K12 Learning

My head is spinning and saturated with so much stuff that it will take a while to truly process it all.  Blogging will not be something I continue but there are other things that I am interested in pursuing:  sandboxes, wikis, bubbleshare, creative commons, etc. are new and exciting tools that I plan on using next year.  And truth be told, I am so thrilled just to be able to keep up my end of the ever changing Web 2.0 conversation!

Once again, I just don’t learn this way.  Maybe I’m ADD and find that the there is just too much info on a page for me, but I immediately shut down when I logged on to these sites.  I find it stressful and frustrating to navigate through all the material.  I once thought that it was the technology itself that made me uncomfortable, but I am pleasantly surprised to report that as I read the entries from all the “members” I understand the majority of what they are talking about whether referring to RSS feeds or to daily podcasts.  So now I’m left wondering what about these social networks makes me crazy….I’m honestly not sure.  I do know that as of this writing, I am still not comfortable with the whole chat and response culture, and again, I don’t know why.  I wish there was a way to filter out only what I’m interested in….hey that’s what RSS feeds are for….Eureka!!!  Maybe there’s hope for me after all!!

I really love this tool!  I had a lot of fun customizing it to be my personal homepage with all the things I need on a daily basis and even some I don’t, just for fun!  I think for my PreK classroom I would probably add a favorites flake with links to my favorite educational websites, google and youtube flakes for when I am searching for something specific, and the RSS flakes for whatever topic we are currently studying so that  I can add bits and pieces of interesting information to supplement my lesson plans.

As a PreK teacher, I’m not so sure how I would use this in my classroom, to be honest.  Anything that I would use the computer for would require the parents working with the children.  This being the case, I might lean toward using a wiki  instead (although to be honest, everything I’ve learned is starting to blur together and I’m not really sure anymore) in order to create a collaborative document.  However, I might consider using the spreadsheet to have parents check off things for things like permission slips or acknowledgement of shared information.  I also had fun creating a presentation and may consider making this a type of homework assignment.  Each child (with parental help obviously) could add a piece of information to certain categories and everyone can see what has been added.  For example, when learning about the parts of the orchestra, each slide contained various types of musical instruments: string, woodwind, brass, percussion, etc.  Each student could add a photo of an instrument to one of the slides to help build the presentation.  That might be kind of cool.  I might also consider creating an online  KWL (know-want to know-learned) type of document before we begin a unit.  I could survey the kids (again with parental support) on what they already know and what they want to know about bugs for example.  We could work off of that for our lessons and then at the end of the unit, wrap it up by completing the L section together in class and sending it back out to the parents.

This was a fun task and I simply cannot believe what is “out there” for the whole world to see.  I started by saying, what is the most basic thing someone might want to know and therefore searched for information on “How to boil water” and was astounded how many videos there were on this simple subject.  Enjoy this facinating piece of YouTube video history:

I then decided to look for obscure topics like the new phonics program my class will be implementing and some kids singing the four questions for Passover.  There were multiple videos on each topic.  Amazing!  On a personal note, I decided to research videos on a particular neurological disorder that one of my children has.  I, once again, was astounded at the number of videos (not all good, mind you) that I found.  I am just so surprised by how open so many are to sharing so much of themselves with the entire world.  I’m not there yet, but I do find value in some of these videos and truly appreciate the courage of the people who have shared so openly and honestly. 

I had less luck with Teacher Tube when I searched for specific things but when I went back to You Tube I was able to find what I was looking for…

Well, I must say that as much as I was bored by listening to other podcasts, I did enjoy creating this one.  It was very easy to do and did spark a couple of interesting ideas for me to consider implementing next year.  And I guess that is the point, isn’t it!  Enjoy listening!

I definitely do not learn well this way…this is not for me.  I did browse several of the sites available and did not find any that seemed to grab or hold my attention.  In my opinion, this is a lot of work….kind of like finding a needle in a haystack.  The titles of many of the podcasts are nondescript and while the category may have been interesting, once I started listening to the podcast I was bored out of my mind.  Now I know that there are some wonderful sites out there and I’m sure that they are very valuable,  but as a preschool teacher, I have not yet come across one that I would use in my classroom.  Additionally, assuming that I were to find a podcast or two that interested me professionally, I’m not sure how high up on the totem pole this resource would be.  At the preschool level, there appear to be easier ways to listen to stories on tape or learn about science projects.  I have certainly learned of and am excited by many of the other tools and resources I have been introduced to through this course, but podcasting isn’t my favorite.  Sorry.

My reaction to 43 Things is that it is TMI.  Again, I am basically a private person in terms of the fact that I am not comfortable publicizing my business for the entire world to see.  That having been said, I can definitely see how this would be appealing to many people (just not to me).

LibraryThing is an interesting site.  Not exactly the easiest to use, I find.  I had trouble locating summaries of books and then when I plugged in a title of a book for further recommendations, it simply  listed a bunch more books with the same words in the title.  I guess I need to spend some more time exploring the site to really get  a feel for it.  However, sites like these will be a wonderful resource for me as I am a member of two different book clubs, each one unique and each one reading very different books.  It might also be a great place for me to search for titles for my classroom when learning about specific themes.  However, this might also prove to be frustrating and a waste of time since, once having selected a bunch of titles, I will then have  to hunt for them at various school and public libraries.  This may prove to me more trouble than its worth, but only time will tell….

I was very happy to learn about del.icio.us!  It’s amazing how, when you feel a certain way about a particular internet tool (experiencing problems or difficulties using certain tools),  you discover that not only are there many others out there with similar feelings, but some of them have already taken action to rectify said problems.  That is how I felt when I discovered del.icio.us.  I was living my life, adding sites to my favorites and becoming mildly annoyed and frustrated at how sloppy is was and how I couldn’t access them from other computers.  I had accepted this fact as a way of life until…del.icio.us.  It just goes to show ‘ya,  never just “accept” things when it comes to technology.  There is always a way to make it better!!  I fell like del.icio.us is like using a card cataloging system of webpages.  Just plug in the keywords (tags) and voila!  You’ve got your listed resources.  Awesome!  Most  of the sites I have added were sites I like to visit when lesson planning as well as many of the sites introduced to me through this class.  Check it out at http://del.icio.us/stlampert.