Podcast- how to use Jing

The purpose of my podcast was to show others how to use Jing and describe some of the benefits of the program if used for students.  When I first learned to use Jing I was excited to see how simple yet affective using it could be.  I am an audio & visual learner therefore Jing and other podcast programs are great for me when used in online learning because it gave me a chance to understand what is being taught.  I will definetly use podcasting in the future to enhance learning for my students.  I also looked at using Cinch as a podcast I could use for classroom instruction and also saw it as a very exciting tool that can be used in bringing 2.0 web tools to students.  

 

The link below is directed to my Jing screencast   

 

  http://screencast.com/t/cQxFnbGh

Critical Analysis of Information

After completing the Mapping information activity, which by the way I did for hours I was so amazed, I realized even though I have been searching the net since it started to boom in the late 90’s, I am not narrowing down my searches enough.  I searched several key terms however I took Disney Cruise (since we are going on one in September) and I went to Google.  I entered in Disney + Cruise and Galveston Cruises were the top 7, I did not put in Galveston so that told me the internet search picked up where I was searching from and used that as a way to give me the location of Galveston.  Then I used my typical search engine mode typed in Disney Cruise which was very broad and pointed more toward advertisements and travel agents rather than the actual cruise line.  So I took “Disney Cruise” with the added quotations and the search was narrowed down to only sites that actually offered Disney Cruises.  It was very interesting to see just a few different KEY words such as and, or, and the + sign can change the amount of junk retrieved on a key word search.  I will definitely be using the Mapping suggestions as well as referring back to Novemberlearning.com for future internet searching tips. 

I believe students need to be taught these implications because as shown in the MartinLutherKing as a student that would look like a very good site to do research for a project, however after investigating we see it is not.  It is important for students of any age to understand just because we read it or find it on the internet does not mean it is a scholarly site. 

Without a doubt I see sites such as Delicious, Google Reader, and Stumble Upon as having advantages to organizing my information.  Delicious and Stumble Upon remind me of Pintrist because it is set up similar and organized in a way that is appealing and easy to find information according to interests.  I enjoyed using delicious because not only does it show the description of the site but also has a direct link, therefore with one click you are where you need to be.  Also with delicious you can put things in categories where-as the traditional bookmarking is organized by lists and often very hard to find what is being searched for.  It was also interesting to perform the “easy who is” on Delicious site, it showed the information necessary to research a little further which led me to https://www.markmonitor.com.  I will be using these tools, websites, and mapping strategies to continue to grow in this technology filled market we serve.     

e-portfolio

The tenent I most related to in the list of Assessment for Learning principles was AFL should focus on how students learn.  The reason I was most attracted to that tenent is because so often when I taught school (special education for 5 years) I saw teachers teach the same material in the same manner day after day, month after month, and year after year, with no regard of different learning styles.  As educators I believe it is our job to make sure we are teaching several learning styles and seeking each day to find out more and more how each of our students learn.  Teachers so often do not want to take the time to assess students individually to learn how they learn which I believe is a huge barrier for our students.  I believe portfolio assessment has a greater potential to understand what students are and have learned then giving tests.  I have completed my masters degree this last summer and the classes in which I learned the most and gained a strong knowledge of the material were the ones in which were assessed by portfolio's.  Even as a secondary special education teacher my students were given portfolio assignments rather then tests which had a large impact on how they learned.  I believe the reason why portfolio assessment has greater opportunities for students and their assessment is because it is what they created not a test they had to memorize.  I am a huge supported of portfolio's because I think they are a great way to get students involved in their own learning.  I have found students love to collect information and share it with others it means more to them if they discovered it rather then they had to cram for a test to try and learn it. 
I like the idea of creating a portfolio in this class as well because I will collect and compile the information that is important in my learning.  My portfolio will also serve as a way to keep all information in one place, the information that seems most important to me.  I look forward to building on what I have in my portfolio and continuing to use it as a tool to grow as a learner.   

https://sites.google.com/site/jodilcalkins/

WIKI WEEK

I decided to create a WIKI for our local home school group, with the idea that all of the parents could have access and add to the information as needed.  The Wiki was extremely easy to create and is a great tool for sharing information.  I even created a 2nd Wiki for the CES PTO in which I serve as president again this will be a way we can all share and collaborate for upcoming events.  I see WIKI's as being great way to create web pages without having to purchase a separate domain, web server, and the other tools required to build a website.  There were several other 2.0 tools I discovered that I would love to work with, one was Live Minutes, it offers a way to conduct meetings online and even stores your minutes, this is a great tool for those who want to save time and money I am going to be looking into this further for sure.  http://liveminutes.com/oneclick/

I also saved a site that has several 2.0 web apps on it in which I am checking out each one to see which I can use, I encourage you all to check it out!
http://www.go2web20.net/