Michael's Blog

Today was definitely up my alley!  I am a social network fiend.  I know, it’s kind of unsafe to go on social networks, but I like to keep in touch with all my friends in the states and all my former students.  Of course, I now have former students who are in their thirties (god, I’m old).  It’s become a lot easier to keep in touch with people over FaceBook than it was when I had only an e-mail and a Blogger blog.

First, let’s start with Sean’s presentation.  I wasn’t all that impressed with his Celestia presentation, but, apparently, neither was he.  I was amazed by TinkerPlots, however.  This program is awesome.  I like the feature where you can post the plots in a table and give a visual representation of numbers that’s not a bar graph or pie chart.  I’m thinking there are probably other programs that do this, but TinkerPlots seems easy to use.  And, it’s not cloud-based, so the information is safe.  I’m happy Craig finally touched upon this today.  I have been worried about information in the cloud since day one, and I’m still fairly worried.  I don’t think I will ever fully trust the cloud, and I don’t think I will place any sensitive information in the cloud.  I’m still trying to find out if the photos on Flickr are owned by Flickr, or if they remain the property of the owner.

We have Audacity in all the computers at my school, and it was great to learn how to actually use it today.  It’s always been a mystery to me when my students use Audacity and MovieMaker to make films for projects.  I’d like to learn a little more about MovieMaker too, but I guess we’re sort of out of time in class.  I’m actually very sad to see this class come to an end.  I was also happy to learn more about Twitter today.  I have to admit, I did not see the point in Twitter and I thought all people who actually tweeted were idiots to think that anyone would care what they were doing every minute.  I never really thought of it as a marketing tool, but it is.  I’m noticing more and more on websites and television commercials when it says “follow us on twitter.”  I’ve even heard they put out special promotions on their Twitters for their followers.  This is an excellent use of the technology that’s out there for something for which it was probably not intended.

I was also glad to have Craig indulge me a little today when we went over Tumblr.  I have heard a lot about Tumblr from my friends in the States, who love its ease of use and its quick posting ability.  I wasn’t aware that it was mainly for artists.  My friends who use it are definitely NOT artists (haha).  Thanks Craig for indulging me and letting us look at it today.

I have fallen in love with edmodo!  I am definitely using this in my classes this year.  I will be preparing my final paper on the use of edmodo and blogs in my classroom this year, so you’ll hear more about it later.  I can also see the use in administration.  There are some great uses for an internal social network at a school.  It promotes collegiality and sharing among teachers.  It’s a forum to post frustrations or concerns about students.  Since it’s not public, names and grades can be used in discussions.  I think I’m going to hang on to this tool for a long time.

Well, I guess that’s it.  One more day!  I’m sad, but happy at the same time.  Talk about yin/yang!

My reaction is going to be short tonight because I want to get back to working on my final paper.  I’m trying to finish the whole thing before my parents arrive tomorrow, but there is still one part that I need Craig’s help with.

I’m impressed with PhotoShop, but I tried Gimp, and it seems easier to use.  I know it doesn’t have all the features of PhotoShop, but it’s free, and PhotoShop isn’t.  My school does have a license for PhotoShop, so I will be able to play more with it when I get back to work.  I am also a fan of embedit.in that Jenny talked about today.  It will be really helpful if I ever post forms or surveys or things on my blog that I want people to be able to download and print.  I also like the idea that it’s embedded, and not inserted.  I think there is more user freedom with that idea.  I will also be using PhotoPeach soon.  I’m thinking about making a PhotoPeach of this year’s Mallorca summer.  I just have to find the time.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow.  I’m all about social networks.  In a way, I think I’m addicted FaceBook, and I have actually used it with my students as a way of communicating with them.  I have sent out messages to students on FaceBook, and I have opened chats with students to help them with homework and test studying.  I’m also learning edmodo, and I think I will be using that one with my classes this year (there are still some kinks I need to iron out).  A lot of my friends are using Tumblr.  I have checked out the website, but I have not joined it yet.  I don’t know how it is different from things like FaceBook or MySpace.  I hope we’ll be discussing Tumblr in class tomorrow because I’d like to learn more about it.

I think that’s it for now.  I’m going back to my final project!

