THING 10

Today we worked on Screencasts!!!
Mine is a really rough work, but you get the idea:)

Thing 9: New ways to Kickstart a project!

My second son, Christian, is a musician. We gave him his first guitar at 15 and he's never put "them" down. He is passionate about using his gifting and talent to lead others to Christ through music. His band is headed to Nashville this spring to record...

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/christianbaxterband/help-support-christian-baxter-band-record-project



Using this strategy to help fund this project is an awesome way to give people a way to be a part of the project and know that they have invested well and have a vested interest in the CBB!

Check out the link and enjoy!

Thing 8 - mashups

I really enjoyed playing with Spell with Flickr, Flickr Color Pickr & Big Huge Labs.
If there were ample time and availability of technology on a daily basis, I could see some fun 5th grade spelling activities, especially useful for students who need a visual image to connect with a word.
Color Pickr was cool and I could foresee awesome art projects growing from this site.
Big Huge Labs was amazing just in the variety of applications that are available. I really loved the pocket photo album. I will personally use that for pictures of my grandgirls.
I think that I don't explore enough on the internet. This is due to my internet connection at home being slow compared to the standards today...I have a satellite service that if rather frustrating. boo to slow internet :(

Thing 7 - Flickr

Flickr is a wonderful site with endless possibilities! I signed up (luckily through the new gmail option!) with the hope to incorporate it some way in my classroom this year. I can think quickly that "a picture is worth a thousand words" would be a great writing prompt for descriptive writing. Or, have the students find a picture of something that they are studying in Science and have them annotate facts. Another thought would be after reading a biography, annotate an image of this person with facts for presentation.

Thing 6 - Ning

So, I browsed Ning.com and Flat Classroom Project.com and can see that for a specific focus group this would be very beneficial. If an individual or company wants to promote self, a product, or ideas to a select group, then this forum appears to be one way to achieve this connection. I did not personally find anything of interest when I simply went to Ning.com. I did enjoy browsing Flat Classroom, because it was a seemingly active site used by highschool classes.
As I moved on and Googled, Ning and 5th grade math, I was pleasantly surprised to find an active site that provides a wide range of forum topics.
I can see that joining a topic, specific Ning would connect your with people in your same field, or that have common interests.
I have been a little gun shy about signing up because of a negative experience that I had several years ago on the Science List Serve. This is an email based forum, designed for science teachers to share and post ideas. My inbox was constantly flooded with what I considered, time wasting arguments, that I had no interest in. When I asked to be removed from the List Serve, I was verbally accosted by a pompous fellow who thought he knew more about my time management than I did! Thank goodness that technology and the internet have created new, effecient methods for browsing, linking, skimming and scanning the overwhelming amount of information and discussion out there.

Thing 5 - RSS & Google Reader

RSS is real simple syndication. It's like an "Easy Button" for connecting yourself to other blogs, websites and social networks. I have found that it is a convenient way to create links and shortcuts to blogs that are not a part of Blogger.

Google Reader is like my own personal newspaper. I pick and choose what is interesting to me. I have subscribed to several of the bloggers from our group, a cousin's blog, blogs associated with FaceBook and Twitter and Time4Kids...which I use in my classroom.

These are valuable tools to add to the technology toolbox...I know that I will use them.

Chapter 3 - High Concept, High Touch

Wow! I fell right into this chapter. It really grabbed me. Daniel Pinks diagram 3.1 makes so much sense to me. I do believe that we are in the Conceptual Age. I have 13 children, nieces and nephews that are in their late teens and 20's...they are almost all creators and empathizers...graphic designers, interior designers, psychologists, photo journalists...global travelers...few of them sitting still and settling in their "hometowns". They are searching for "meaning" in the work that they do..not necessarily "money"...
I wrote a note to these Conceptual "Kids" and inserted them a excerpt from Pinks book...many replied with positive responses. Then my 60 year old sister challenged me to read a book called "Outliers". A book about the cycles and attributes of successful people. (I haven't had time to read it, but am interested to compare this thought with "A Whole New Mind")
Our activities relating to this chapter were very revealing, in that, we had a wide variety of responses...even an old time "paper and marker" response!!!(My group!) As a teacher, I must allow students to respond and have ownership of their responses...not just cookie-cutter responses. The skills of cooperation, communication, and sharing as a group is essential in todays framework of learners... they are not us! We are content with 25 students turning in the same type of response...they on the other hand, want to express themselves in creative, unique ways.