SharePoint Services

One of the great tools that we have to use here at Sparta is SharePoint Services by Microsoft. If you have never used SharePoint (or a Learn Site as it is known around here), here is a great video to explain the what it is and why it can be such a great tool in an educational setting.



Paul and I have used SharePoint with our classes the past couple of years and it has changed the way we teach. Students can upload assignments to their own document library. Once there, they can link it to a Wiki page to showcase and receive feedback from other students or log in in from home to finish their work. SharePoint also offers calendar, blog, discussion, and Web page features. It is a great tool for collaboration. Our Intro classes and my Desktop Publishing classes have been able to go paperless. One of the things we like about it is that you can do all of this on the Web, but people who don't have access to our network can't access our student's information.

If you are interested in having a SharePoint site set up for your classroom, let Paul or myself know and we will make it happen.

Thanks!

My First Day As An Instructional Technologist

So yesterday I started a four day stint as an "instructional technologist" at my high school. We started a pilot program where Paul and I get release-time to work with staff members to infuse technology into their curriculum. As a substitute teacher took over my classes, I started meeting with teachers during their planning to find out how I could best help them. During my first day, I was able to meet with around a dozen teachers. We worked on things like creating Sharepoint sites for their classrooms, creating blogs, creating staff profile pages for the district's Website, Flip cameras, Skype, Twitter, and Google Docs. It was a pretty busy day. What I got out of it was that teachers are pretty open to using technology in the classroom, but most of them don't know where to start. Hopefully I can help them find the way. It is starting off with baby steps for some by creating a Web presence, creating document libraries for their students to store documents online, or posting information online. Others are already at that point and want to use YouTube movies to supplement their lessons or have present with Prezi instead of PowerPoint. I hope that I will be able to accomplish all of the goals I had in mind and still have time to followup with teachers while in the classroom. Overall, it has been very busy, but very rewarding. Day two here I come!

Today's Classroom and Web 2.0

What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 technologies provide a level user interaction that was not available before. Students can collaborate, interact, create, publish. Unlike the first wave of Web technology where things were static or unchanging.

Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts. Oh My!

• Ary Adventures or MGoBlog and Mr. Toporski's Blog (anyone can be published!)
• Classroom Wikis (it is all about collaboration)
• Podcasting (really this is a screencast)

Great Places to Begin

• Get a Gmail account: It is your ticket to everything Google and there is a lot of good stuff!
• Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Sites, or Blogger.  Everyone has something to share!
• SharePoint site at Sparta. Student drop boxes, Web space, Wikis, and more! (Todd or Paul can help set one up for you)
• YouTube. There is probably something you could use there right now.

Web 2.0 and Social Studies

Definition of Web 2.0:  The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design,[1] and collaboration on the World Wide Web. A Web 2.0 site allows users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators (prosumers) of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users (consumers) are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them. Examples of Web 2.0 include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups and folksonomies. Definition from Wikipedia.

Great information
Social Studies Central
Tech Learning 2.0 - Social Studies
Favorite Web 2.0 Apps of Social Studies Educators
Social Studies « Web 2.0
A Day in the Life of Web 2.0
Monday Models
Web 2.0 Dashboard
Googlios
Top 1000 Web 2.0 Sites
21 Things for Teachers
Jenison Public Schools
Cool Tools for Schools
The Ultimate Web 2.0 Sites Listing
Blogs, Wikis, and Google Docs Oh My!
How to Teach with Tech Tools
Common Craft (Videos for those of us who don’t know anything about specific Web 2.0 tools)
Paul and Todd’s Excellent Ed Tech Adventure (Become a follower) (Lot’s of Google info)



Great Places to Begin

Get a Gmail account: It is your ticket to everything Google and there is a lot of good stuff!

Sign up for Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Sites, and Blogger. (With your Gmail account)

Get a SharePoint site at Sparta. Student drop boxes, Web space, Wikis, and more! (Todd or Paul can help)

Find class materials on YouTube. There is probably something you could use there right now.

U Jam

Welcome back!

This time around, I would like to to talk about a new Website that came to my attention last week. UJAM is a site that will let students record their voices (singing or talking) and put their voices to music. This video will probably give a better description:



Pretty cool huh? Now, am I going to start singing my lectures to my classes. Doubtful! Lucky for them too. But, I can see where this might have some applications in class. It is an easy way to record your voice online. You don't have to put a soundtrack to it, but maybe some light background music might be nice. Students could record vocabulary terms and definitions? Narrative or explanations of projects posted online? I am sure there are many more creative uses that I haven't even thought of. However, if it looks good, try it out. The basic package is free, just create a login.

Good luck!

What is the scoop on UDL?

If you haven't heard about UDL yet, you will soon. It is fast becoming one of the hot new acronyms in the educational world. Universal Design for Learning (you can see why everyone just calls it UDL) is defined by CAST as a set of principles for curriculum development that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn.

Furthermore, CAST says that UDL provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone--not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs.

Now I have to tell you the truth. I don't know much about UDL, but I soon will. My district is offering a training on it through our ISD and I signed up to find out more. It sounds like a novel idea to provide flexible instruction with a number of different approaches to reach the most amount of students. Good stuff right? What got me excited was the idea that one of the ways to provide "different approaches" and "flexible instruction" was the use of Web 2.0 tools. I like using many of the Web 2.0 tools (students do too) and am interested in finding out if many of the things I do in my classes already fit with UDL.

So, in the meantime, if you want to learn more, visit CAST. They seem to be a big player in the UDL arena and have a great Website that breaks everything down for those of us new to UDL. For those of you who learn better by hearing and seeing, here is a video. :)



 I will give an update on my training in the future.

Thanks.

Getting Scores from Examview into Your Gradebook

For those of you who you Examview frequently and are tire of entering grades by hand, try exporting the quiz/test scores from Examview and importing them into PowerTeacher's Gradebook. If you are interested, watch this handy how-to video:



Give it a try. At first, I thought I could have entered them by hand faster, but after a little practice, I use this method all the time. Less chance for error and the student's who haven't taken the quiz/test are left blank.

Good luck!