Summer Job idea

It's quickly approaching summer job time.  Here is a great opportunity from MLB.  If you really want to create a blog all about baseball then now is a great time to apply to MLB.  This is a great opportunity.

My Daily round up

TG Daily posts a great read and class discussion on how colleges scout for you on Facebook.  This is a nice and simple read that I will ask my students to read and discuss.  Students need to understand that what they post creates an image about themselves.

The Education Policy Blog posted about success and support.  This focuses on the Principals support both from the principal to the teacher and principal from the board.

Tech Tips & resources posted a link to a word search creator.  I enjoy word searches and when I taught Language Arts and Social Studies I used to pick a student to create a word search for that particular week.  The student would turn in a blank wordsearch and clue sheet and an answer key.  It was really engaging for all involved.

The Education Policy blog also discussed a film series being shown on campus.  There was a time a few years ago when i felt like many in education were trying to bridge movies and curriculum together.  I am not sure if that is what this is but I am also curious if others are using films to illustrate lesson taught.

Finally TechLand posts about the new Google Search.  An interesting read.

 

Google Docs + Office = Collaboration

The inquirer Posted an interesting read on how Google Docs allows Office users to collaborate on office documents using a plugin.  I checked out the Google Docs Blog to read more and WOW does this seem really cool.  Whats really great is allowing students to work simultaneously on a word document at separate work stations.  I love the idea and if time allows I may conduct an experiment in the future.  I am unsure how bandwidth speeds will be affected but I am optimistic.  I am eager to hear about others using this.

  Click here to Download.

My weekly round up

Keeping in the spirit of the Teacher Challenge I am trying to comment on at least 5 blog posts a week.  I am going to post my links to those posts here.

Free Technology for Teachers posted about What we Pay For.  A site that shows where your tax dollars as an individual go towards.

TechCrunch posted about NYC using QR codes on all building permits so citizens can access information about the building.  I used this as a discussion with students to show them how new technology especially mobile technology is growing.

The tip line posted about perezi.  He brought up some concerns and I am just getting ready to develpoe a Perezzi lesson.  I found this post very helpful.

Hack Education posted How fast is your schools internet.  My schools internet is slow.  Teachers are on a seperate network than students and our network is approximately twice as fast.  However once I was observed and during my lesson I needed to use the internet.  Because of our slow bandwith & so many teachers using the internet my lesson was not very effective.  The broadband map takes a while to load but the stats are interesting.  It shows the advertised speed of broadband access in your area.  I used speedtest to see how fast my connection really was.  ping 1324 mps, download speed 0.22 mb/s, upload speed 0.24 mb/s, MP3 5mb file 3 min,  a 35MB video 22 min, 800MB movie clip 494 min to download.  To upload an email attachment of 1mb 24 seconds.  With our network times will vary depending on usage but this is interesting when compared to student info.  For the students, Ping 1011 ms, Download 0.05 mb/s Upload 0.05 mb/s To download a 3 min mp3 a student would need 14 min.  A video clip of 35 mb 98 min.  To upload an email attachment of 1 mb 3 min.  It's no wonder why some students get frustrated with some services.  With these speeds we are definitely prohibited from using a Google Docs or other online services. 

Free Technology for Teachers posted about Google Docs allowing all Microsoft and apple documents to be uploaded and viewed.  How huge and helpful this!?  For me personally I am going to use this support when working with adults through the adult school.  However using this for student assistance probably won't work.  I personally don't like to use services with students that the district does not control.  also like I noted earlier because of our bandwidth issues students are time prohibited from using services like google docs, even YouTube videos can take up to 20 min to load.  I have administrative controls with my login which allows me to open a file and choose the program I wish to open that file with.  This is how I currently help students who are having trouble.  I am very curious to read how others handle these issues.

 Instructify caught my attention with this blog title.  A cool website with mp3 of some of history oddities.