Craig went a little fast today.  I think it’s because he really only had about 45 minutes of class time to go over a whole bunch of things he wanted to go over.  The presentations were well worth the time, however.  More on them later.

I was very interested in the imaging websites that Craig talked about today.  I think it’s more from a personal note than as an administrator, however I do see the use for administrators when they are posting a school blog or sharing things that happened in their school.  I have a Flickr account, but I never posted anything to it.  I normally just post all my travel photos to FaceBook because anyone who would want to look at them is my friend on FaceBook, I never saw any reason to make them public.  Now, however, I see how Flickr can be used in other software and how photos placed on Flickr can enhance things for your school.  I do, however, have a question about Flickr.  You know me…constantly concerned with privacy and all that….do the photos you put on Flickr become the property of Flickr?  Is it like FaceBook, where they can use your photos for their own advertisements?  I’m not sure I want student photos on Flickr if that’s how it is.  It may be a privacy issue for the students and parents.  I’d be interested to know this.

On to the presentations!  I thought Claire’s presentation about the different tools she found online was excellent.  I, too, chose tools that I had no, or limited, experience with and I found it an enriching thing.  I wasn’t all that impressed with ClassTools, but I think I would have to play with it a little to actually see what it can do.  I love, love, love ExploraTree!  I was going to include this one in my presentation until I saw Claire was talking about it.  I will definitely use ExploraTree for administration.  It’s perfect for flow charts and organization charts.  It’s very user-friendly and has a great set of tools available with it.  It’s awesome.  I also liked the idea of Glogster, but, as we saw, you need a lot of bandwidth and excellent internet to set it up and use it.  Unfortunately, many international schools do not have that.  I think the basic technology of international schools needs to catch up with Glogster.  I liked Craig’s idea of using it as an introduction to my own personal website for my job hunt.  I’m thinking about setting that up, but, once again, if I apply to a school with bad internet it won’t be helpful.

Claude’s presentation on Wordle was, for me, the most useful.  I had never heard of Wordle before, but when I began to play on it, I loved it.  I can see a lot of uses for it, both as a teacher and as an administrator.  I’ve been asked to write my philosophy statement for job interviews, and I can envision an administrator throwing that into Wordle, and knowing what the most important aspects of my statement are.  Then I would know what to ask my interviewee about.  Bill, Jenny and I put our comps answers into Wordle, and we all came up with “school” as our most used word.  Then we diverged from there.  Mine is below:

I love this tool, and I will definitely use it!  Claude also spoke about Posterous.  This is another great tool that I think would be good if you had a group of students or teachers all experiencing the same thing.  You could have them work together to create a photo story of what they were doing, and they could comment and add to each others’ photos.  I have to play a little more with this one to see how to best use it.

Matt spoke about a great comics website called ToonDoo.  It was fun and complicated.  I think I would get more frustrated with this website than fall in love with it.  I’m sure, once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty good.  But, I don’t know if I would have the patience to get the hang of it.  I wasn’t all that impressed with ProProfs either.  The flashcards looked cumbersome to make, and I didn’t like that images couldn’t be printed directly on the cards.  I would like to check out if they have pre-made ones for IB classes, however.  I’ll have to play with this one a little more.  The iEtherPad website was helpful for me.  I could envision using this as a “thought pool” for certain projects or work that is going on at a school.  I could have all teachers working simultaneously, but they can work in their independent areas and post any thoughts or comments to the iEtherPad and it’s as if they’re collaborating right there.  I like the use of it for collaboration between international schools.  ASM has a “sister” school in Maryland that we have been looking into communicating with in new ways.  This could be one of those ways.  It would be easy for the students to post what they thought, and have a “meeting” on the iEtherPad.  I will have to explore this use a little further.

Well, that’s all for today.  I do hope we get to talk about PhotoShop tomorrow.  I have the program on my school computer, but I’m reluctant to use it because it seems a bit daunting.  I’d also like to get Craig alone for a little while tomorrow to go over some options for the project I’m planning when I get back to school.  I’ve already looked into using Blogger and WordPress, but he suggested EdModo might be something to check out.  I haven’t really explored it yet, but it looks promising.  Here’s a link.  It looks like any social networking site, but it’s educational.  I’ll work more on it.

Good job today, Craig!!

