Springville Elementary Computer Lab

I made it to iTunes (twice ), but now I can subscribe to our SES Tiger Bytes podcast. So far, I am the only voice heard–and it’s not too good–but in the next few weeks, we’ll start hearing from the students at SES. I am SO excited about this. I am sending home media releases this week, so I’m hoping to start using students as reporters and broadcasters in two weeks!!!

Podomatic was SO easy to use. Thank you!!!! Look for the sestigerbytes’s podcast on iTunes. This week I only have the menu, but soon we’ll have other things too.

Sometimes it seems I go all around the world to do something instead of doing it right the first time. I am trying to create a podcast that I can submit to iTunes. I finally got the file off my iPod into a file on my desktop, which I had to import into Audacity to change to a mp3. Now, I know everyone doesn’t have to go through this just to create a daily or weekly podcast. So I will keep trying.

I have finally been able to submit to iTunes. I did it twice since I didn’t name the podcast correctly the first time. I ended up using podomatic instead of feedburner to submit. I have accounts in several places now, but I think I’ll delete feedburner and archive.org. It was much easier to use podomatic. The podcast is listed on the right side of this screen in two different formats. I’ll eventually eliminate one. I’m excited that I finally got this far! I’m looking forward to creating more. Once one has been accepted, I think it’ll be easier to do the next ones. Itunes hasn’t reviewed it yet, but I’m hoping it’ll be published there soon so parents can subscribe.

I think both blogs and wikis can play a part in the connected classroom. Blogs can be used as journal activities whereby I could ask a question and have students respond. Each student would have his or her own comment posted as a response.

A wiki, on the other hand, will be useful for collaboration. Students can add to or change things written by each other. In one sense, I don’t like that, because I can see where some students might “take over” and delete writings by another, but I can always go to the history to see the changes. Some ground rules would have to be established first, I’m sure. But I like the idea of using it as a continuing story. I had thought about doing this in my classroom with a Word document saved on the server so each child would have access to it, but this would be much simpler. If the students just add on to a sentence or paragraph, they will not be taking away from anyone else. I think as they start using a wiki, they need to allow others to put down their thoughts, no matter what. I will be using this with 2nd thru 4th grade, and I know how some of them have little or no tolerance for some of their classmates. Again, ground rules. I’ll have to work on that!

One note: in a class on wikis at the AETC this summer, the instructor told us that when we embed files in our pages, if we have a lot to put on there (as I did), link to the file instead of embedding it. It will make the page easier to upload, especially if your reader has dial-up. I spent a couple days this summer redoing my pages for that. Lesson learned. It does go much faster now.

Also, another beauty of the wiki, is that you can have multiple pages for collaboration. I will create one for each class. And each of them can be added to. It seems that on the blogs, only the home page is for commenting and the other pages are static. You can create static pages on a wiki just by locking it, but you don’t have to.

Wikispaces has a free wiki without ads for teachers. http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers You can actually create as many wikis as you need. On the advice of my instructor this summer, I created one for each grade I’ll be working with (because of the number of files I’ll be uploading to it), and each one is free. I will eventually link to all of them from my main wiki. I believe I’ve seen other teachers using their wikis the same way. In fact, I’ve seen blogs from other teachers who have a personal blog and a professional blog. I’ve seen some things on the personal blogs that I wouldn’t want my parents reading, so I sort of question that. I’m always afraid something will come back to bite me in the rear!

Finally!!! After much trial & error, I finally have some of the Google Reader feeds in my sidebar. I am using Google Reader because I can access Google at my school (except for gmail). I am not sure what other things are blocked. I may not be able to read all my feeds while at school because some of the blogging sites are blocked.

I have enjoyed looking through a lot of blogs, but I subscribed mainly to some tried and true ones I already knew about. I like Kathy Schrock’s things on Discovery. I’ve enjoyed watching her tweets (and Leslie Fisher’s) about their new iPhones. They keep me in stitches–talk about kids in a candy store!

There was one for 1st & 2nd Grade that I’m going to watch carefully in the upcoming year. I didn’t find too many elementary blogs, but this one looked like it would have some info I could use.

Cool Cat Teacher’s site has piqued my interest since joining wikispaces. She does a Flat Classroom Project that was highlighted. Well, many years ago, when I first graduated college, I was a kindergarten aide in Westwood Schools, Camilla, GA. I was only there a year before I joined the faculty at the public school there. So I’ve been interested in following things at that school.

Due to AETC, NECC and this online class, I have subscribed to so much lately, I am not sure what is what. I will say that del.icio.us is probably my very favorite thing. I had Ikeepbookmarks.com, and have just added it to delicous. Del.icio.us is SO much easier. I love the tagging. Then, I read about diigo, and wonder if I should try it. I’ve decided to let it go for a while. It’s kind of like buying a computer…the minute you do, there’s something better out there. Oh well!

The beauty to me of all this, is the fact that after our class is over, we will be able to go back and tweak all that we’ve gleaned to suit our needs. Yes, it’s overwhelming at the moment, but as we settle into the school year and working with the kids once again, we will find which things work best for us. Thank goodness we don’t have to be proficient in 6 weeks!!! I’ve always thought I was pretty tech savvy, but mastering edublogs & rss, etc. has shown me that I don’t need to be too smug! (I am still one of the tech queens at my school, but that could change any day too!) We will always have learning opportunities. I try to tell that to my students–that we never stop learning just because we graduate!

That’s it from the lab for now!

You know, even as a child I would get a diary and let it sit for the entire year with only a few pages that had anything written on them. My children have baby books that are incomplete. I am not one for writing things down. I am the world’s worst at corresponding with others via snail mail or email. I’m much better at email than snailmail, but I don’t sit down and compose thoughts too often.

I am having some difficulty with edublogs in getting things to look just the way I want them quickly. I actually created this in April 2008 for use with my classroom, but preferred the wiki instead. I had a ton of files to upload and couldn’t figure edublogs out quick enough to get it done. It’s something I will definitely play with this year.

I really want to allow my students to post this year. I’m currently looking at gaggle.net & ePals for school accounts. I will need to upload around 500-600 names when I do this, and am looking for an easy way to do it. Most likely, I’ll create a document with Word or Excel using STI to do it. I’m also looking at permission documents at other schools to send to parents to get permission to do all I want to this year. Our county policy only lists internet use and email use–I want student work, pictures and voices added to my policy (no last names with anything.) When I uploaded all the files for the wiki last year, I had to go through each one to make sure they never said their last names or used them in their file names. It was really time consuming, but a necessary thing because not everyone followed the directions. Imagine that!

I would love to use blogging as a Q & A tool to begin with in order to get the students to write. I would start with a question such as “What was your favorite thing you did this summer?” or “What would you like to learn in computer class this year?” and see the responses. I guess it would be like a journal activity. Eventually, with the 3rd grade book project, I’d like to post a book slideshow, and have the students write positive feedback about it. (Just for their classmates.) As I learn more about edublogs, I figure I’ll learn how to best incorporate files. I’m looking forward to the correspondence with students.

I have a draft copy of the new COS for technology, and this is what it’s all about–digital tools, collaboration, etc. I’ve really got to get with the program!!!

This is it–my first attempt at blogging! Oh sure, I’ve attended the workshops and read other blogs, but decided maybe it wasn’t for me. But I want to be able to showcase the work my students do in the computer lab, and after looking at a few blogs, thought this would be an easy way to do it.

In the coming weeks, I plan to show off some of our students’ projects we’re working on in my lab. I’m really working on this for the next school year. I want to do a project every nine weeks to show parents.

Bear with me as I learn new technology!