Learning With Mrs. Jacob

What is a wiki?

Well, I think I first heard the term “wiki” when my boyfriend (now husband) was working for a software company a few years back and he was explaining to me how their HR department had a wiki for nearly any information the employees would need – insurance info/ how to change their tax forms/ getting a new badge/ etc.  Other departments started making internal wikis on how to install and use their various products.  Basically, the way I was first introduced to wikis made them seem like homemade “how to” pages.  As the website “wikipedia” started gaining traction, it seemed more of “what to know” pages.

As a secondary teacher, I went to the list of secondary examples to see if there would be good ideas for how I could use a wiki in my classroom.

First, I went to http://welcometotheworld.wikispaces.com/ but it seems to be very incomplete – maybe a world cultures teacher who had a great idea, but either didn’t follow through with it, or took things down after school was out.

Next, I went to http://misstarvin.wetpaint.com/?t=anon and saw a great student interactive wiki.  It looks to me like she tried this with just one class and each student was required to do some research on each time period in her world history curriculum and add it to the wiki.  As the course went on, the wiki got to be easier for me to read as the students started just adding their information on in line on the same page as their classmates – I could keep reading by simply scrolling down.

Finally, I went to http://welkerswikinomics.wetpaint.com/?t=anon- and saw a great tool of a wiki done by an economics teacher.  He had all of the reading/homework assigments listed by unit quick notes for the students to review.  He was definitely very organized!                                               

Okay, so I am a little behind.  Life got a little crazy for a bit.  I am sorry to all of you who were waiting and dying with anticipation for my podcast…

I have been familiar for a while with the listening side of podcasting.  I have had my audible account feed me the Wall Street Journal daily podcast (yes, I know that I am an econ nerd – I teach AP Macroeconomics!) for my iPod for a while now.  I regularly catch up on the news via podcast when doing housework or working out at the gym. 

I guess I define a podcast as an audio broadcast, like a radio show, that the listener can pick up and listen to on their own time – like Tivo for your ears.  I think the Pod part of it came about because of the immense popularity of the Apple iPod, and how it is becoming the term for an MP3 player, like Xerox did for copiers or Kleenex for facial tissue.

This was my first experience with making a podcast though.  I think my husband has a microphone around here somewhere.  He has a full studio recording setup for GarageBand out in the our garage (appropriate, huh?), but I had no luck in finding it.  So, I did this all with the internal mic in my Dell.  It sounds okay.  I did a little futsing around with the speed and pitch in some places, as well as amplified it using Audacity.  I saved it as an Audacity project before converting it to MP3, but everything seemed to work pretty easily.

In case you weren’t sure of my nerdiness, I did this podcast as one of the first assignments to be done in my econ class.  Previously, I have always drawn this diagram on the board going throught these descriptive steps as I draw, with the students mimicing my drawing on their own paper.  I thought this way might help them remember better if they learn as they go without me showing it to them.  I can also check who has listening skills to work on by how close to correct the drawing is the next day.  If you want to follow along and see if you can do the assignment, get out a piece of paper and something to write with before clicking on it:

circular-flow-podcast

Reflections:

1.  What qualities/features do you find common among the best podcasts?

Honestly, I think one quality of a good podcast is a nice voice to listen to.  I also think a good podcast labels itself accurately as to what it is.  Nothing good comes from a random podcast that just wastes your time because you thought it might be about a topic you are interested in, but actually had nothing to do with it.

2.  Does my podcast share any of these features?

Nobody likes the sound of their own voice, but I think my recorded voice must have some appeal as I was used as the recording system of a number of banks when I was in college, and was often confused with the woman’s voice that says “AT&T” when I used to work for AT&T.  I tried to label it as best I could.  However, it isn’t all that long to where you would be wasting too much time listening if you weren’t sure it was something you wanted to learn about.

3.  How might podcasts be useful in your classroom or your practice in education?

It could work as I did this podcast – as a homework assignment where I have given step by step instructions.  Even before this class, I was thinking about trying to podcast some of my lectures and putting them up for students to go listen to again.  Maybe I could get ambitious and try to figure out video podcasting for that too.  I already put up lecture notes from PowerPoint, so why not podcast as well.  I also think it could work as an excellent way to get information across to parents who are trying to help their students study and may need a refresher course as well, or to make sure we are all on the same page for my expectations on an assignment.  Maybe it will lessen the “my son thought he remembered you said he was supposed to do … on the assignment, so could you give him some credit for trying?”