Bit by bit posts about the permanant record.  This is a great post.  During my computer class I have all students Google themselves to see what comes up.  Many are suprised by how much information is already available about them.  Images, awards, mentions are things that will appear in a Google search.  I haven't seen new information but I had read an article that posted 80% of colleges and universities search applicants before admitance.  60% of those said what they found online will affect a decision.  I would be interested to read what others have to say about this post.

Internet Speed

Hack Education posted How fast is your schools internet.  My schools internet is slow.  Teachers are on a seperate network than students and our network is approximately twice as fast.  However once I was observed and during my lesson I needed to use the internet.  Because of our slow bandwith & so many teachers using the internet my lesson was not very effective.  The broadband map takes a while to load but the stats are interesting.  It shows the advertised speed of broadband access in your area.  I used speedtest to see how fast my connection really was.  ping 1324 mps, download speed 0.22 mb/s, upload speed 0.24 mb/s, MP3 5mb file 3 min,  a 35MB video 22 min, 800MB movie clip 494 min to download.  To upload an email attachment of 1mb 24 seconds.  With our network times will vary depending on usage but this is interesting when compared to student info.  For the students, Ping 1011 ms, Download 0.05 mb/s Upload 0.05 mb/s To download a 3 min mp3 a student would need 14 min.  A video clip of 35 mb 98 min.  To upload an email attachment of 1 mb 3 min.  It's no wonder why some students get frustrated with some services.  With these speeds we are definitely prohibited from using a Google Docs or other online services. 

I am curious to know what the internet speed is at other schools.  Try speedtest at your school and reply back with your speed and that of your students. 

Dreamweaver CS3

I have been hard at work on my class for dreamweaver CS3.  I am having trouble trying to fit all of this information into a 3 week class.  During my research I came upon a few really good sources that I wanted to share.  The Wizard has a great list of classes and lessons.  I also used this book and if you need an updated version check out this site.  I will post later how the class went, both good and bad so I can learn and adjust in the future.  I did learn however that if you use Google sites like I do you can not create a dreamweaver site then upload to google sites =( You would need to host everything at a go daddy or other hosting service.

 

Teacher Challange Follow Up

So it has been a week since the Teacher Challange has officially ended.  I am trying my best to keep the spirit of the challange going by commenting on others blogs.  This week I commented on 5 blog posts that I found helpful and interesting.  I plan on continuing the networking that made the Teacher challenge so great and next week plan to post links to the posts that I commented on. 

How are you keeping up with the Teacher challange?

Dreamweaver CS3

I have been working on preparing a class on Dreamweaver CS3.  I was a bit overwhelmed when I began this task however I found some really great resources.  Adobe has a great list of sources for teaching and education.  Many of the lesson and ideas allow you to find ways to incorarate 21st century learning into your classroom.  Vineyard Designs a WebDesign comany has a fantastic list of resources for all things web design.  I found some really great information here, Thank you to all at Vineyard Deigns.  I am also going to incorparate some of what I learned at The Site Wizard.  He has a six part series on Dreamweaver CS3.  I am trying to figure out how to cram all dreamweaver has to offer into a 3 week class.  I guess we will see.......

Google Weddings

Are you planning your wedding?  Need some help?  Try Google Weddings.  This is a really cool idea and although we used Google sites to create our wedding website there are other options out there, like the Knot.com.  One thing that would have been nice is Google Weddings keeps everything integrated and in 1 spot. 

Create a website with Google Sites

Photo editing and personalized announcements from Picnik

Plan the nuts and bolts using Google Docs

Share photos with Picasa Web Albums

Like I said these are all tools that we used and signed up for individually.  This is a great tool for those still in the planning stages.

Best of luck on your special day

 

Thanks NJEA

In the February edition of the NJEA Review, a magazine for NJEA members Patricia Bruder wrote an article about Prezi.  I had explored Prezi about a year ago and that was about it.  Having read this article I now have a renewed intrest in Prezi and creating a lesson for students.  The article was well written and designed with some lesson ideas.  Does anyone use Prezi right now?  What kind of lesson do you use?

