Baby Joey(Sugar Glider)

Baby Joey(Sugar Glider)
Originally uploaded by Viper76

I'm playing aroud with Flickr to see how it could be used for language teaching. I found this picture when I searched for baby animals. Above the picture it said Blog this. I like that the attribution shows up directly below the picture.

Cute, aren't they!

Uh oh. While the attribution shows up fine when I am writing the post, it seems to get too tiny to view when I publish the post. I'll have to see if there is some way to fix that.

Notes Feature of Flickr

Jane Goodall's Camp
Originally uploaded by lewiselementary

I'm trying out a feature of Flickr that I just learned about in the Images4Education course of EVO. I had never noticed before that above many photos is a feature called Add Note. After you click on it, you can click on whatever item in the picture you want and add a note (a label, description, etc.).
This could be an excellent feature to use for second language teaching. I've posted an example here called Jane Goodall's Camp. The notes will not show up here in my blog, but if you click on the picture, you will see the photo with all its notes.
It seems to me that only the owner of the image can add notes, but I'm not sure about that.

Snowball Effect

Anyone who has ever made a snowman knows that you start with a small snowball. As you keep rolling it in the snow, it gets bigger and bigger until you have a "snowball" big enough to use for one of the parts of your snowman. This gradual growth of the tiny snowball into a much grander one is the "snowball effect." That is what I am experiencing this semester with my students.

This semester I started teaching a face to face class through McDaniel College for teachers in Prince George's County, Maryland. This is a face-to face class. We meet at Green Belt Middle School. I had never taught a class before where everyone had their own laptop and we had quite a time getting everyone on the Internet, especially those with Apple computers. (It's so much easier to work in a computer lab!) However, with the help of the IT person, Ms. Mitchell; the library media specialist, Ms. Butler; and Ms. Hammond, the Social Studies teacher at the school, we are slowly but surely getting everyone online through their own laptop computers.

The teachers in the class have all started their own blogs and I can feel the snowball effect as more and more of them are beginning to see the possibilities for using web 2.0 tools in their own classroom.

In order to provide a permanent record of the Internet assignments that we are doing, I've decided to create Googledocs and link to them in the sidebar under lesson plans. That way the students can have an easy way to refer back to what we did in class and to continue learning on their own.

Twitter

I'm working on modifying a mod on microblogging for a course I teach through U.B. Last semester was the first time I had included microblogging in the course. I found that the students used microblogging like a form of short emails. I hadn't shown them how Twitter can be used not only as a social networking site but also as an educational networking site. Part of the problem may have been that I had them watch Lee LeFever's video which explains microblogging in social terms.

So this semester I'm going to have them read articles on educational microblogging, search for an educational term such as connectivism, check out the sites of others who posted on that subject and follow some of these people for a week.

In planning this mod, I reread all the sites that I tagged as Twitter in my delicious account and retagged them as TwitterTutorials, TwitterTeachers and/or TwitterArticles. This sorting helped a lot.

I also listened again to this great viral video by UK musician, Ben Harper. Check it out! :-)

Microblogging

In a comment on one of my previous posts, Carmen Holotescu provided a link to an article called Can We Use Twitter for Educational Activities? that she co-authored with Gabriela Grosseck. The article is a good overview of microblogging in education. It also details some of the features that are lacking in Twitter but which would make the site more user-friendly.

For example, it would be helpful to be able to use tags. As interesting as it might be to learn about daily activities of some Twitterers, I would prefer to only read their tweets on professional issues. I just don't have time for more than that.

Another feature missing on Twitter is the ability to create user groups with notes visible only for members. I believe that some of these features may be available in Edmodo, but I'll have to check. Carmen is advocating the use of a new Romanian microblogging site called cirip that incluldes some of these features along with some others.

I'm going to look more at Edmodo today, but it seems to be much more than just a microblogging site. So if schools don't block it , the site may have lots of potential for classroom use.

Updating my online course

At the end of each semster I look at notes I've made to myself and the results of student feedback to update the syllabus for my University at Buffalo online course on using Internet tools in the classroom. Although I have less time this break because of babysitting my adorable twin grandchildren, I'm going to make some changes. I am also checking the detailed feedback that I received from Robert Squires through the Webheads Yahoo group.

There are two areas I'd love to explore but need more time to investigate. They are creating videos and utilizing gaming. However, I think that I will be able to include having the students search for good videos on YouTube or TeacherTube which they can link to from their blogs.

As per Robert's advice, I also plan to put in course objectives. Strange that I always make my students use objectives in their lesson plans, but I didn't do it myself! I plan to use the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) created standards National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers since I not only have second/foreign language teachers in my class, but others as well.

I hope to finish my update ASAP.

Comparing Microblogging Tools

Recently students in my online class Using the Internet in L2 Classrooms at the State University of New York at Buffalo completed a mod comparing several microblogging sites.  Each group of 3 students was assigned to compare Twitter, the best known site, with either Plurk, Pownce or Spoink.

 Those who compared Twitter to Plurk, the two most similar sites, differed on their feel about each layout.  Some thought Twitter was more appealing because of its simplicity, but others liked the timeline design of Plurk.  Regarding other features students said:

§         Each allows 140 characters of text which you can post online or by cell phone.

On both you can post links, but Plurk also lets you share images and Youtube videos.

§         The act of replying on each site differs but you can send public or private messages on each site.

Although many of my students are second language teachers, I don't think that many of them noticed that you can "plurk" in other languages.  That would make Plurk a useful useful teaching tool.  I think the reason this feature wasn't noticed is that you have to scroll down to see that option.

 Those who compared Twitter and Pownce usually preferred the many features of Pownce such as:

• The ability to share videos, mp3 files and events.  One student posted about an event she was going to attend and replies asked how it went.  Another student posted this YouTube video which compares Twitter, Pownce and Jiku.

 Those who used Spoink liked being able to:

• Podcast from their phones
• Type 500 characters
• Post text, video or pictures.

 This was the first time I had students explore microblogging.  None of them had even heard of it before.  We all learned a lot.  However, I definitely will revise the mod to be sure that the students:

§         Try all the features of each site

§         Add the other members of their group and reply to each of their posts

§         Post on various days so that they don't just post 5 consecutive posts!

§         Check out Edmodo which many of them referred to when they searched for articles about microblogging.