Presentations!

Digital Citizenship-
The first presentation that I listened to today was on Digital citizenship. It was geared toward upper elementary- middle school age range. I thought this presentation was very well suited to that age group. It would have immediately cought the attention of the children and really hit home with a lot of them regarding copyright/plagarism. I especially liked Chris' idea of giving them a free copy of a movie only to see a picture of him in jail. What a great visual tool.
This lesson also covered Creative Commons- A copyright that you control how much you realese that you are willing to share with others, etc. With so many people publishing things to the web, it is even more important to have clear guidelines for children who utilze this tool for school or social networking.
This groups presentation was very original and had a great podcast and movie! I think that the movie was definately created with the learner in mind! This would defineately entertain and teach children in a way they would easily remember. Captain Slappy was a hoot!!
I thought that the etiquette quiz was a nice form of assessment and a great place to jump start a discussion. It might also be nice to have the students create thier own etiquette quiz, so the natives could teach the immigrants about what they have experienced in the chat areas.

Authentic Writing with digital Tools- This was our presentation. Although not as humorous as the previous group, I must say that I think we created a great inservice for teachers. This inservice would have to be done in several sessions and would more than likely take more than 3 days to conduct, but would be an extrememly valuable way to introduce teachers to tools while showing them how to teach writing more effectively.

Social Networking-
Our last presentation was on Social Networking, particularly NING and was meant to help get teachers to begin using NING as a way to create a social network in the school. Iliked the idea of using Teacher Quality money to give this in service. If you don't complet the training, you don't get paid- this is one way of getting teachers to integrate technology. Not sure however that real implementation would occur. I will be interested to see if this happens!
This project asks teachers to use Ning to discuss success of group project. Teachers will have to showcase how they use social networking in the classroom. I really like the idea of making teachers showcase their integration work. What a great way to hold them accountable for their work.
I really enjoyed the analogy to a tipping point. As social networking becomes more popular, I do believe that what once started as a way to chat will become the a primary way to communicate and do business.
I like that Ning can be very controlled. It is private and you have to be invited. Videos and photos must be approved before they are put up. This is a huge selling point for teachers and administration. We all worry about exposing our children to what is on the web, but Ning offers a great way to be social without putting our children at risk.
Ning could be used in a multitude of ways. For example, it wcould be used to hold discussions, upload podcasts, publish rubrics, publish student made videos, etc. for others in our school community to share. This gives the children's work a sense of purpose and therefore will p the quality of what is being produced.
Using Ning with the children is a great way to create a less formal learning environment, I think that introducing children to Ning in a way that stresses informallity could create a great opportunity for teachers to reach all of thier kids.
I think a Ning for staff would be a great idea. Often when you are working in a school, you don't see many other staff members. A Ning would be a great place that teachers could collaborate and share ideas. The problem in education is that we don't often share the wonderful things that are happening in our rooms. Ning could be the answer.



Theressa

Tuesday- June 17

Today we spent quite a bit of time on Second Life. Although I enjoy playing around in Second Life, I am not sure it will help my students (4th graders). I really agreed with the Steve Hargadon when he said it has great potential, but it isn't there just yet.
Click on above image
to enter Club Penguin
a form of Second
Life for children

We also learned alot about NING today. I like how this forum forcuses more on the dialogue and conversation than on the product created. I think that this could definately help in my setting. 4th graders love to use social networking tools, but I wasn't quite sure how to implement this safely. I was glad to hear that I could make NING a private forum. I think that this will be a great tool for the children to use as they share their work and other fun things. I will just have to be very careful about how it is implemented and look into the legislation a little more closely.

After class, we went to Z's house and meet his family. He cooked us some brats and burgers and we had a very nice dinner while we visited with each other. Thanks for the dinner Dr. Z and family!

T