 

Thanks

Many thanks to CSRN Tech for a tip on using http://typewith.me/  and to E journey on a tip for http://titanpad.com/  These two bloggers commented back on a post I made last week on student collaboration.  At a glance both sites look pretty cool but I will need to investigate further. 

Week round up

What a busy week it has been.  I am sad to see the Teachers Challange come to an end but plan to keep following some of the blogs I found noteworthy.  I will post them next week.  A few things that have kept me busy and off the blog have been:

How can students share work and work collaborativley on projects without using Google docs?

How to Teach Dreamweaver?

Any suggestions would be great.

 

Kick Start Challange 8 Advanced

Kick Start Challenge 8 Advanced Why are readers of our blog important?  For me, I wanted to show the world what I was teaching in my technology classroom.  I started blogging mostly to teach myself how to blog and what a blog was all about.  Secondary to that was to hopefully become a place where technology teachers who scour the Internet for lesson ideas would find the blog.  My hope, and it still is, that teachers would use my material and comment back on positives and areas for improvement and then we could build a co-operative lesson plan.   How can we build readership? You build readership by working at it.  You need to post regularly and post content that others can use.  You need to look at others blogs and youtube channels and comment back.  Use your analytic tools to find where people come from, what keywords people used to find you, and target that audience.  Google yourself and find out how Google tags you.   How can we stay networked? The edublog challenge was great, Ft4T once posted that you should tag all posts on twitter with a certain tag so your tweets would come up in a tweetdeck search.  I thought that was a cool idea and it worked for a bit.  How can the conversations continue? From your new network of contacts and bloggers it is up to you to continue the dialog.  Why has this challenge been important to you and your blog?   This challenge got me to look at my blog differently.  I changed some design elements and will continue to work on it.  What impact has it had? Readership and subscriptions have grown thanks to the challenge.  Also my adsense revenue =) What worked well and why?  The challenge worked well because it forced you to look at others blogs, comment, and connect.  That was the best part and I will continue to use that.  Oh boy!  Is that a new post topic?

 

5 to 10 ways to promote your blog: I run Google analytics and Webmaster tools on my blog.  These are free services for Google users and the wealth of information they give is fantastic.  My blog is visited by over 40 countries, I have an average of 2 pages per visit, 9 google reader subscribers, and a daily visit rate of 20 people.  I know how and why people are coming to my blog.  I can see what drove them there and what they are searching for.  I try to create posts to reach those people and then post to attract new subscribers.  I try to link and make comments on others blogs and youtube channels and I look for links back to my blog.  Blogging is work and the work can be addicting and gratifying.  Try using these tools and see what you can learn. 

Kick Start Activity 8 Beginer

Kick Start Activity 8 Beginner.  Wait! What?! The last challenge?  Oh no!  OK in seriousness I have really enjoyed this challenge and will continue to follow the blogs I was introduced to in the challenge.  I have a new and growing group of subscribers and visitors to my blog. 

