Robyn's Point of View on 422: March 2009

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Google Earth is a program that allows you access to a virtual globe. This is a great on-line resource to add more excitement and interest to assignments. You can fly from the Eiffel Tower in Paris to the Great Wall of China in Beijing to the Pyramids of Giza and then back to the Grand Canyon in a matter of minutes. You also have an option of viewing The Sky and Mars which will expand students' opportunities for exploration. At each location, there are links to Wikipedia and other informational sites so you can learn and tour these places. Some tools that are available are measurement and GPS which will allow students to interact with Google Earth. Aside from the obvious geographical uses, there are also many cross-curriculum applications.

Literature Application - Students could follow along the Joads family journey to find new hope during the Great Depression in The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck or visit Venice, Italy after reading The Thief Lord, by Cornelia Funke. Visit http://www.googlelittrips.com for other ideas.

Math Application - Students can use the measurement tools to estimate distances from known landmarks in their area. They can also use the Path tool to measure indirect distances, for instance from their house to school. For other lesson plan ideas, visit http://realworldmath.org.

Science Application - Students can map the paths of tsunamis and hurricanes while studying weather patterns or take tours of different biomes of the world.

For more ideas on how to use Google Earth in cross-curriculum applications you can visit https://classroomgoogleearth.wikispaces.com.

I can see how Google Earth would be a great resource for adding dimension to different assignments. Not only would students enjoy the ability to virtually travel around the world, but I think having a broader view of the world can be a great learning tool for students of all ages.

Journal #7

Bigenho, C (2009). Mining for gold RSS technologies find the nuggets for you. Learning & Leading with Technology, Retrieved 03,24,09, from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/200904/

Bigenho starts off his article tempting us with the thought of being able to sit down with a daily cup of coffee and read only the stuff that we want to read from the latest blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networks, newspaper articles and radio stations without having the sift through all the junk. He then tells us that because of RSS (Real Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary), it's all possible. Basically all a person needs to do is subscribe to an aggregator that collects information from the Internet and allows the person to see all the information by going to a single page.

As an educator you can have students access the information you want them through your school's learning management system (LMS) or Web site. This way students can read information before coming to class and be prepared to add interest and depth to a classroom discussion. Although RSS is one of the least used and understood Web 2.0 tools it is an invaluable tool for educators to stay up to speed with the everchanging technological climate.

So, how does RSS work? There are two parts to RSS technology, the first are the feeds and the second are the aggregators. RSS feeds uses XML, a special type of HTML and is defined with tags that contain specific information. RSS aggregators find these special tags, track pages based on your subscription and lets you know when new information is added. RSS feeds are typically identified by an orange icon with the letters RSS or XML. RSS feeds are organized by topic and region, so if you wanted to find out more info for a particular topic in a specific region you can. RSS aggregators are separated into two types, client side and Internet hosted. Internet hosted readers will allow access to your feeds from any computer connected to the Internet whereas, client side limits access to your personal computer. Some examples of Internet hosted readers are Bloglines, Netvibes, iGoogle, and Google Reader.

One way that RSS is useful in the classroom, is that it can allow you to monitor student blogs without having to check each students blogs daily to see what they've written since the last time you checked. The way to monitor them more efficiently would be to have each student set up their own personal blog on Blogger and e-mail you the blog address. Blogger sets up the RSS feed and you paste the student's blog URL into Bloglines and hit subscribe. When you use Bloglines Notifier with Bloglines, you will be notified whenever a students adds a new post to their blog.

Another way that RSS is helpful in the classroom, is by using social bookmarking, like Delicious. This is a way to organize all of your favorite Internet sites and organize them by using multiple tags that will help bring them up when desired. Students can have access and contribute to Delicious which creates a very collaborative learning environment.

You can also use RSS to create a JavaScript that you can put on your LMS or Web page. This allows you to enhance your curriculum without have to know special code, just create a custom feed, by using Feed2Js.

