#23 Final Reflections

I believe I will use the questions you posed in this assignment as my structure for summarizing my experience. But first let me say, "I'm done!"

What were my favorite discoveries/exercises?
The Blog, Page Flakes, Moodle, Wiki, United Streaming, LCSD Library, Flikr, Image Generator, Google Maps

How has class affected lifelong learning goals?
It has helped to break me out of a rut. I'm more aware of the vast and varied resources "out there". I also think that struggling through all this new software has given me valuable practice hours and has greatly increased my enthusiasm, confidence, and patience for tackling new technological challenges as they stir my curiosity or interest. I will go into the future more likely to embrace new technology and less likely to avoid it.

How do the tools introduced aid lifelong learning or the development of professional learning communities?
Well for one thing it is a reminder that learning and mastering new things carries an excitement and reward all its own. I'm inspired and reinvigorated about technology and, by extension, learning in general. That's a good thing when you are in the business of teaching. We live in such a quickly changing world that to avoid learning new technology is to be left behind. I think we owe it to our students and ourselves to be as current as we are able with regard to technology. As a community of learners I feel we need to keep up with if not ahead of the students if we are to maintain the educational leadership that is so important to our effectiveness.

Were there any unexpected take-aways or outcomes for me?
I'd have to say that it was a pleasant surprise to find that I could work my way through most of the exercises without too much help. The content of the class exposed me to many things that I plan to take advantage of as the opportunity arises.

What could the class be changed to improve upon the format or concept?
I honestly don't feel anything needs to be changed. I appreciated being able to work at my own speed. I felt the support was outstanding--I even got quick answers last Sunday when I was jamming to finish. I would/will recommend this course to others.

If you offered another program like this would I participate?
Yes

Thanks for the class

#22 Google Maps

I spent allot of time on this lesson and found it fascinating. I checked out all the links on the lesson page and spent several hours putting together this simple map. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=113995169612672537223.0004505bf5636f561a921&z=19 Try as I might, I was unable to get a picture pasted in any of the place marks. I tried the "rich text" route, pasting URLs and I tried the HTML route dragging the photos in. Nothing seemed to work. Maybe sometime you can take a look and figure out where I'm going wrong. Its a pretty cool technology, though.

#21 Rollyo

Quite a site. I think I will use this. Good way to make a search more efficient and be able to take advantage of what other people have found useful. I also like the idea of being able to group the sites that I use into categories. Great concept. I buy most of my books on line so I put together a search list of the vendors I tend to use. http://rollyo.com/mcarrigan39/booksellers_i_use/

#19 Image Generator

Now here is an area where a person can spend some time. I was blown away by how many different generators are out there. I played around with the Star Wars Crawl one for awhile and checked out the other sites you suggested. There are some pretty funny ones. In the end I decided to post to this entry on my blog a photo that is made to look like it is old time. This particular photo is of Joanne and I around a campfire on a horse camping trip a couple years ago up along West Cady Ridge in the Index area of the Cascades.

#18 Flickr

Really enjoyed looking around the site. Think this might be a great place to post family pictures rather than having everybody emailing them back and forth.

I picked this photo of a rock climber http://www.flickr.com/photos/jandiro/2230249683/ to comment on because it is one thing I've never been tempted to try. In fact I have never even been able to understand why anyone would want to do this to themselves. I know and can relate to all the arguments about the challenge and the adrenaline and the adventure but it is still beyond me why anyone would choose this particular sport.

#20 Newsletter in LetterPop

I am waiting for an email from LetterPop activating my account so I can put together a newsletter. More later. 6/21

6/22. Well, Beth let me log on using her information and I was able to play around with building a news letter. I worked on a flyer with information about my carving class but didn't really have enough pictures of the kids to make it work. I ended up doing a simple flyer about our annual family camp out and here is a link to it. http://letterpop.com/builder.php?newsletter_id=91178

Lesson # 17 (Swivel and data analysis)

This looks like a site with alot of potential if you can find the data set you are looking for or if you have a set of data to analyse. I was going to try to upload something from my computer but realized that all my data files have student names included in them and I didn't want to post that information "out there" even though there would be no real way for anyone to track the names.

I can see this site being really useful in conjunction with a student research project or as a source of slides for a Power Point presentation. Its pretty cool to be able to rearrange the way the data can be viewed.

I spent most of my time on comparing gas prices over the last few years, the number of shark attacks in the U.S., and a look at the higest paid athletes.

Lesson #16 (Thinkature & Concept Mapping

I'll come back and edit this blog after I've completed it. I have to wait to hear from Beth re: an invitation to concept map.

Well I'm back. Pretty interesting. I'm glad to know where I can go to build one of these maps. I've got a feeling I'll have a use for this site at some point. It would be perfect for flow chart, or to illustrate the relationships between people in an organization, or maybe the groupings and responsibilities of students in a class.

Lesson #15

This is an experiment in that I am creating this document in Google Docs and will attempt to "publish" it to my blog.

I find it very interesting that these "productivity tools" are now available on line. It will be even more interesting to see how this technology evolves in the future and what uses it will be put to. For the most part, right now, it seems to function ,in its behavior, much like the software applications now residing on my hard drive. It is hard for me to picture, at this point, exactly how I might use it in the future but I believe the experts when they say that it definitely has its place.