1. Be introduced to blogrolls and why they are important.  When I first started blogging I felt that having a blog roll was important and I worked hard to create my blog roll.  These were blogs that I followed and enjoyed.  As time went on however i noticed that these bloggers no longer updated or I didn't follow there content.  Again, this is a breathing animal and will need updating.  Also this should be meant to link to other blogs in your genre in order to create a network.  This should not be blogs you necessarily follow.  This reminds me that I need to update.
2. Learn how to set up your blogroll on your own blog.  Blogger has a cool widget that does this for me.  I just fill in the blanks. 
3. Discover the different tools you can use to build readership.  Consistency and Time, are the 2 most important parts of blogging.  Consistency to posting quality posts I agree is essential to being a quality blogger.  My 2 examples are free technology for teachers and mets blog.  FT4T posts at least once a day with a quality well linked post.  These posts are a wealth of knowledge however I just don't have that type of time on hand.  MetsBlog is more my speed, again quality posts however they are short and to the point.  Some are links to other content and some are just quick thoughts or pieces on information.  I am in the middle.  However I don't have the time.  It will take me approximately 3 hours to create this post.  I can not always devote this much time to writing.  I jot things down a minuet here and a minuet there to create what you see before you.  Blogger is great because I can save my posts as an email draft then when I am home email into blogger.  This helps with time saving and because blogger works so well it helps me be more consistent with posting.  When it comes to social networking this challenge has pushed me to actually do just that.  Before I would post, check analytics once in a while and see who linked to me and that was that.  I have learned that you need to devote time to comment on other blogs and actively promote yourself.  It can be all post. 
4. Learn about how twitter might be your new best friend.  Twitter is awesome.  I use Twitter to post info and pictures.  Twitpic drives an amazing amount of traffic to that site.  I don't have the time to devote to Twitter with this blog and to be truthful was not something I wanted to use for this blog.  I do talk about posting tools when I teach social networking for small business a useful tool if that is something you would like to use.
5. Visit the Discussion Question for Activity 8 you can read my reply here

Kick Start Activity 7 Advanced

Kick Start Activity 7 Advanced.  The advanced challenge builds on the beginners challenge this week.  In short you really need to take a close look at the sidebar on your blog.  Is whats there helping or hurting the readability and return visits to your blog.  I edited my sidebar during the beginners challenge so I think I am better there.  I don't think I can ever say perfect because I feel that a blog is a living breathing animal that is always growing and adapting to new sources.  I did check out some other blogs and will list them below with notes.  One of the suggestions was to add a QR code to your blog.  So I did.  I created my QR code using Google.  Here is a link to a how to video in case you would like to do that as well. QR codes are a great discussion point in class. I have had stundts bring in QR codes that we explore together.

I checked out Lydia Shultz's blog, mostly because she commented that she edited some html and I was curious to see what she did.  This is a clean proffessional looking blog.  I have been here before and will continue to check in.

On an Ejourney has a layout simalir to mine.  I did like how the posts were tagged and the map of where people come from was cool.  I use Google Anylitics on my blog.  I don't feel like I need to post a map for others to see though.

I like The Grovey Librarian.  The header on this page really brought me in and got me to scroll down.

 

 

Another mention week 4/5

Thanks again for the mention.  I have come to rely on video in my classroom and have learned that embedding the video into the blog really does help.  Bottom line with video is that you need to find a program that you feel comfortable using.  I like windows movie maker a free download.  imovie is good as well as photostory.

Where have I been?

This has been an extremaly busy few weeks.  We were hit with some early dismissals, late openings, a few snow days, end of a marking period, end of a cycle, beginning of a new cycle, and a few assemblies.  I am way behind on the teacher challenge and hope to get caught up.  I have also been very busy working on my Dreamweaver lesson plan.  Thanks to all who have missed me and I hope to be back on track soon.

MR

Electronic Plans

Ok it is days like today that I really appreciate forward planning.  We had an early dismissal announced about an hour into our regular school day.  I didn't need to stress or make too many adjustments.  I simply opened my early dismissal PowerPoint that displays the schedule, Do Now, and class plan.  Students know what to do, and where to go afterward.  This keeps students calm in a day that can create confusion and disruption.  I am better able to manage the class and keep students on task. 

Time time time

I need more time =) When I read the post from Free Technology for Teachers yesterday it was noted how with snow days, assemblies, other distractions, that i is hard to find the time to blog.  I feel like I am falling a bit behind in the teacher challenge however I really enjoy what I am learning.  I am also pepping for a new group of students and a new round of adult classes.  I am a busy teacher these days.  Usually it takes me at least an hour to write a short post like this one and to complete a teacher challenge post 3-4 hours.  My apologies to all who are following.  Hopefully I will be back on track sooner than later.