I’m still a little wary of having my entire life “in the cloud.”  I liked everything that Craig showed us today, and it makes a lot of sense to use the Google applications and the other blogging and wiki software he showed us, but I’m still afraid of putting everything out there in the “cloud” for anyone to hack into and explore.  I don’t even like the idea of having a Gmail account because I know Google sold content to vendors.  I think everyone is losing a little more of their privacy and control of their own life with each thing they put in the cloud.  I’m just not sold on it.

I do, however, think that some of the applications at free cloud websites are valid and useful.  I love the two that I have chosen to do my Web 2.0 project on.  I also liked the Animoto one that Shanel showed us today.  I think I could probably make use of that, especially as an administrator.  Shanel seems to be a lot more tech-savvy than most people in the class.  I’m going to ask her for advice next time (haha).

I have to say it, though, the quote of the day BY FAR goes to Maura.  When she found out you can start wikis in Moodle, she said “You can put a wiki in your Moodle?”  In any other situation, it would have been hilarious.  Hell, it was hilarious in our situation.  It just sounds so racy!  Haha!  I’m enjoying this class more and more every day.

Tomorrow, I will present my tools.  I’m not sure it will be as comprehensive as Shanel’s, nor as interesting as Chris’, but I’m going for it!

Well, now that my comps are over and I feel like I just gave birth to an administrator, I have the time to write my reaction to Friday’s class.  I think this class is impressing me more and more every day.  In fact, I chose the technology question on the comps today because I felt that, in four days, I had been well prepared to answer the question.  I credit Craig Kapp with all that!  Great job, Craig!  Thanks for being so knowledgeable and accessible.  I don’t feel like any question I ask you is a “stupid” question.  I find most “techies” are fairly judgmental with people who are tech-morons, but Craig is helpful and open and patient.  Thanks, Craig for everything!

Ok, now that my lips are starting to hurt from puckering up so much, I will go into my reaction to Friday.  I was a little disappointed on Friday.  I think all the digital storytelling stuff was cool and interesting (and I know this is Craig’s bread and butter now), but I don’t think it’s really relevant as far as administration.  I know, if I were the principal of an elementary school, I would want to show it to my teachers and have them use it, but I don’t foresee my using it for anything as an administrator.  That being said, as a teacher, I can see hundreds of ways to use the digital storytelling websites, but the class is for administrators.  I did enjoy, however, bringing the other students in for the presentation.

I don’t mean to be too critical, but I need materials that I can build a school on.  I know my presentation on the Web 2.0 tools that I would use is more geared towards teachers, but it has its admin uses.  I don’t know that the storytelling does.  I’m just saying (I still think you’re awesome, Craig).

I liked that we got time to “play,” as Craig said, with our Web 2.0 sites and I made a great concept map in SpicyNodes, but then it got wiped out because I forgot to log in!  I will have to do it all over again in class tomorrow, or in the afternoon when I get home.  Oh well, you live, you learn (thank you Alanis).  All in all….the class is awesome.  I love it, and it actually helped me with the comps!!!

Keep it up!!

Today was all about embedding and linking.  I loved it.  I learned how to embed YouTube clips, include a video chat component and set up Google translate on my blog.  I think I learned a lot about the different things that you can do with WordPress, and I I’m going to continue to post and update on my blog long after this class is over.  This is definitely an interesting class.

I liked the computer comparisons we did this morning as well.  It worked for me.  I know I bought the best computer I can get for what I want it to do.  I bought mine at Best Buy, and I got Office installed easily and for free.  I had to pay for Outlook, though, but what can I do?  My whole life is in Outlook!  I never knew Macs were so much more expensive than PCs, but I guess it stands to reason, they are superior machines.  Now I understand why my retired IBM father uses an iMac instead of a PC.

I like the project we were given today.  I have decided to present on SpicyNodes and bubbl.us.  These are 2 Web 2.0 tools that help develop concept maps.  I’m big on concept mapping with my students, and I think these programs are helpful to teachers.  SpicyNodes can be more administration in nature, and bubbl.us can be more student-friendly.  I’ll play around with both of them and see which one I like best.  I have had my students work with SpicyNodes before, but it’s cumbersome.  So, I think I’m going have my students choose the one they want to work with this year.

Great class today!

