Sunday, July 31, 2005

Ipod Shuffle...your grave has been dug!


mobiBLU...and of all places available at Walmart! Well, time will tell. This device as a few extra features, and not everyone likes iTunes. I have not tested one of these little cubes but I am thinking of getting one to try in my class. If I can actually use the voice recorder, I could might be able to create podcasts with it. I wonder what kind of mic or sound quality it has. I know that I would never use the FM radio. The reception could not be worth much. I can not wait to see my studunts get their hands on one, that will be the acid test.

read more | digg story

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Image Tool Rocks!

This is a photo of my wife's summer reading program here in our hometown. These kids are turned on to reading!!!

This is my first time using Blogger.com's new program that enables bloggers to upload images right into a post. This will really make using Blogger much easier for my students. Great place to create digital stories. Hum, could video clips for vlogs be far behind? Way to go Blogger.com, keep it coming!

Monday, July 25, 2005

New Social Bookmarking Project: My Web v2.0

From an email from one of Yahoo.com's experts, "great summary of social bookmarking sites. I work for Yahoo! and saw that you mentioned My Web 1.0 Beta but didn't mention our new version - My Web v2.0. I think you might find it worth a look - it offers tags vs. single categories, the ability to invite friends (students, colleagues) to join you in your pursuit & sharing of knowledge, and the ability for you to tag & share interesting articles, websites, etc. with your search community, the world, or just with yourself. You can check it out at myweb2.search.yahoo.com.

Would love to get your thoughts if you get a chance to try it."

I checked out myweb2 this morning for a few minutes.

Personally, I need a button java script for Safari so I can just click on the button to add a site to to MyWeb2. I do not use Yahoo! Tools. After looking at My Web v2.0 this morning, I noticed that I can download a version of Yahoo! Tool for Mozilla, but no thanks. I noticed a post in the My Web Message Board about a browser button, but I could not figure out how to get it to work...It is Monday, I will try later in the week-- haha!

My immediate gut feeling of this beta site is that my middle school students would not like how it looks. Middle school students like site with images/graphics (not too many). This is a site my students like to go to Sparknotes .

I know, it is Beta, and things change. On the user interface side- we I logged in the first time using my PowerBook G4 and Safari, the program tried to import bookmarks. However, it did not import any. No, I am not going to buy a Dell--been there, done that. We have lots of PCs in our school, and lots of folks that can use that feature. We use Foxfire on all our student accounts as browsers. We have a program that restores computers to the way they were set before students use them and deletes any bookmarks they create. So, a social bookmarking product is something our students could use. When they move from a laptop lab, to a desktop, they can just log in to myweb2 and access their bookmarks. I am interested in watching how my students this year use and also learn to abuse this tool. They can tell you where to find Rap music online, and every inappropriate web site our IT dept and our high price content filter and firewall has not blocked.

Classroom use of a social bookmarking tools is a little different from other uses, but that is were the teachable moment comes in. Part of what I try to teach my students is the standard course of study, but also, our school focuses on how well our students do when they return to their school after being with us. So, if they learn how to use a bookmark tool and can take it with them, that is really cool.

I think our teachers will like this. Maybe Yahoo could develop a handout our video to teach teachers how to use My Web.

Myweb2 has a cool Message Board feature.

I need to be able to invite my teachers, but I do not have Microsoft Outlook - I need to be able to import names from my Apple Address Book. How about adding some way for me to import all my contacts.

Saturday, July 23, 2005

Reflection: Using TikiWiki in my Classroom

I was looking for a way for my students to work collaboratively on various class topics. TikiWiki looked like something my students might be able to use. After a few days reading the FAQs and asking a lot of newbie questions in online forums, I found a host and started setting up my site. TikiWiki is not for the faint of heart. I could not have handled setting up more student accounts. It has a way to set up student accounts using a data document, but I did not try it.

This is not really something that I am proud of, but I only had one student that actually liked TikiWiki. 80% of my students are EC with reading problems. My TikiWiki skills or lack there of, could have been a reason my students did not like it. Setting up user editing rights on the student's Wiki and Blogs in TikiWiki is not the easiest process.

TikiWiki seems to have a potential in K-12 environments. What will future versions of TikiWiki add to support teachers and students is not clear. Check out-- Edu.TikiWiki.org Here is a site that a history's class created-- Holocaust. It is will allow images to be uploaded to the server and included in Wikis. Students that I teach have trouble creating links and typing the Wiki code. You might want to view AulaWiki for secondary schools . I think this is what I should have tried, but I did not.

Experimenting with TikiWiki lead me to discover Moodle. My next post will include details on how I used it.



tag: Warlick, downers grove

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Google Moon - Lunar Landing Sites

"The Eagle has landed" and "One small step of man....One Giant leap for Mankind"...if you have these quotes branded in your mind, then you are going to enjoy this site as much as a kids in a candy shop. Share this with your "fellow space campers."
Google Moon - Lunar Landing Sites: "Welcome to Google MoonIn honor of the first manned Moon landing, which took place on July 20, 1969, we've added some NASA imagery to the Google Maps interface to help you pay your own visit to our celestial neighbor. Happy lunar surfing. More about Google Moon."

Zoom in is a little "cheesy" but it is still neat.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Summer Job


John Blake
Originally uploaded by The Blake Slate.
When Whiteville City Schools teacher John Blake finishes the new Columbus County Tech-Prep Consortium website, area high school students will find a user-friendly site that will cater to their career interests and to their local college tech preparation needs. http://www.whiteville.com/pages/2005%20WEBPAGES/JULY%202005/7.14.05/news4thurs.html