Meeting 5
September 22, 2008 -- Word Processing and the Internet
Homework for us to have completed by next week:
We began class by going to the class Wiki. Dr. M told us that we would be taking on an assignment where we would choose a topic from the main wiki. We were to click on the microphone to the left of this screen, which took us to the main Class wiki. From there, we were asked to look at the list entitled, "Instructional Design and Technology" or the list "Instructional Tools" underneath that. We needed to choose a topic from one of these lists for a future assignment.
At this point, Dr. M asked each of us to explain what we had posted on the wiki during the past week. He wanted us to also tell what we learned from the article we read on Multiple Intelligences or Learning Styles.
Also, assignments were given to the following students to cut certain information from our class wiki and paste it onto the overall IDT course wiki. These students and assignments are as follows:
Remember: You need to make these topics specific. For example, separate the English Rubrics from the Math Rubrics, from the General Rubrics. Do this with the Lesson Plans and Resources also.
Assignment #1 On the homepage of our wiki, Jessica made a new topic for the 'All About Section' entitled, Monday Night Concept Mapping. We must publish our concept map URL here. How do you do this? Kelly explained in class. Follow these steps:
We had a debate on keeping Inspiration or Kidspiration for the future classes. Dr. M wanted to quit using the software, but Robert made a good argument that the outline feature of Inspiration was very user friendly in that it would create frames and links based on a outline entered at that tab.
Next on the agenda, Dr. M asked, "Where do you keep your bookmarks?" Answers were: Favorites, on a flash drive, on the UM Drive, on a web page OR you can save bookmarks on Delicious. This is a free site which allows a bookmark collection. It operates like a news feed except that is is a web page. Then you will be able to access your bookmarks from ANY computer. Also of benefit you can share bookmarks with workgroups or others who need to access certain sites you have chosen. Go to http://delicious.com to create your profile and sign up for this great service! See assignment #2 below for more information.
Go to Yahoo and find out how much they paid to purchase the company, Delicious. Do you know?
'''CNN's Money page reported it to have been:
"...in the range of $15 million to $30 million." http://money.cnn.com/rssclick/2005/12/10/technology/delicious_biz20_120905/?eref=yahoo]]JAMEKA SANDERS ROBERTS
I second Jameka's finding on the selling/purchase price of Delicious. Wikipedia says Delicious was sold between US $15 Million and US $30 Million and lists these sources CNN Money "Tag Sale" and CNN Money "Delicious Deal for Entrepreneur". Sorry my link to Delicious on Wikipedia does not take you directly to the page. The website contains parenthesis in the URL and this causes a problem in the wiki formatting. My link should take you pretty close to the correct page. Maybe someone who knows how to make links with parenthesis work can let me know on Monday night. If you go to Edit in the wiki you can see what the URL should be. Kelly Wilkerson
I also found a website that said that Del.icio.us was assumed to be sold for between $25 and $30 million dollars. http://www.yardley.ca/2005/12/09/meaning-of-the-delicious-acquisition Dianne Johnson
Assignment #2 Create a Delicious Account. We did this in class, but if you weren't able to do it. Do it NOW!
What is delicious? It is a software account that helps track bookmarks (You can access from any computer) These bookmarks can also be shared (i.e. useful to share with other fellow teachers, groups of students, etc.) This is a great system to ensure your precious bookmarks are never lost! - Margie Christie
We took a 10 minute break at 6:30 pm.
Assignment #3 - Add something to this wiki in addition to your concept map. You will be asked next week to tell us what you added.
Assignment #4 Watch video on social networking from Common Craft. The video can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a_KF7TYKVc-
Social Networking
What is "social networking"? Why is watching this video important? I wasn't able to watch the video until today (Monday) before class, but I did a little reasearch on the topic this weekend and used some common sense to come up with this (and watching the video confirms this information). A social network is made up of individuals or organizations that are linked by certain things, such as values, beliefs, careers, family, and friends. Social networking is an effort to increase the quantity and/or quality of these links. It has happened since the beginning of time. It is one of the reasons why towns and cities emerged. Today it is easier than ever before because of the development of the Internet and Web. Individuals (or organizations) can use social networking services, which are mostly web based services these days, to network. By using an online service, individuals can interact in a variety of ways, including email and instant messaging, with other individuals that might be on the other side of the world! Julie Hasuly :) (with help from wikipedia.org)
Comments welcome from class pairs to share what they learned about Word Processing, i.e., Zoho, mail merge, envelope printing, google , inserting clip art, making tables, etc. in last exercise in class. We went over making labels, mail merge, table making, etc.
Teacher's Corner
This is a new section I added for sharing our thoughts as teachers which may include various, miscellaneous comments, as we learn how to be more effective teachers (in general). As teachers, sharing our daily thoughts and experiences can give us more insight and support regarding the true rewards of teaching. As we get more comments here, I plan to copy your comments and add these to our main wiki page so that this section may be referred to in years to come.
This week I was teaching genetics in my science class. We reached a discussion time (this past Monday) when the students were sharing about heredity and real world connections. Pictures of their families were shared. One of my "shy" students shared that he was adopted and talked about his biological parents and adopted parents. He was describing the physical traits he had received from his natural parents and the "learned" traits from his adopted parents. He said he realized that his adopted parents loved him very much and that they picked him to be their son. Other students shared and we had a very interesting discussion about parents and grandparents regarding heredity and what traits had been passed down to them. The students commented that this was one of their favorite class meetings; some students that previously did not participate often in discussions are now sharing more, after this class. This is further proof that real world connections need to be a big part of each lesson we teach and how important each class truly is. Judy (J.J.) Hutton
J.J.- I agree totally. Academia by itself never did a darn good to anyone. It is integration into one's life which makes learning come alive! We should not simply make a career out of schooling (we all have heard of the college student in school for twenty years), but instead make our schooling pertinent to our interests.
