Evidence of Learning- Delicious

Here is a screenshot of my Delicious account. At first I wasn't sure if this site would be of any use, but I stand corrected. Delicious is great to have when you use various computers, like I do. Especially if you are on the road and use computers at various hotel.s

Bomomo

I just tried doodling on this site and I love it. I am not very artistic, but can do this. My French 10 students are currently working on an art unit and this site is perfect. I cannot wait to get them into the lab and to doodle. Everyone should be able to do it. If they let me, I will post some of their doodles on my class blog.

Wiki screenshot

Here is a screen shot of the front page of my wiki. As mentioned before, it took a while, but I managed to add two pictures.

Wiki pictures

I did it!!!! I added two pictures to the wiki. As usual, it took me quite a bit of time to figure out how to accomplish this, but I succeeded.
I am currently on the road, as I presented two Langguage Workshops yesterday in Kamloops at their Distict Pro. D. day. The computer that I am on does not have Paint and therefore, I am not able to add a screen shot of the Wiki at this moment. I will be home tomorrow and will try to addd another post of with a screen shot.

Ted Talks- Lesson 7

Ted Talks: Kevin Kelly tells technology's epic story
As part of this week’s assignment I watched a Ted Talks video on Twitter. I watched the one in which Kevin Kelly tell technology’s epic story. Although I would not show the entire clip as part of a pro.d. activity, there are defiantly parts of the video presentation that would be beneficial, to include in a presentation on technology.

First of all I was shocked to find out that the work technology was first used in 1829. Alan Kay’s definition of technology is an appropriate one to use with teachers: “Anything invented after you were born.”
Kelly describes a Precautionary Position in which people believe that one should stop using technology until it leads to no harm. This was interesting to me as this is the exact position that I have adapted when it comes to Face Book. Unfortunately, when it comes to teaching, I am not the only educator who follows this Position. Kelly suggests that we should adapt a Proactive Position instead. We need to engage, try out and constantly asses new technologies. He suggests the following steps:
1. Anticipate
2. External Assessment
3. Prioritize Risks
4. Restitution of harm
5. Relocation
In order to illustrate his point he provides several examples of bad technology than can be used in good ways. For example, nuclear fission is used in a ‘bad” way to create bombs, but a ‘good” use of nuclear fission would be to relocate it as a sustainable nuclear energy to perhaps replace coal. One needs to find a new job for the new technology.

I must constantly remind myself, and perhaps other teachers that “ Technology gives us progress.”

Thus, I signed into Face Book with a new frame of mind. As suggested in this unit I searched for School Libraries and actually looked at two pages: BC Coalition for School Libraries and School Libraries Matter. Although there were not many discussions posted, it did give me a new outlook on Face Book.

I also thought of a Proactive Position of Face Book used by one of my staff members. The Aboriginal Educational Coordinator uses Face Book to keep track of her students and what they are doing. She says that she also stays in contact with parents via Face Book. Although this is not a School Library application, it is a positive way that an Educator uses social networking.

As in my case, I am slowly changing my views and am starting to give Face Book more of an honest attempt.

Social Networking Opinion ( Lesson 7)

Social Networking still scares me a bit. I have been dabbling in Face Book and Twitter as this is a requirement of the course, however I must admit that I can still not 100% convinced that they should be used in a classroom setting and that I would use them with students.
I am one of those exact teachers who “feel(s) very uncomfortable with the idea of joining these networks, concerned that students will locate them in the network and see all of their posts and photos. I do understand that I can set your settings so that only invited people can see my profile, however I still do not trust the system. Living in a small town, I still fear that information will be leaked.
Even though I know that my second fear may be a modern day Urban Legend I am concerned with the stories of companies using people’s pictures etc for advertising purposes etc.
However, I agree with Owen, Grant, Sayers, & Facer (2006), of Futurelab, when they state that education is “ to support young people not only to acquire knowledge and information, but to develop the resources and skills necessary to continue learning throughout the rest of their lives.” In support of this notion I have been creating blogs and Wikis. Currently, I have a blog that students can refer to if they have been absent from my class. I am also searching and developing lessons in which my students will use these technologies to present new information learned. Before the students start using these new concepts, I need to teach familiarize my classes with the technologies. Eventually, I hope to have at least one new activity planned per semester. This way I will slowly build up my collection. Also, once the students are taught how to create Wikis and Blogs, I will be able to include them into more lessons plans.

Lesson 7 Evidence of Learning- sort of

This week I have been working on our research paper Wiki. The article that I found most helpful was Jane Harvey’s “Wiki in Language Teaching”.

The title caught my attention right away as I am a Language Teacher and also an executive member of the BCTAML, the BC Language teachers Proffesional Specialists Association.

I was extremely interested in exploring how wikis can be used in a language classroom.
Suprisingly, the article started with how to construct a wiki, which is exactly where I was beginning and therefore was what I was searching for.
While reading the article, I would jump to my wiki and experiment with the step by step instructions Harvey was providing. I managed to add a picture. It is a picture of a boy reading a book and is found in the sidebar. My hope is to move the picture onto the front page, however I have not been able to figure out how to do this. If you can help me with this problem, please explain.

I was pleased to see that Harvey has included several lesson ideas along with the lesson procedures. The lessons ideas provided are:
Group Cultural Project
Class Dictionary
Class Grammar
Round Robin Summary Wiki: Create a Wiki as you learn
Hometown Wiki Page
Sentence Wiki

The article also has a suggestion that explains traps and tricks of which teachers should be aware. As a person who has yet to create a class wiki, I appreciate the suggestions.

If I do become the Teacher-Librarian in the future, I would be moving from the language Teacher position and therefore think that the language teachers would be one of the first group with whom I would collaborate. Harvey’s article will be an article that I would defiantly share with the Language teachers and will help me to team- teach about wikis.