Thing 13 Continued

I was unable to reach the first two presentation sites listed. The last post was with slideshare, this one is with Slide. I just uploaded some pictures I took in Milwaukee of various chairs, copied the code and pasted it into this post.
I can see where this could be very useful. I have several presentations that I have kept on disc, but by uploading them to the web, I could easily show them in class, or let students look at them in the lab or at home. Sharing presentations that tie to class curriculum with other teachers would also be great. Teachers who live near historic sites could photograph them (or landforms, animals, insects etc. etc) and upload their presentations. Teachers and students could make presentation that could be viewed in the computer lab, at home, or by students in other schools. What a way to share!
After receiving word that there was loud distracting music playing with the slide show, I removed the original and went back to Slide and redid the show eliminating the music. Apparently some music is added as a default. Since I usually leave my speaker turned off, I didn't know that a song had been added to the slide show and was annoying people.

Thing 13 Slideshows

While I attended a workshop on new lithographic techniques, I photographed the process and created this slideshow to share with coworkers. I tried uploading the presentation to the blog first, but it the loading dial just kept circling forever, so instead I went back and created the widget and pasted the code into the post. That seemed to work. Then I just added to the post.

Get your own Widget

Thing 12: Library Thing

When I saw the description of LibraryThing I knew that was what I wanted to try out. I have a couple thousand books in my home, and frequently buy books at used book sales. My problem is that I often end up with duplicates because I can't remember which ones I already own. I also spend an awful lot of time looking for volumes that I know are somewhere, but can't find.

I went to the site and took the tour, then signed up. The first feature I checked out was becoming a reviewer. It took only a minute or two to read the terms of agreement and sign up to review advance copies of books. Then I simply scrolled through the current list of options and selected a couple books that sounded interesting. Hopefully, in a week or two the books will arrive at my home ready for me to read and review.

Then I decided to start entering some of my books into "My Library". The member enters the title, author, or ISBN number and a list of possible matches appears on the right side of the screen from which the correct book can be selected. I tried entering book titles, but that gave me way too many choices to look through. Entering the author's name not only gave me better results, but streamlined the process of selecting multiple titles by the same author. This looks like a great pass time for a rainy day in spring, or a few of the long, hot, summer days. If I enter more than 200, I will be charged an annual fee.

Once my library has a number of entries, I can ask for recommendations or join a group of members who have read the same or similar titles. This could be a book lover's dream site.

Thing 11, Google Docs

A couple weeks ago I was at a workshop at which we used samples of forms that could be used with students in the classroom. On the last day of the workshop, the presenter told us that she would share these forms with us through google docs. Now I am a little clearer how that works! I have sent her my new gmail address and will anxiously await an invitation to share.

I set up a google docs account/page and uploaded a word file. Later I added a few worksheets that I made in Illustrator and saved as pdf's. I am hoping that now I can work and the answer key from either home or school without having to email them back and forth or carry them on a flash drive.

My next task was to try creating a document in google docs. Since I usually do my lesson plans in excel, I decided to try the spreadsheet option. It worked fairly well, except that I couldn't figure out how to edit a cell after I had moved on to another. Each time I tried, I had to completely redo the typing within the cell. Using excel, I could just enter the cell and edit it, so that from week to week, portions of the daily plan did not change (times, subjects) so did not have to be retyped.

Certainly this Thing has a range of uses for members of any type of group that wants to create, update, share, or complete a document. I am not sure how much use my young students would get out of it now--though perhaps their parents could.

Accessibility from any location is a great feature, though since my school blocks gmail accounts, I won't know till tomorrow whether the files I gave myself access to will be accessible there.

I can see that this is definitely an effective route to follow--eventually the range of files that can be created on the web will increase, the usability of the tools will increase, and users' expertise will make the use of google docs, or a similar opportunity, an everyday occurrence. But until the level of computer literacy raises, I think Microsoft is safe. (In the video about 2020, didn't all these companies end up merging and developing products together anyway?)

Thing 10 My Own Wiki!

When I looked at wikis I figured that some of the features that I thought were quite useful would be too difficult to set up without a lot of help BUT it seems that the wiki set up sites have already done the technical part and all I have to do is to decide what I want to include and how I want it arranged.
My wiki is at http://tiedtclass.pbwiki.com . I decided that since I wanted a site to use for Social Studies research that I may as well start with that--I can always change later. I chose the pb wiki because I had heard of them before and had been told that they were quite simple--though already there are features that the free hosting does not allow, so I may investigate the other hosts to see if they provide more choices.
Setting up the wiki was very simple and I can easily make changes. I set the site up last night, and then this morning changed the title and added the quote for the day, and another folder. I can gather resource links from some of the wikis I looked at in Thing 9 as well as some sites that I have been using throughout the school year. Hopefully some other teachers will suggest additional resources, ideas, and files.
I probably should have named the wiki something that would have come up in a search--that would be a good reason to redo it before adding too much more.