In my teaching experience this week, I ran into the same old bulwark while teaching Weather and Climate to a group of college students. They are always so scared of making a mistake, that they will not attempt a problem without first trying to get me to tell them whether they are on the right track. Well, this week I did not bow to the whims of the crowd. I instead informed them that, " They should take a chance now and then. Show me somebody who won't take a chance, and I'll show you someone who never did a darn thing." I suppose these are words to live by, but mostly I am glad to have them thinking on their own now.--Brenton Reese
Great new section J.J.!!
I think this a wonderful idea for a section. It's always good to know how and what is happening with fellow teachers. I had an experience last week where a fellow teacher, who happened to be new, was threatened three out of the five days that he had been there and by the same student. Upon investigation we learned that the student and his parents were homeless and this was causing his hosility.
Gregory
Last Friday I had my first experience as a "teacher" on a field trip! I went to the zoo with the 1st graders from Campus Elementary school where I am a graduate assistant. It was a lot of fun but at the same time really hetic. The kids were so excited to get to run around and see the animals. They had a scavenger hunt they had to do which was a lot of fun and also kept them occupied. One little boy got lost; that was the scariest part of the whole day. We found him; he just wanted to play on the play ground! It was a great first experience.
-Haley
LONG-TERM ASSIGNMENT -- INSTRUCTIONAL TOOLS FOR PERSONAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
Dr. M gave us a long-term assignment (which will be due in about 3 weeks).
For example, Go to Wikipedia, go to our MAIN wiki (the microphone again), and do a search of the topic, do a Google search of the topic, look for Common Craft video, tutorial. If you were searching for Social Bookmarking for example, you could type,'Social Bookmarking Tutorial', or 'Social Bookmarking for Dummies' or Social Bookmarking Explained, or look for a screencast, etc.
We will write about 2 pages worth of information with a collection of links. We are to explain the tool, what it is, how it works, how to use it in teaching and learning. Our wiki page will be the medium for our topic.
Write the topic you have chosen below:
Performance Response Systems = Tina Heindel
Blogs & Blogging = Clay Bounds
Podcasting = Veronica Lemock
Copyright = Latarsha Prophete
RSS feeds = Emily Lowry
Personal Response Systems(clicker) = Margie Christie
Word Processing= (J.J.) Judy Hutton
Spreadsheets = Dianne Johnson
Asynchronous Discussion Tools = Brent Reese
Virtual Meetings = Julie Hasuly
Instructional design theory = Robert Schueller
Presentation Software= Jameka Sanders Roberts
Concept Mapping = Haley Armstrong
Synchronous Interaction Tools = Kelly Wilkerson
Presentation Software = Tonya Jamison
Asynchronous Discussion Tools= Brenton Reese
Social Networking = Chris Goodell (Facebook and other sites), Matt Bell (MySpace, LinkedIn)
Instructional strategies and models of teaching = Greaory Siggers [learningvillage.com]
Learning Management Systems= Jessica Martin
Authoring Programs = Sally Stinchfield (Hyperstudio, Macromedia, etc)
Assignment #5 Show some progress for your topic before next week. List some links, videos, etc. to show you have done some research on your topic.
Podcasting by Veronica Lemock
Podcasting is an online audio content that is delivered via an RSS feed.Many people liken podcasting to radio on demand. However, in reality, podcasting gives far more options in terms of content and programming than radio does. In addition, with Podcasting, listeners can determine the time and the place, meaning they decide what programming they want to receive and when they want to listen to it.
Here is an interesting link about starting a podcast account http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/
PRESENTATION SOFTWARE by JAMEKA SANDERS ROBERTS
Programs used to give presentations a POP! http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci212826,00.html
Virtual Meetings by Julie Hasuly
I looked at the three websites that were listed on the link, which were all companies that provide services for virtual meetings. Then I tried to find a Wikipedia entry for it, which I didn't find. I just found a bunch of other businesses that offer services. So I need to take some time to look at them all and make some generalizations about them (and maybe add my own Wikipedia entry!) and see if there are any videos or anything about them out there.
Presentation Software by Tonya Jamison
A presentation program is a computer software package used to display information, normally in the form of a slide show. It typically includes three major functions: an editor that allows text to be inserted and formatted, a method for inserting and manipulating graphic images and a slide show system to display the content.
I also found a website for a free trial period on presentations visit http://www.wildform.com/
Social Networking by Chris Goodell
In preparing to write my two-page article on social networking (particularly related to Facebook and other social networking sites besides Myspace), I have begun to gather mostly the general, background and informative info related to what social networking (as a concept) is, and how it works. I've also found a few news articles that explain the context of how the idea benefits it's users, while the company implementing the network also uses the users to generate a profit (essentially a win/win scenario). Finally, I found a few more articles about where social networking is expected or predicted to go in the future, and how it will be used to facilitate people's lives. Find the articles below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a_KF7TYKVc http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/industry/2008-05-11-social-networking_N.htm http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/03/technology/03social.html
Spreadsheet by Dianne Johnson
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-spreadsheet.htm This is a good site to understand what a spreadsheet is and how to make a spreadsheet.
Authoring Programs by Sally Stinchfield
I found a neat site that lists a lot of good classroom software. Here is the particular list of authoring tools and similar programs: http://www.educational-software-directory.net/multimedia
OpenOffice.org
Given that this section is about Word Processing, you can go to Open Office's website and download their entire suite of Office applications for free. They all are compatible with Microsoft Office's various files.