Well my attempts to publish this directly to my blog failed. I think it might have something to do with the blog info settings being not quite right. That can be a question I'll ask at the next Thursday help session.

Lesson #14 (Teacher Tube)

I watched a lot of videos at both sites but spent most of my time on Teacher Tube. One thing I like is the categories around which they have organized the site. One thing I found frustrating was that there were very few Tech Ed type videos. But it seems that's the way its always been even back in the days of the old film videos available from the ESD.

I chose a video titled "Forging an S Hook" wherein a student makes a hook using a forge, anvil and blacksmithing techniques. I chose this because it is something I think the kids would be interested in and we do have a small forge in the shop.

I've always wanted to make my own safety videos so that I could make them specific to our program here in LaConner and so that I could emphasize the points that I thought were the most important. Maybe the students could help make them and this could be a venue for displaying them.

#13 Dive Into United Streaming

What I liked about the United Streaming site was the incredible number of audio and video resources available. What I disliked about the site is that there didn't seem to be much in the way of voc/tech resources, at least not compared to other subjects areas. Also some of the clips I tried to watch had sound problems.

In the end I picked a video called "Careers for the Twenty First Century: Production Occupations" and watched the segments on woodworking and welding as it relates to both tech/ed and careers, two areas I'm involved in.

Its hard to argue with the general statement that video from United Streaming can be an effective supplement and have a high probability of improving learning. The potential certainly exists though it would depend on the particular application and how it was used by the teacher.

Lesson #12 (Explore the Library)

Fantastic the way you have all that organized. I'm glad for the chance to learn what resources there are on line and some of the potential for adding websites or databases used in a particular class. Its nice to know I can search our library without ever leaving my desk. Thanks, Mike

Moodle (week 5; lessons 9-11)

Once again I can see much potential in this week's topic (Moodles). Clearly this would be a perfect place to create an online course. I'm thinking this would be a good place for me to try posting my Senior Seminar class. Right now I have all of the assignments on a CD that I give the kids. Most of them put them on a jump drive but there are still a few problems with some students not having jump drives or losing them.

If I had it all on line they could always access the course content from wherever they happen to be. Also if they were absent they could just look at the class calendar and keep on going much like I've been doing in this class.

I also like the idea that I could update or modify assignments as necessary without having to get the new data to everyone in the class.

#8 Exploring Wikis

The Wiki Foundation presents many opportunities for student research. There, of course, is the well known Wikipedia. But there is also Wikibooks, Wikiuniversity, Wiktionary, and Wikinews to name a few.

The whole Wiki concept and medium also affords great potential for student contribution and collaboration. When you have a site that multiple users can read, add to and edit it opens up all sorts of opportunities for group projects. For instance one could launch a class journal where all students from a particular class could shape, add to and mold it. It would be a great way for a team of students to write a group research paper.

In Wikipedia I visited several sites of interest to me. I ended up doing my practice edit on a site for Pat Parelli (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Parelli) who is a big name in natural horsemanship. I happen to know a little about his program because my wife utilizes it quite a bit. Some of the criticism was clearly uninformed and so I added a line or two to try to balance out the misinformation. Unfortunately I forgot to sign my edit with my tildes (~~~~). I also went to the discussion page for the same site and added an entry entitled "A Happy Cult Member". I'm attempting to add a link to the Parelli page.

Wiki Intro

This is one of my favorite lessons so far. I'm not sure yet how I might use wikis professionally but I've already got an idea for a personal use. Every summer we do a family "camp-out" and it has gotten fairly large and cumbersome to plan and manage using e-mail. I've been wondering how I might simplify the organizational aspects of this event. The little tutorial video just happened to be about a camping trip. This year I will use a wiki where people can log on and view/add/edit/comment on the information.

Del.icio.us

This is really cool and a fast way to get around from one spot. The potential is huge. I already find myself wanting to put all my bookmarks on this page. Now off to add my Delicious bookmarks to my Pageflakes page.

My Space Account

I set up a My Space account already but now access is blocked from school computers. I can see some advantages for students to have a My Space account but they are few and small compared to what I see as the potential problems. I don't see the need for a student to have so much personal information out there for everyone to see. I know many students who have met people on the site and I think that seems to be its main function. They communicate for awhile and then exchange phone numbers. It has become an all too common way for teenagers to meet what are in essence complete strangers.

Week #3 Thing #4

I've completed the assignment to set up a Page Flakes site and add some RSS feeds. This is pretty cool. I'm considering making it my home page though Skyward as a home page is pretty handy. It was great having Beth and Ryan available after school on Thursdays to help with this assignment. Its like learning any new software or application as it just takes time to figure out how to get around and having Beth and Ryan there to help speeds up the learning curve considerably.

23 Things Revisited

Well, I'm back at it again after letting the 23 things field lie fallow during the winter. I need 11 clock hours by June 30th to keep my certificate current so that is providing an added incentive to get with it and complete the course. I'm appreciating the after school help from Beth and Ryan on this class.

Long Time Gone

Many amazing thoughts have gone unposted since the last time I was here. I'm not talking about average, run-of-the-mill thoughts but thoughts that would make your head fairly spin.