Thing # 13

Wow! The ability to manipulate is a powerful tool. I wonder if I can make my stimulus check to look larger than it is? Oh well, maybe not, however, I found the use of the image generators pretty interesting. As many of you know, I have a technology project going on in class where the students are using a travel budget to trek across the united states. Well, the license plate generator will definitely come in handy as students will create a license tag for each state they visit, depicting their experience. Personally, I liked the transformer sign that I made, I enjoy sending indirect messages through indirect means and this comes in handing when trying to get students to think critically. So far, I have used some sort of image generator in all of my blogs and websites.

Thing # 12 No More Boring Slideshows

Say goodbye to the powerpoint presentation for online use. When I discovered bubbleshare and animoto I have used the two slideshow presenters extensively for projects in my graduate classes. I like the idea of making something more visually creative than just staring at the photo in successive order. I created photo slideshow with animoto of Creative Commons photos in flickr that dealt with Night time. I love the taking walks by moonlight and or gazing into a vibrantly lit skyline. Something about the way earth moves at night fascinates me. So, here is my video of the night tags taken from flickr.



Photo Credits
night at the Gent's channels/ Noche enlos canales de Gante by pasotraspaso
Night Time Is The Right Time by MK Media Productions
manchester at night by mikecolvin82
Chicago at night, from a distance by kevindooley
The Night Lights of the United States (as seen from space) by woodleywonderworks
Venice by night / Punta Sabbioni by annia316
Night Reflections by mandj98
Vegas by night by wili_hybrid
Moonlight -noise night scene-. by www.jordiarmengol.net...
Guatemala de Noche (at Night) by Oscar Mota
Summer Nights by peasap
Singapore Business district night view by * etoile

Thing # 11 Flickring the Switch

When my daughter Paris was born in Amiens, France we needed a way to share our photos with our family. We were thousands of miles away and this proud daddy needed to show off his baby girl. Online photo sharing was were I turned and over the past few years, I've used flickr as my ideal site. Since I started blogging, I still use flickr to create many of the slideshows that I produce of my family along with picasa and bubbleshare
I truly just got into organizing my photos with tags with the inclusion of tagging options with iPhoto 09'. Tagging has saved me a ton of time finding my photos, especially after taking so many photos over a short period of time. So, if I'm looking for night shots taken, I simple type in night and all my photos tagged with the word "night" come up.

(Singapore Business district night view by * etoile)

In my extra credit project for my students, I encourage them to use upload their photos in flickr that they take along their journey. The purpose is to allow them a device that will log where their pictures were taken by creating what I call a Photo Journey Map that displays all the places that they have been fictitiously on their journey across the United States. I put together a video tutorial for them to explain how to use this tool and implement into their assignment.


(Access our Extra Credit Project Tutorial Site for a larger version of this video)

The map that they create is cool, but since then we have discovered mapness.net which actually connects their trip from the beginning to the end. But what's cool about iPhoto and flickr being in cahoots is if you take a picture with a camera that has a gps tracker, iPhoto will automatically upload where the picture was taken and flickr will automatically place it in the exact place on the map. In class we'll use this map to calculate distances, mph, travel time for driving, flying and walking, along with and deal with social conditions across the country.

Thing #10 Do We Have Common Creativity?

Funny, in my Graduate class we were discussing open creativity while watching videos from the TED conference. We were watching Larry Lessig talk about the stifling laws of copyright and how it strangles collaborative creativity. After watching the video we talked about how teaching beg, borrow, and steal from one another daily and it works because, one person can't think of everything on their own. However, when we take a piece of work and adapt to fit our own personal needs we have to be very careful. Creative Commons came into the discussion because they found a way to publicize the legality of sharing copyright material. The interesting about this is, CC simply publicized the legalities of cutting out the middle man, however, those living in the entertainment industries implemented sharing rights many years ago, you just had to understand the jargon in order to take advantage of it. What Creative Commons has done though is made it easy to share and allow your work to be used along with taking other works and remixing it so to say to suit your own flavor. They have opened the door to a virtual discussion table that allows people from all over to collaborate and create something magnificent. Creative Commons has blown the doors off of face-to-face, sitting down in one room to build something. Instead, mine and your expertise can be captured to add on to what has already been started, yet you and I had the missing piece that defines life...so to speak. The collaboration between Nike and Creative Commons - The GreenXchange proves this.