Thing 9 Wiki

In a search for material that I could use teaching fifth grade Social Studies, I went to a number of history related wikis and found several that looked like they would be helpful. Interestingly enough, the three I chose to look at more closely all had RSS feeds. That seems very fortunate because I was less than pleased with the RSS feeds I was able to locate in Thing 8.

The Native Indian wiki (http://www.mahalo.com/Native_Americans) is a one stop shopping experience for information about Native Americans. Not only is it searchable, but there is even a box for entering a question for which the viewer has been unable to find an answer. There are a great number of links, all neatly categorized and described for easy use. Along the left side of the page are short articles titled History, Fast Facts, and Timelines all of which are full of links. On the right, larger side of the page are the Top 7 Links, the question box, and the long list of categorized links. From this site one can locate the tribes that once lived in any state, research genealogy, or learn about Indian customs.

The wiki (https://linderolibrary.pbwiki.com/Colonial-America) has a simpler arrangement. On the right are the folders that would be of most interest to members of the school (?) who have set up the site. On the left above a list of links to very reputable sites are links to three databases AND USER NAMES AND PASSWORDS to use to access them. The first database of world history can be searched by century, country, and subject. The second covers just American History and the third gives access to newspapers and magazines. Though this site has a log in, I was still able to access the databases and links without doing so.

The third wiki (http://wapedia.mobi/en/American_Revolution) is part of a larger wiki and is set up a lot like wikipedia. Within each article are words that link to other articles. There is an outline of the article so that one can skip to the portion he wants to read, and a list of links at the end. As the name implies, this (portion of the) wiki deals with events leading up to, during, and just after the American Revolution. This site seems very useful, but in appearance it is rather plain.

Though I haven't tried setting up a wiki yet, the third wiki above appears the simplest, the first the most complicated. Any wiki should be set up so that its use is intuitive--the user should not need special instruction about how to find information. Grouping links into easily understood categories also facilitates its use. Giving a brief statement about what can be found at each link in the category also saves time for the user. Creating a wiki that is searchable by keyword is helpful, but may be beyond the beginner (what do I know, I'm a beginner).

Since my next THING is to set up a wiki, I would like to make a wiki that my students can use to find information to supplement their social studies text and as a source for research when they write papers for class. If it is set up so that other people can add to it, perhaps other American history teachers could add links (with descriptions of course) to the site, or my students could post the results of some of their research. I would like to limit who could make changes in the wiki, since it is for young students and they don't readily recognize misinformation.

Because I teach elementary students having one site from which they could select sources to investigate would ensure the appropriateness of those sources and make their limited computer time more profitable. That wiki should be logically arranged, probably to correspond to the units in our textbook. A running commentary/ summary could go along the left side of the page, with appropriate links on the right. An alternative arrangement would be to have a series of questions and links to answers, or some form of graphic beside each category of links to make finding the group of links even easier. An attractive and unique banner across the top would have the advantage of allowing a teacher to tell at a glance whether students were at the correct site.

If this works out well, I could envision spending portions of the summer setting up a class page/wiki that could serve as the portal for computer investigations and activities for both social studies and language arts next year.

Things 7 and 8-- RSS Feeds

If someone is just starting the seventh thing, you may find, as I did, that you can not get directly to the Plain English tutorial. Paste the address into the browser, then remove the last two portions of the address and you will come to the commoncraft website. Find "Plain English" on the page and click on it. The RSS tutorial is on page four.

Setting up the Google Reader is simple, but finding items about which you want to keep updated is not as easy. There are some suggested groups of feeds--news and sports--and you can type in keywords and get back a list of feeds. I selected several feeds with the keyword "photography" and then unsubscribed from the ones I didn't like. I did the same thing with the keyword "weaving". Then I did a couple regular Google searches for teaching American history and found a pbs site and a couple others that looked like they might be helpful. Those I added by copying and pasting the address onto the reader home page.

I did have a scare when I left Google Reader after having set up some feeds and then didn't know how to get back to it. When I finally found it again it didn't show any of the feeds I thought I had subscribed to. I added the feeds again and then bookmarked the reader site and that works well. Why doesn't Google have reader as one of the options on the search page like has gmail? I did find the link from my profile, but that seemed a bit awkward to use.

The other problem I have--which I have had ever since I first started saving files--is that I did not put the feeds into folders as I subscribed and now I have to try to figure out how to do it after the fact. (It took long enough to find out how to unsubscribe from a feed.)