4.   Can podcasts be uploaded to TeacherWeb in addition to your blog space?

I tried it just to see, and was able to upload the podcast as a file in my TeacherWeb site.  There is also a blog tool now available in TeacherWeb, and this file can be linked in the blog.

ta ta for now!  I am off to bed, but will be working tomorrow to catch up on the commenting on others’ blogs/ listening to others’ podcasts/ working through the wiki stuff before leaving for vacation on Friday!

1.  I learned what an RSS feed is.  I have many computer nerd/engineer friends who have been using the term in regular lingo for a while now, and I never bothered to ask what it was – just figured it was on par with work based tools and languages they use that use on their jobs.  I never realized that RSS was something I could use and benefit from and not even need someone else to set it up for me!  I also figured out what the RSS folder meant on my mac email – it was preset to have all of the apple.com news feeds.

2.  After spending tons of time to set all of this up, I am certainly going to use RSS feeds and Pageflakes as a way to save time to have technology do the updating for me.

3.  I am thrilled at how easy it really was to set up.  I always thought it must be something that you had to be more technical than me to actually set up and define my blog to be able to do.

4.  Primarily, I need to remember (like TeacherWeb) where the obvious by not labeled button is on Pageflakes to take me to the menus I need to add more RSS feeds.  I also need to remember to close Pageflakes occasionally for everything to get updated.  I am notorious for leaving websites up and active all day long.  I also need to remember not to ever try to remember where a blog is I like – just put it in my Pageflakes.  If I end up not liking a blog, I can minimize the flake or even delete it really easily.

5.  I see the used for RSS feeds in keeping myself up to date in news and professional development tools.  I don’t really know if it is something I will be using with my students as I don’t really want to take the time to show them how to set up their own RSS readers or their own blogs, and they may not all have internet access at home.  As their comments on a class blog would already be aggregated for me when waiting for comment moderation, I would not need a RSS reader for that.  Plus, anything they write I would want to read in full, not just see the first two to three lines like show up on Pageflakes.

6.  See previous question

7.  What is the difference between RSS and other types of feeds like ATOM?  Are there times I would want to use other types of feeds?

I decided to use Pageflakes as my RSS reader.  I like the idea of all of the “widgets” that can be added in as well.  My mac has similar widgets built in on the operating system, and I use them often for things like calendar appointments, weather, and travel.  With Pageflakes, I can set up a similar setup that I can see whenever I have internet access, not just my mac.

I made two pages on my Pageflakes: the starting one has all of the widgets and news updates, page two is all of my blogs.

I set up the blog page to have everyone for our online class to be in the right two columns.  After I figured out how to add the RSS feeds (just enter in the web address of the blog – just like the video showed), I then went to [Edit] – [Preferences] and changed the label for each to match the name of the person blogging so it would be easy to find the people whose blog I am assigned to read and comment on each week.  I did find that if I just click on a feed, it gives me that whole feed in a new window, but I had to click [home] in the particular blog to see the whole thing if I had not been keeping up on previous entries.

After entering all of our class in Pageflakes, I also added a few more:

I put my husband’s blog in – he just started keeping it and so far it is way nerdier than I can understand

I put a friend’s blog that I read on a regular basis to see what is up with her:  Strandedinthesouth.blogspot.com and her accompanying Glass Incarnate blog (link is found on Stranded)

I put a crafting blog I like and have been reading for a while: vickiehowell.blogspot.com

Looking through other blogs and blog aggregators, I found a few more that I liked that had to do with being organized:  unclutterer.com and zenhabits.com

I also found one I liked related to education: blog.mrmeyer.com

I am sure I will be adding more as I come across others I like from reading other blogs.  I am loving that Pageflakes scans them all for me so I don’t have to go check any of them to see if there are new posts!

1. What did you learn?

I learned primarily that edublogs.org has not so user friendly software.  I have had personal blogspot (done by Google) blog for a while, and it seems much easier to use.  Maybe as I become more familiar…  right now, it seems like I am always looking through every page to find what I need.  The Yahoo avatar was fun to create, I see myself potentially spending way too much time updating my avatar. 

    2.  How will you use what you have learned?

I am not yet sure how I will use this.  I am considering setting up a blog for reflection and record keeping of my own, and another for parents & students to use to keep up with what is going on in the classroom and how do learn more.

    3.  How did you feel about this tool?

Right now, I see it as very time consuming.  I also (maybe except for discussion purposes) don’t see my side of it as much different from my TeacherWeb site as I used it this past year for communication with my students and parents.

