Blogging Experience

Through out the semester we've been blogging and I think it was a very interesting experience. It was different for me, I've blogged before in the past but not really for a class in this experience. I liked how others commented on our blogs because it let me saw feedback from others and share new ideas with me that allowed me to branch off and get different ideas from their blogs because i got to answer questions they sometimes had. I also liked reading other's blogs because I learned alot of information about different topics from others. Some of the topic ideas people had, I have never heard of before, so it opened me up to new and different sorts of technologies and it also allowed me to learn more about the technologies that I had that I didn't know before.

Overall I enjoyed the experience and got a lot out of it.

Electronic Whiteboard Tips

Here are a bunch of different websites on different tips for using your whiteboard:

Teaching Tips

Learning Today

Traveling Electronic Whiteboard

Here is also another article, but this one is about a newly created traveling electronic whiteboard, which will be very helpful for people who travel around alot and do seminars. However, since it's collapsable I don't know if it's as good as the sturdier ones that are non portable.

New Technology Provides Portable Electronic Whiteboards

How to choose the right electronic whiteboard..

This article is a very interesting article because it talks about how to choose the corrrect electronic whiteboard for what you're using it for. I didn't realize there were 2 different types of electronic whiteboards, besides brands (dynamic and batch). It goes into detail about both and how the information is saved and created.

How to Select the Right Electronic Whiteboard

Electronic Whiteboards

So after reading people's comments on my blogs the past couple of times, I've noticed that people have questions abotu how much am electronic whitebaord costs and how can schools get founded for them. So I did some research and found these different websites for you to take a look at about prices and how to get funding if a school can't afford them.

Prices of Electronic Whiteboards:

Electronic Whiteboard Warehouse

Panaboards

School Outfitters

Ways to get Funding for the Electronic Whiteboards:

Technology Grant News

School Grant Newsletter


Hope this is some helpful information. I know it's a little differnet to look at with the electronic whiteboard, but it's also important to look and take in consideration.

Types of Electronic Whiteboards

I didn't realize all the different types of electronic whiteboards. The only one I am use to working with is a smartboard however Ashley Zaremba in her classroom has informed me she has a promethean board. I've also seen online a whiteboard called a mimio. So that got me curious what was different between each of them and to do some research.

Mimio  website about the different mimio tools

I thought mimio was a brand of interactive whiteboard but it is so much more. there are a bumch of different technological tools they have for teachers and students to use to incorporate technology into their teaching. They have everything from forms of clickers to use throughout their presentations to check in with students, a tablet like an ipad where teachers can control their interacctive whiteboard from anywhere within the room. Also they have whitebaord markers that are in color that record what you write and can be printable into notes with diagrams and everything. This interactive whiteboard is very interesting and if your district can afford every tool for the whiteboard it would be VERY beneficial to teaching and make student laerning more interesting.

Promethean website about promethean boards and other information

All it is, is exactly what an interactive whiteboard is. A whiteboard that connects to your computer.  The board allows you to surf the internet, write on it with special whiteboard markers, drag in pictures, video clips, etc from outside and interent sources. Also clickeres can be incorporated into the learning with this device as well.

Smartboard website with other smart technolgoies and about smartboard

As before it's the same however they also have more technologies as well to incorporate intoo the classroom like the mimio. They have clickers that correspond with the smartboard and now a smart table. The smart table consists of the electronic whiteboard on a table that wheels around and can be used as a station like item isnteada of teaching whole group.

All in all they are all the same boards with different names but it is interesting to see how the companies took the diea of the elctronic whitebaord and incorporated different areas within learning to make the electronic learning most useful as possible..

