceed 10GB of hosting space. To increase your capacity, there is an additional charge of $500 for every 100 GB of additional space.  

Please consider that developing an online application will take some time.

Another possibility of an application to be used - GoogleSites.  You would have to create your components from scratch, but it does provide free access to development and user access.

You have the ability to produce instant home pages using pre-built templates. Having the ability to use your own imagination is available along with more freedom than EduSlide Pro.

With Google site, your interactive features are very limited compared to EduSlide Pro. While you have the ability to produce an actual product and restrict rights to it, Google Site can offer a base where you can share information via the Internet free.

References

Eduslide, “Features”, Virtual training Corp, Retrieved February 8, 2010 from http://www.eduslide.com/features.php

BP4_2010021_Setting Up Your Google Reader

I had difficult time looking for news feeds that would continue to feed me information that would be pertinent to my profession as a High School Math Teacher. I did notice that it was very time consuming.
I did find several that interested me. ?Philadelphia District Considers Overhauling 14 Schools? found under Education Week allowed me to briefly read about how the school board is buildings and staff to help promote learning within their district.
?Push for teacher Effectiveness? which can also be found under Education Week was very informative. I was able to share the article with other colleagues at work in which I showed how to setup their Google Reader as well. The article provides me insight on what I need to look for in myself to be more effective in the classroom.
?Special Ed Aid Costs ? Stimulus Shadow? is a review of how school districts used special accounts that were to be used for Special Education to prevent lay-offs. This article is very interesting because the school board provided training for teachers whom later require more pay due to additional graduate work completed. In addition, since the costs have increased, they are now looking at laying off employees.
?New Math on Campus? discusses how more and more females are going to college which overwhelms the number of males. At first, I thought the topic was about a new mathematical concept, but instead it discusses how dating is not what it used to be in college.
?Multiple Stimulus Aid ? Streams Flow to Educational Teachers? discussed how school districts around the country are tapping into federal funding to improve technology within its schools. Enhancing technology with hardware and improved communication bandwidths is not what the stimulus package was used for. Schools are supposed to hire more employees to train and support teachers in the classroom during instruction. This article was very enlightening because it made me reevaluate what my school district has done as well.

BP2_2010021_Educational Uses for Blogs

This http://feeds.feedburner.com/NotebookNotesFromTheNews

Notes from the news provides a summary of up to date news relate issues involving Education. This provides me an abridged version of what is going on in various school districts in the Eastern Pennsylvania Area. What I noticed, which is a great asset is that you can subscribe to email notifications to be sent to your cell phone on news flashes.

You have to be careful; there is a lot of information that keep you intrigued.

http://www.educatingtomorrow.org/aggregator

This aggregator, provides information about schools across the country are doing to get kids involved . The involvement varies from community work, visiting colleges, staying connected with students around the world, and school involvement in schools. It provides interesting ideas of how to provide ownership to students and how they can manage it. This truly helps to come up with ideas to share with students on what students are doing around the country and the world.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/EducationWeekNewsAndInformationAboutEducationIssues

If you are interested in Headline news regarding education, this is the site for you. It will provide you a wide spectrum of information. Security, benefits, state-wide exams, child nutrition are topics that barely scratch the surface of what this news feed provides. There is a lot of information good for a parent or an administrator to read, o they may stay current on what is going on in Congress and how laws affect our public schools.

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/uis/edtech

If you are a tech guru, who wants to stay current with how schools are using the latest technology to support teaching and communication, then this is the site to get feeds. There is so much out there, you can find yourself losing track of time.

The feed provides articles that discuss issues with iPods, MP3 players, video cameras, and etc. These articles are very interesting. I would assume it discuss issues with security and how to keep students honest with the use of such devices. It went further. I found articles on how to use this technology in your classroom through lesson deployment.

http://www.edutopia.org/edutopia_rss.xml

I stopped going to the eDutopia website to read on various articles. Instead, the various articles come to me. I able to read the same articles that catch my interest instead of reading the magazine. I am able to sort articles that involve Geometry and Algebra. Project learning and Teacher Development are the key areas that help me develop effective lesson plans. Teacher Development feed provides links to videos on interesting articles that I do not have to search through. This free up time that is very important to me.

BP1_2010021_iGoogleScreenShots

Here are my shots.......

I had fun doing this assignment.  I started it a few days ago and it took my some time to actually try out new gadgets.  I experimented to make sure my view of my settings under iGoogle presented the same view under PC as well as MAC.

I have introduced the features to my wife and it has blown her mind.  I will be makingsome adjustments as far as the additional information, I would like to place on my site.  I am still not sure what to place under my Profile section, but I will make sure that I am able to upload some video.

Blogging and posting Media Assets is a new tool that I will be experimenting a lot.  With the xtraNormal software that I was able to learn to use last month, I feel that I will be very creative with the scenes and clips to express my thoughts and views.

This will be great.