Good bye

Yes I know i've complained considerably about the technological side of this course but I did learn somethings. I don't know how much blogging or wiki i'll be doing but I have thought about using them with my family to keep us up-to-date with what everyone is doing. I also enjoyed the presentations and I do believe I will be trying out some of these things like flicker and photobucket. I also can't believe that one day as a teacher I will be using a lot of the things I learned from all of you. So thank you for helping to make our future jobs easier. Hope all of you find yourselves will in the future and the best of luck with all your up coming courses.

The Social Web: Learning Together

Richardson is promoting students as producers of information on the web. Of course, many people are concerned when we start to look at issues of privacy and safety.
What types of issues would you worry about in terms of students producing content for sharing with the world via the web?
I would worry about things like pedophiles searching these areas to find classrooms projects to find schools. I would worry about on line bullying. Also having the students use these tools to be producers on the web can cause the problem of students putting in links to various sites that are not appropriate for children or put links up to sites made by them which hosts a variety of pictures that may be construed as sexual.

Identify three practices or "rules" that you believe would be good practice in protecting students on the web. Elaborate on why you have chosen each.
1.) Using del.icio.us would be great for protecting students because you do not need an e-mail address or your real name which makes it difficult to find you.

2.) These types of programs can eliminate on line bullying because even though you do not need your real name the teacher is able to create specialized accounts for each individual student which can be monitored for this type of behaviour.

3.) I like the fact that you can set up your teacher account to be notified of any updates that your students have done. This makes monitoring their input easier and faster.

Chapter 4 Questions

If blogs are about conversation and wikis are about collaboration/content, which of the following student projects would you use each tool for? Why?

1.)novel study with author participation
I think you could use both, however, wikis may be better because you could do more involved activities during author participation.

2.)students at two first nations schools in New Brunswick and British Columbia recording and sharing native stories and music
Wikis would be better for this because of the sharing and creating aspects plus they are using music and it would be easier to up load this type of information on the wiki.

3.)daily science journal
Blogs would be good for this one because it would be easier to use and easy to check up on.

4.)student creative writing with peer review
Blogs because this is more of a chat type project and it would be easier to use because you have the comments and the work separate.

Technology was not always my friend, I would curse it when it wouldn't work and thought that it was doing nothing for my son...until I discovered Dance Dance Revolution and Wii. Well not only is this fun it gets you moving...even an old couch potato like myself. We stayed up till 4:30 playing these games. My 4 yr. old daughter who wouldn't touch a video game loves DDR and spent lots of time trying it and it didn't matter to her how she did it, she just wanted to join in. So these are two great games I would recommend for the video game leery parents. I know I'll be looking in to purchase them.

Well as you may or may not have read I created a powerpoint presentation for one of the teachers here at work for a contest. Well it won, now I very happy for the students in the class however all my hard work is getting nothing. I know this has nothing to do with technology but I thought I would share. What does have to do with technology is the fact that the grade 7's here were doing a exchange with students from the Netherlands. All this happened on line. They would create e-mails and powerpoints and videos and send them off and they would receive items as well. What a great experience this is for students who may never get the opportunity to travel. I think something like this brings the world a bit closer. What do you think?

I was talking with my sister the other day about a women at work who just found out she was pregnant and is was going for her first ultrasound. My sister told me about a women at her work who was going to Montreal for hers and I ask why, inquisitive as I am. She told me that they have a special ultrasound machine that takes images of your baby and you are able to see not just the outline and bones of the baby but the features as well. Apparently you are able to see the baby doing things like sucking its hand, the skin of the baby and just about everything. Now doesn't that make technology sound so much better. I know it did for me.

Technology helps school challenge

Yesterday I was asked to help on a going green challenge. The grade 6's have to create ways to go green and make a presentation of sorts to show what they have created. So I am taking pictures and helping to create a power point and cd and hopefully all works out well for them and they get some type of win. So Jeff I guess technology can be helpful I just have to get my chip off my shoulder about all the downfalls to it and think of the positives. Ps. my son is reading my blogs over my shoulder so I guess you could say tech. is helping with his reading.