(side note: if you don't know what a clicker is when I was talking about it above within this blog post go to Lindsay Roger's Blog it is her topic right now and goes more into depth about what they are and has interesting articles about clickers as well)

Different Websites for Interactive Ideas on the Interactive Whiteboards

I was just looking through the internet to get different ideas for this week's blog post dealing with interactive whiteboards and I found a couple of websites that  I thought would be fun to incorporate into a lesson some sort if your classroom has an interactive whiteboard. They range in content and grade levels I just thought it would be nice to share. I have used some of them in the past when creating lessons or taken ideas from the ones shown and created my own off the software provided with the electronic whiteboard to make it more age appropriate or edit ideas in it I didn't like out.

Scholastic Website

Different Software to Download and Edit for Whiteboards

Lesson Plans for Whiteboards

What is an electronic whiteboard?

This is a picture of a student using an electronic whiteboard in an educational setting during a lesson.

An electronic whiteboard is connected to your own  computer with a projector that projects the images from your computer screen to the whiteboard and then allows you to manipulate the images or whatever you have on the screen. They can be used in a variety different settings as well.

I have done a lot with electronic whiteboards during my undergrad or as we referred to them as smartboards. There are so many different uses for them and they are a lot of fun to incorporate into teaching because it gives something else to your lesson and allows the students to be able to participate more in the lesson being taught. We had them throughout my college and at the places I student taught. My professors like to incorporate them into their lessons and we were allowed to incorporate them for different presentations we did as well. Then at my placement the students loved being able to write all over a board and be able to drag items from one section to another section. I feel that they also completely enhance a lesson way more then a typical whiteboard because the graphics the program has and what you can do with it makes it visually appealing to the students and others who are apart of the lesson.

Assistive Technology

After watching the videos this week of different assistive technologies people used it amazed me. I watched multiple different videos and each one took the program and used it in different ways. For example, Elina the 10 year old girl who used the keystrokes program to communicate. She was very hard to understand when she tried to talk but at school and home she used keystrokes to communicate with others and it let her lead a "normal" life. There were two videos though that were AMAZING to me. The one about the woman with cerebral palsy amazed me because she has her own business and does all these different things. She uses her foot to direct the ball for the mouse and also uses her chin to be able to type on a normal keyboard. Also the guy who uses his thumb to instant message, play video games and write a book. Thats AMAZING to me as well. I can't believe that that is what he can do. I feel like he can multi-task on a computer better than I can.

Twitter, more than just a social network?

I've been going through a couple of different articles recently and looking at twitter as a whole and it seems to be expanding then more than just a social network for microblogging. It's evolved into something bigger I feel. I see more and more people going to twitter to sometimes get their news "on the go". Yes I do follow CNN, Fox News, and other media outlets on twitter as well for "breaking news" but I would've never turned to them first for my news. I would turn on the television, read a newspaper or even go online to their websites before going to their twitter to retrieve breaking news information. I don't get why people would turn to twitter as technically a "news outlet"?? Maybe it's the newer generations who are doing so, but still.. I remember in a blog post I had in past talking about how twitter could "save your life" which could technically be the breaking news people use to learn new news because for example a tsunami could hit a small country and someone posts where they are right after it happens and that allows someone to find them but is news...

So I actually have a question to pose with this post...

Do yoiu think twitter more than just a "social network" ?

I think other opinions about this would be interesting..

Twitter Timeline's

Will Twitter Twist the Timeline?

As of right now on twitter, when you receive tweets on your account they are in a chronological order. However, there is a debate that since it's in chronological order their users may not be getting information needed. I know as a twitter user, (having the twitter application on my phone as well as using it on my computer) that their are a lot of tweets to go through and it's hard to see/read them when you don't want to look at everyones because it may be a re-tweet (posting someone elses orginal tweet) or a tweet you just arent interested in.

In the article it discusses how a tweet may pop up about a bridge by your house to take to commute back and forth to school/work is closed due to an accidentg or construction at that time being that you didn't know about. This would be helpful to be able to receive tweets like this but I don't think it is truly feasible. They have so many users on twitter and they all have different needs, how would they accomodate everyone? Because no matter what they do I feel like it wouldn't be the best way to accomodate all users. I know this article is old (it's from April 2010) and I have been on twitter since around later 2009. They have not changed how the users receive their tweets yet, I just think this is an interesting idea for their users. I think if they could actually change the timeline more people would probably get on twitter because sometiems the tweets are pointless and useless and this would help narrow them down more to the most important ones people actually want to see and read.

