Week 2: Thing 5

I played around with many applications on the Big Huge Labs site. I found myself very engaged in the mosaic maker. I made a mosaic of each one of my nieces and nephews and emailed them to their parents. Although, I found myself engrossed in this particular site, I didn't immediately see any application for my English classes. After some thought, I figured that I might be able to apply some of these applications into reading response activities - something to the effect of making trading cards for every character or a mosaic depicting the plot line of a story.

Week 2: Thing 4: Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/20771338@N00/2978690221

Hopefully, this photo didn't have to be school related. My photo search was inspired by a hobby I hold outside of school - horses. I searched Lipizzan on Flickr to find a photo of a horse doing something impressive. Lipizzans are trained in the Spanish Riding School to perform some amazing feats, such as rearing on command, rearing and bucking at the same time (thus all four feet are off the ground) and bowing. This photo is of a horse rearing. The handler is communicating from the ground through long lines and a whip. I find it fascinating, and I thought it just might be cool enough to entertain some not so horsey readers.

This was the first time that I have used Flickr. I found it to be straight forward to use.

Week 1: Thing 3: Copy Rights

Copy rights are one of those things that you think, "Well, duh! So long as I don't steal someone's work, I'm in the clear." This perception is probably aided, of not completely caused, by the fact that at any given moment someone in some school is probably in violation of at least one (if not 3 or 4) copy right recommendations. I know that I haven't hesitated in the past to make a copy of a short story with little regard for how many copies I was making or how long these copies were going to be in the hands of students. I even "inherited" copies of consumables from the teacher who used my room the year before I did. But what really interested me about the copy right information was the the recommendations for showing movies in class. I teach Film as Literature so naturally, showing films is a big part of the class. It really hadn't even crossed my mind that showing a movie rented from a video store would be in violation of copy right. Sure, I've seen the notices when you first play the video that say this video is for home use only, blah, blah, blah....but I guess in the name education, I just didn't think that applied to me. Also, all those random videos shown during all those sub days, are in violation. This information does make me a little more aware that I only show necessary movies and necessary parts of necessary movies. To date, I have rented many of the movies I have shown in class. I buy where I can and use my own copies when I can. I'm still not sure if this would be in violation or not. Generally, copy right is a big maze of you can do this but not that; you can to do to this extent but that is way too much....very dense information.

WEEK 1 : Thing One

So here I am. I should be weeks into this course, but being the procrastinator that I am, I am here writing my blog on Thing One. I have had time muse and peruse the website, I have sat through the kick off meeting for the 20/20 Things class and still I am not completely certain what I am trying to get out of this course. The obvious, of course, would be to gain more "tools" with which to use in the classroom to engage students and help them to grow - an endeavor any educator would readily get behind. However, I guess I am just assuming that I will be able to better engage and grow students via this course. What I am hoping is that the tools that are given to me will be easy to implement. My hope is that the tools will actually open more doors to myself and my students will less mess (if that's possible). I seem to be one of those people who likes the technological advances I'm exposed to, however, I have had a hard time finding the time to learn new technologies to the point of successful implementation in my classroom - my mimio, for example, has sat cold since its installation last spring. So I'm hoping that this course will guide, direct, and maybe more importantly, require me to learn new technologies to the point that I can actually use them.

Kick Off Web 2.0!

Day one of the 8 week Web 2.0 course. So far so good, but I haven't added my picture gadget yet. I looked at that box, became overwhlemed and closed it again. It's a habit that I am trying to break - with the help of Web 2.0 hopefully! I am, however, thrilled at all the personal choices I have regarding the look of my blog. I could write my whole blog in pink if I want to or green, but purple is my favorite. I have options within options regarding the look of my blog page. It's fun. Okay, back to the gadgets...