Students have the ability to create wonderful projects using technology, but if they are constantly bounded by laws, how can they be allowed to express themselves in manners that are most useful? The most popular CC site I use for class is Flickr. My students use the photos to create online photo journey maps on mapness.net for their Extra Credit Project. However, to be safe, I will look for more Creative Common sites as I continue to teach cyber ethics and responsibility to my students.

Thing # 8 Oh The Wicked Wiki

When first introduced to Wikis in education, I hated the idea of creating an online tool that gave others the ability to edit it's original content. This notion kept me from using this tool in the classroom. This year, I made it a point to make the attempt, but I felt limited in finding a purpose. Collaboration was the main goal, providing a platform for several to many participants an opportunity to add on to the strength and relevancy to the original topic. I began my journey by developing a wiki to organize our family's Christmas Family Reunion. Family members were able to upload their arrival dates and times, we were able to add responsibilities at the family house, along with the dining menus during our time together. However, just like most wikis that I have seen, once the information was used or put together for it's set purpose, the site no longer had any use. We haven't touched the site since Christmas.

For this assignment, I took a look at a few wikis SaluteToSuess, Gowest, and Welker's Wikinomics. Each site was very well organized containing the content in a location that was easy to find and utilize. SaluteToSuess was put together to create a grand celebration of the famed author. The main purpose of this site seems to be to share ideas to for the occasion. Very neatly done, the viewer has no problem finding what they need. However,this seems to be a teacher lead site, not any student interaction. Teachers from all over were able to collaborate and share ideas at any time they wanted, but sharing seemed to be it's only purpose. I would have actually had the teachers provide video, audio, pictures of each of the activities that took place not only for show, but also to server as tools teaching us best practices for implementation. Now, Gowest, I actually was able to get some ideas from on how to display and assess what students have learned during a particular unit. Considering, both the latter sites used wikispaces, the content was pretty much organized the same. However, Gowest added several tools, like graphic organizers, that the students used to show what they learned. Thus far I've only used wikis to organize and gather information in methods such as a vocabulary builder where anytime a student runs into a word in medium that they are not familiar with, they can add it to the wiki along with it's definition, the context in which it was used and how they would use it. The intent is to create a huge glossary of fifth grade words that would be helpful for any future use. I also use the wiki for story starters where each student will begin a story and members of their group will add to the story as time goes along. I've also used a wiki to create questions for Malia Obama, a fellow 5th grader. But once again, when we were done with the wiki, we were done and it no longer served any purpose. I'll use the wiki to collaborate, but, I'm still not sold completely.

Thing #7 Commenting Champion...not!

Prior to reading the valuable information from the Brown Baron and the Cool Cat Teacher I felt a little intimidated about commenting on other blogger's blogs other than on my own student's blogs. I didn't feel that I had valuable information to add to pieces that inspired me. However, I now realize that simply letting the author know how their particular piece impacted my own thoughts and ideas is welcomed. I didn't think that the sincere blogger actually read comments left for them, but I realize that they, like myself, use comments to motivate them to continue what they do, among other things. Another cool spin off to commenting is that I was able to see other peoples thoughts and opinion about the entry that closely related to my own feelings. I enjoyed the idea shared by Vicki Davis in regards to leaving a link to my own blog within a comment, not to generate traffic but to develop the commonality between myself and the inspiration. So, commenting is cool, I'm not great at it yet, mainly because of how much time it consumes, but I'll get there.

Thing #6 Ready Set... Read

My RSS readers are full. I've subscribed to so much that it is difficult to keep up with. However, I'm still a huge fan and enjoy the ease in having the desired information come right to me instead going out and fishing for it. Because I'm a huge fan of technology, many of my educational feeds come from sites that promote the latest gadgets to date. One of my favorite is the Gadgeteer. The last feed that I read was about and new device the exercises the hand of the extensive gamer who constantly has his/her hand locked around a joystick. Supposedly, the device is able to correct muscle and tendon stimulation in the hand, wrists and elbows. Wow! I'll never need such a tool, but It's cool hearing about such contraptions that exist in our techno savvy society. I check these types of feeds the most often so that I can keep up with the latest technological changes that seem to take place each and every day.