As you can see there are several ways to introduce RSS to your classroom. It is a great way to enhance the learning experience for your students.

Question #1 - What are some of the confusing aspects of RSS? I'm still confused on the actual process for using RSS. I get the overall concept and what a great collaborative tool it is. I'm also not sure how I would use it in an elementary school setting. I would need to do further looking to find some age appropriate ways to use in an elementary classroom.

Question #2 -Why are the benefits of using RSS in a classroom? It helps save time if your students have blogs, because if tells you when there are new posts as opposed to you having to check the blogs to see if there are new posts. It fosters a collaborative learning environment for both teachers and students. Students have access to information and resources that the teacher finds important to the curriculum, then students add their own gems, therefore both teachers and students learn from each other.

Journal #6

Warlick, D (2009). Grow your personal learning network. Learning & Leading with Technology, Retrieved 03,24,09, from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/200904/

Family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances all make up our personal learning networks (PLN's), but as times change, our networks will continue to grow and change. We used to rely on reference books, textbooks, professional and personal-interest periodicals, television and radio to gain professional knowledge, but that is changing, as well. We can now access information and people through ICT's, information and communication technologies, which have broadened our ability to reshape the way we learn. In order to teach our students about the ever changing world, we ourselves must create and grow our own PLN's.

The three main types of PLN's covered in Warlick's article are personally maintained synchronous connections, personally and socially maintained semisynchronous connections and dynamically maintained asynchronous connections.

The first, personally maintained synchronous connections are what we think of when we think of a traditional network. It would include people and places that we would refer to in order to solve problems, find answers and accomplish goals. This process has improved in that there are new and improved tools including chat, instant and text messaging, teleconferencing and virtual worlds.

The second, personally and socially maintained semisynchronous connections are referred to as "nearly now", by Stephen Heppell in a March 18, 2008, Guardian article called "Back and Forth". This refers to applications like texting, Facebook profiles, Twitter and Syndicaster. The term semisynchronous refers to the fact that collaboration doesn't all happen right now in real time and in the same place. Collaboration can happen between people in different geographical locations and at different times that are convenient for the individuals

While the first two connect us with each other, the third, dynamically maintained asynchronous connections, connects us with resources that we have determined to be of value. RSS aggregators, such as Google Reader, Netvibes and Pageflakes, are the main tools used to bring us the information needed to do our jobs. Social bookmarking is another powerful tool for educators. It allows us to search from a more manageable and higher quality list of resources as opposed to the vastness of the entire Web, plus by subscribing to the RSS you can get future pages that get bookmarked for your topic.

Our job as educators is to teach and connect students to the world they are learning about. This requires us to continue to learn as well. PLN's make it easier for us to have opportunities to learn and develop skills. Although there are several applications that aid in the creation and evolution of our PLN's, we are the center of our own PLN. We need to remember that we aren't solely the receiver of information, but that we take that information and add value to it and return it to the network so others can have access to it. Therefore, we have a great deal of responsibility because we are part of someone else's PLN.

One drawback to PLN's is that we can sometimes become limited in our perspective if we lean towards sources that share our own views of the world. Therefore, we must be a part of networks that challenge us and stretch our thinking. That way we can all continue to learn.

Question #1 - How will you choose to use PLN's in your classrooms? For students grades 3-5, I would probably design an project that would introduce the idea of PLN's and how they can be beneficial. For instance, they could use Inspiration to create charts that would illustrate their own PLN, using primarily the people and places in their lives. Then they could include the specific types of information and knowledge that they gain from these resources. Then they could take that information and add to it, to illustrate how we contribute back to others PLNs.

Question #2 - What are some of the challenges you see to setting up a quality PLN? For me personally, I think the two biggest challenges would be time and organization. I think it could take quite some time to develop and contribute to quality PLN's. I guess the key there is to have realistic expectations and start small. I also think it's important to pay attention to how you set up your PLN. There's potential for your PLN to get a little cluttered and overwhelming if you don't go in with a plan.