Thing 6- Online Collaboration

The past couple of weeks, Deb & I have been using Google Docs to work on a policy for textbook administration using our Destiny program at South. It has been very useful since we find it difficult to actually talk to each other during the school day, being both very busy with our jobs. We are establishing a procedure for classroom teachers to use to check out & check in textbooks to students. Our textbook coordinator position was cut about 5 years ago, and since then we have not used the Textlink program; teachers have been checking out texts to students using whatever system they choose. Since the district has hired a textbook administrator, we have been asked to come up with a plan for teachers to use the system again. We plan to have teachers use scanners in their classrooms to circulate texts; we will train them to use the system and will assign scanners to the major departments in the hope that this will help keep track of the books. This week, in a meeting with the textbook administrator, I introduced him to the use of GoogleDocs to work with various people on the district-wide committee. He was excited about the possibilities of communicating with others without having to schedule in-person meetings, which is always a challenge. It's such an easy way to work on a single document with many people having input to the final product. I am so glad I was able to pass on yet another tool that I have learned through MILI.

Creative Commons- Thing 9

Tonight I looked at creative commons. Interesting comments on what is really criminal. Even a couple notes copied from someone's musical works; this piece takes squeaking sounds & alters them to fit into anew piece of music. If this is stealing, how do musicians actually own a piece of music? I find it very confusing.
This piece is called Copyright Criminals.
http://www.copyrightcriminals.com/trailer.html
Here's a great sample of music I found there called Sola Solita.
http://ccmixter.org/files/andrewfranco/20393
Just looked at the preview; how can I get the music in here? Help?
This is a very frustrating process. The first time I was able to copy the frame of the movie clip & it showed up in the preview but I couldn't publish it because of an error, so I recopied it & came up with this. How can I do this better?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paloalto/3038701605/

Glogster

This past Thursday, I introduced Glogster to 5 classes of German students doing biographical reports on famous Germans. Many of them were assigned composers like Bach, Handel, and Strauss. They were able to find great musical clips to add to their online posters. It will be interesting to see how they all turn out. The teacher was really excited to have them use Glogster instead of using cutouts, glue, posterboard, etc. Since this is only one option of presenting their information, I know not every student will use it, but I have high hopes for the future of this option. I really like the way it prevents plagiarism by forcing students to be brief, as with the post-it feature.

Tweet, tweet, tweet

Anybody remember that song I learned as a kid-tweet, tweet, tweet like the birdies sing, la, la, la, la, la? I wonder if Webster's had added to the definitions yet?
Did anyone catch that news item last week about twittering in the OR? What if my surgeon needed to twitter for advice during MY surgery? Seems kinda scary to me. On the other hand, I'd rather have a surgeon smart enough to ask for advice than not. Twittering in the operating room; maybe the hospitals will start requiring a designated twitterer as an essential person there.
And on MPR, the number of times I hear, call us at ......or send us a message on twitter, comes up more and more. OK, so I haven't actually tried it, maybe I should.

Google Presentation

After using Google Presentation, for the first time I actually finished an assignment during class! This is so much easier than Powerpoint for a beginner (like me). So many of our ELL students get stuck on the bells & whistles, and don't concentrate on what they need to say. This program focuses your thoughts and adding images is so easy, especially using flikr. Here's a link to the presentation I created at MILI tonight.
http://metronetmili.pbwiki.com/GooglePresentations-and-Glogs

9th grade bloggers!

Checking in with Tanya's 5th hour class yesterday in the computer lab, I found all but one of the 38 students actively engaged in blogging about their art choices. A couple students had even posted more than once during the class period about their chosen piece of art!! A very well-designed lesson kept them engaged; blogging gives each one a chance to report and express his/her own personality in the process. Something I hadn't considered is the fact that the teacher can instantly respond to student work through comments on their blog posts. It's really fun to see what the students have posted about their art projects!

Wireless

This is exciting! I borrowed an airport from school & finally figured out how to hook it up at home! Now I can use my laptop on my main floor, even though all my connections are in the basement. I can watch TV at the same time I am blogging. This will also give me the opportunity to practice with my iPod touch upstairs, where I really do all my living. It's much more pleasant to do this while I multi-task my life.