    4.  What do you not want to forget about this tool?

I am loving that this could be a great place to store all of those weblinks, and info that I come across as I am learning for future reference from any computer I access — no more huge long lists of favorites.

    5.  How can this be used in the classroom or in your educational role?

See answer to #3 in regards to my TeacherWeb site.  I am thinking that this may be a great place to facilitate discussion, or allow students/parents to respond back to me directly on the site, and then if it something that others could use I could publish their comment.  I think a blog might also be a great place to direct colleagues when they want to find out where I got information or about a tool I am using.  I can tell them to find it on my blog.  I am seeing the potential uses opening up!

    6.  Should you use this in the classroom or your educational role?

In interaction with colleagues, YES, I should use something as this.  In interaction with parents, I am still not sure if it is better than TeacherWeb & email — email ensures our conversations to be private.  And, if my campus is wanting all teachers to have and use a TeacherWeb site, does having a blog count instead?  I certainly do not want to have to be keeping my TeacherWeb up to date and also keep my blog up if they are just duplicates of information.  In interaction with my students, I am seeing the possibilities for use with my students.  I am thinking that those quiet students might prefer this medium of communication.  Could I/should I use code names for each of them that only I would have the master list of to allow for “free” communication?  Would they just figure them out anyway?

     7.  What questions do you still have about this tool?

How do I keep this from taking up all of my time?

You can find out this info by clicking on the “About Me” link to the right of this page  –>

I took a peek at a few blogs from the linked wiki from our instructions.  First of all, I found a number of them from the wiki to be either turned off (as whatever experiment the teacher was doing is now over with the close of the school year) or inactive at this point (again, likely due to the end of the school year).

http://chorltonhighmaths.edublogs.org/ is on the first ones that I came across that sounded interesting and was still at least on.  In it, the teacher is using the blog to convey some more advanced material to the students who are wanting to excel in the course.  This makes me think that a blog might be an excellent medium on which to provide additional explaination for assigned tasks.  But, given that my students will have laptops in my classroom, will that even be useful as all student should be looking at that information when I am there with then — maybe at least use it in this manner on the days when I am out.  Question to check on: should I still let them use the laptops when a sub is in my room?

http://www.historicalsidefx.com/ was the next  blog I looked at that sounded interesting from the description primarily because I am thinking most of how to incorporate all of this technology in my World History class.  This person seems to be well informed and has done some research of technology tools out there.  I will definitely have to check out the classroom debate tool.  This page does seem incomplete and makes me with that the user kept going with what looks like a great start!

http://wiredup.edublogs.org/ is the next blog I checked out.  This looks like it is written either by a teacher or a tech person at the school for the purpose of reflection and/or informing colleagues (SP? sorry English teachers out there) about available technology to use.  This blog certainly does not look to be one that students would look at. 

http://www.joewoodonline.com/ is another blog I looked at.  Looks like this one is being used as basic reflection.  It is similar to what I currently use my private, personal blog for – almost a diary, or a journal to keep information about what I come across for future reference. 

All of these blogs make me wonder, do I need to set up multiple blogs — one for reflection, one for student/ classroom use?

http://supportblogging.com/Links+to+School+Bloggers I wanted to keep the wiki with all of the blog links for later when I have more time to look at more of them.

I finally finished uploading my avatar to this blog!  It took me a while.  Instead of copying and pasting the HTML — couldn’t get it to figure out that I was using HTML, and couldn’t find a more obvious place to use the code, I just saved my avatar from Yahoo as a picture on my computer, and then was able to upload it from my computer to the blog.

I am struggling a bit so far with doing this all on my own.  We are certainly being asked to do tasks that I am unfamiliar with – YAY!  But, I am feeling like I don’t yet have enough information to do these tasks yet on my own.  Often times, I defer to asking my husband for help (computer software engineer) for help in more complicated tasks using my computer that I am unfamiliar with.  However, I am refusing to ask him for help with this course.  I am rather computer savy, and generally more so that my coworkers, but I signed up for this course not him.  I want to learn how to do these things, but am feeling like somehow I am missing a step of the instructions to be able to get the assignment done in a reasonable amount of time.

 Now with the real test of this post — did the avatar show up?!?!

I just set up this blog, and am testing out what all I can do with this.  I am also using this as a way to get used to interacting with my Dell laptop.  The little trackpad nubby above the [B] is occasionally causing some problems as I type — I may have to see if I can disengage it.

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