When I was trying to think about what to write in this post, I kept coming back to the idea of Internet security.  In a conversation with Claudine before class, she had mentioned how she didn’t want to post anything about her feelings or her life online because she didn’t know how secure it was.  Then Craig talked about his boss “friending” him on FaceBook and how he doesn’t want to post anything personal because he is afraid of his boss seeing it.

I started to wonder about all the horror stories you hear about stolen identities and peoples’ e-mails and postings being mined for advertising dollars.  It really started to make me nervous about what the future holds.  As we talk about cloud computing and storing all your information in an offsite data warehouse in the “cloud,” I also wonder how safe the cloud is.  I know there is a lot of security and hundreds of firewalls protecting that data, but is it really 100% safe.  There are a lot of things I have stored on my computer and my external hard drive that I wouldn’t want other people to see.  It’s my personal material.  If I start storing all my stuff in the “cloud,” will it really be “for my eyes only?”

I had also never heard the story about Google selling advertisers the information contained in GMail.  I’m kind of happy I’m using Hotmail now because of that.  I don’t even use Hotmail anymore, I use FaceBook Inbox for all my mail.  I realize FaceBook owns all my images and can use them as they wish, but the privacy policy does protect the inbox mail (I think I’m one of maybe a dozen people who actually read the privacy policy and believe what they say).  If Google can sell peoples’ ideas from their e-mails to advertisers, then what IS safe?  What is the level of security of my information?  I heard a quote once, “Once it’s online, it’s there forever.”  I never really thought about this quote until today.  It really IS on there forever, in the “cloud.”

Now that my paranoid rant has subsided, I do have to say that I’m excited to get my kids blogging next year.  We use Moodle at my school, and I suppose there is a way I can do it with Moodle, but I don’t want to.  I think Moodle is unwieldy and ridiculous.  It takes almost as much time to post a document as it did to actually create it.  I would rather use WordPress or Blogger because the kids are comfortable with these types of online tools.  Plus, if I can get excited about blogging with WordPress, then anyone can.  I am definitely not the technophile.  I’m more like Jen in the following excerpt from the British sitcom The IT Crowd!  The Internet

Once again, great class.  I like the idea of practicality and usability in a class rather than theory-laden articles and 10 page “philosophy” papers.  Bravo, Craig!!

Ok, first let me say that I think the class, so far, is absolutely phenomenal.  I know it has only been one day, but I feel as if I’ll actually take something away from this class and USE it.  I haven’t felt that way about most of the classes I have taken in this program.  I mean, theory is ok, but I want concrete skills and materials that I can use TODAY!  This class is definitely worth the money I pay to TCNJ!

Ok, I’m supposed to post a reaction to today’s class.  How do I react?  WOO-HOO!!  There’s my reaction!  I was surprised to learn today that over 80% of people in the USA have a mobile device.  I thought there were still thousands of hicks in the hills of Arkansas that didn’t have anything but a land-line.  You know how those Ozark families are (haha).

I think the blog idea is awesome and it give me an outlet to rave about the class each day.  I’m going to be doing something a little different with my classes this year, and I think blogging will fit perfectly into my plans.  If there’s one thing I’d like to learn, it’s how to set up a blogging network (like globalblogs) for my classes so I can control it and be the admin on it.  There’s a certain amount of trust I have with my students, but I’m just not sure I want them to be posting “out there” with public content.  My idea for “PLCs” in my class can link well with student blogging.  I’d like to speak to Craig about that personally and perhaps he can help me set it up even before I go into school in August.

I also love the idea of using Prezi, but now I feel that it’s just more time and work on my part to convert all my PowerPoints to Prezi.  It’s a much better design, and I like the linking features.  It’s very user-friendly, but I worked so hard to make over 40 PowerPoints for my classes that I now want to take the information and convert it to Prezi.  This is the major reason why, when Craig asked what my interest in technology is, I answered 5 out of 10.  It’s a lot of work and time and effort to keep up with it.  Bill said it best: “after a while you just stop, and then try to catch up again later.”  Changing all my stuff to Prezi will take hours and hours of work, but it will be so great….until the next great presentation tool comes around.  I know I’m a cynic, but it’s only the truth.

I guess I will end there, with my cynical comment (as I so often do in conversation).  I do want to shower praise on the class and instructor again.  I knew there was a reason I saved this class for my last….it’s the best!!