Week 11: Great Idea! Put It on a Post-It Note

Wallwisher is a website which allows users to post messages on an electronic bulletin board. This website gives you the ability to post a question and easily get feedback from your co-workers or students. Here are some suggestions for using Wallwisher:

• Brainstorm ideas before a unit (What do you know about the Great Depression?)
• Get ideas from staff about best teaching practices.
• Kids could post “sticky notes” recommending their favorite book.
• Answer a specific question: What types of mammals live in Washington State?

Your task for this week is to create a Wallwisher board. You may choose adults or students to respond. Once you create a board, you’ll need to either email or post the link to your SWIFT site. Instructions are on SharePoint, if you need them: How to Create a Wall for Student Comments

Assignment: In your comment below, please post the URL of your Wallwisher board (so we can click over and check it out--we won't participate unless you tell us to) along with any ideas or comments you might have regarding use of this tool.

P.S. Starting last night some teachers started having difficulty posting their comments. I'm not sure why this is happening since I can't recreate the problem from my computer. If you have troubles, AND they persist after shutting down and restarting, please let me know.

Week 10: From Mike to Me to You

One of the benefits of my job is that I occasionally (okay, often) get sucked into the Internet and usually end up discovering something worthwhile. This is a common scenario: Mike sends me an email with a link to something cool he read or found online (yes, many of my best ideas are really courtesy of Mike Maryanski--thanks, Mike!). I check it out when I find a window of time. From there anything can happen. Today, it started with a interactive site where news is hosted by ants. (Yes, you read that right: ants.) I played around with it for a bit, then I forwarded it to some of our primary teachers for their review and possible use. Then, I revistited the blog where Mike had found the reference to the ant anchors, and  that's when I found this little gem (actually it's a pretty big gem, I think) for you: Interactives, produced by Annenberg Media (they are bigwigs).

To quote Kelly Tenkely's review at the iLearn Technology blog: "Interactives is a truly amazing website for teachers and students. Interactives provides educators and students with strategies, content, and activities that can enhance and improve students’ skills in a variety of curricular areas including math, literature and language, science, history, and the arts. The site has great webquest/interactive activities on a variety of subjects for first through twelfth grades." Interactives is part of the Annenberg Media Learner.org site which offers "Teacher professional development and teacher resources across the curriculum" (to quote them). After spending just a few minutes clicking around, I realized there's a wealth of high quality resources here for teachers and students.

So check it* out and add your two cents' worth below. Did you find something you can use? What?
*By "it" you can choose Interactives, the iLearn Technology blog, or the Learner.org site.

For those of you who won't be able to resist emailing me to get the link to the news-reporting ants: http://www.whatsyournews.com/index.html

How about that? An entire post with no reference to Google. :) Have a good week!

Week 9: Copy Right with Creative Commons

Welcome back! I hope you had a nice, relaxing break. This week we'll be exploring copyright issues in the digital environment.

Until recently, students didn't really have to worry about copyright and fair use guidelines. Teachers were in danger of violating copyright law nearly every time they stepped up to a copy machine, but students were just the passive recievers of our transgresions. Things are different now. Students (and teachers) have easy and ready access to a wide array of media and digital content. Fair use guidelines permit students to use copyrighted pictures from the internet in their reports, or copyrighted music in their projects. However, fair use stops protecting them after they leave the school environment. (NOTE: We're talking about copyright issues here, not plagarism. Copyright is a legal issue. Plagarism is an academic issue. It's important to keep the issues separate. Citing a source (like a photograph) which you should always do, doesn't protect you from breaking copyright law.)

We're working on lessons that will teach students about responsible (both legal and academic) use of other's content, but in the meantime, there are a few things both teachers and students should know. Read Encouraging Student Creativity with Creative Commons over at the PBS Teachers website (which, by the way, is a fabulous resource).

This week's prompt: Think about the students you teach. How and what might you share with them related to copyright and/or Creative Commons?

Looking for more information about copyright?

• TeachersFirst collection of copyright resources
• Do You Have a Simple Explanation of Copyright? blog post at U Tech Tips (includes a handy video) 
• Kimberly's personal collection of copyright-related links.

This just in! Google Docs has added some cool new features including the ability to upload and store any document (e.g. a Word or PowerPoint file) without changing it to a Google Doc. Then there's the ability to have 50 people SIMULTANEOUSLY edit a document. Yes, that's 50! But I'm really excited about the new drawing tools.  (You didn't actually think I could refrain from talking about Google for a whole week, did you?)