Twitter can save your life during a disaster?

Twitter and Facebook can Save Your Life During a Disaster

I NEVER thought of the idea that twitter can save your life during a disaster. I don't think that in my mind at least the first thing I would do is be like, "Oh!! I'm about to die, to have someone come find and save me let me tweet where I am". That's just never something I thought about. It's interesting though how just microblogging can be taken to the next level. In the article it discusses how the impact of the huge earthquakes in Chile and Haiti this year were more publicized and knew how bad the damage was because of twitter and people posting pictures on it. It's incredible that in 140 characters someone can say everything they need to say about what has happened. People are taking online resources to new heights and this is one I never thought could happen. It's interesting that also now with the capabilities on twitter of allowing to be able to post your location as well that if you were caught underneath some sort of rubble or anything, that on your twitter they can get an exact map through google and they'd be able to locate you to almost an exact location by just zooming in on the area. So in a way twitter can really do that for you, save you from a disaster.

New Multimedia features

Twitter unveils new multimedia features

Before twitter used outside links to be able to post videos and pictures on a twitter account. Now they've announced that they will be providing their own capabilities to post videos and pictures on your tweets.

 I personally don't see why they decided to add their own capabilities because there are so many different websites available from yfrog.com to twitpic.com and tweetphoto which is now called plixi. I feel that they are just trying to eliminate their competition. I personally use plixi with my twitter account and I feel that it works just as well as twitpic or any other companying website that you pair with your tweet that has a photo or video. However, maybe their capabilities to the website will make a tweeting experience better then what was had before.

Synchronous Communication

I never realized how much of today's generation (including me) depend on synchronous communication to keep in contact with our friends, family, and others in our every day life. I don't know what my life would be like right now without synchrnous communication. I have friends that live all over the country now and I don't like to interrupt their every day life with a phone call because I don't know how busy their daily schedules are, so it's just easier to send a text. But I never realized how much synchronous communication has taken over our lives and doesn't allow us to have a proper face-to-face conversation anymore together. I feel that since we are so dependent on synchronous forms of communication like text messaging and iming we are less likely to socialize interact face-to-face and for that matter even more so in uncomfortable conversations as well. I feel that now a days people will confront or start uncomfortable situations through text messaging or instant messaging because they don't feel comfortable to say it in person. I know that I can attest to that as well. It's just easier sometimes but a horrible way to do it.

I just wish that in some ways we could steer away from synchronous communication and be able to have more face-to-face conversations. The world I feel would be totally different today if we didn't have synchronous communication.

Twitter/Microblogging

The first half of the semester I will be discussing on my blog about twitter and microblogging.

Twitter is a new phenomenon. I will admit, I am on twitter and tweet all the time. It's an interesting way to say what are you doing. The key to this is that it's in 140 characters or less. A lot of people find it hard to say everything they need to say in 140 characters or less. There are a lot of different people who are on twitter and that you can follow as well. It ranges from celebrities, fictional characters, your friends and family, to even different animals. You can know what anyone is doing at any given time and now on twitter you may tag where you are at the same time as well so people can find you. It's similar to facebook statuses on facebook however there is no real limit on the facebook statuses.

Microblogging is similar to blogging however it's smaller in size. Sometimes you can just post part of  a sentence, a picture, video, etc. and that's all the blog has to be consisted of and it no longer has to be straight on a website, it can be from a cell phone which consists of text messaging, emailing, instant messaging and digital audio.

Asychronous Communication

This week in class we discussed asychronous communication. Which is a time delay between information delivered between 2 or more people. For example when a student sends a professor an email or another classmate an email there is a wait time for the response. In a normal face-to-face setting, a student can ask the teacher a question right away and can receive an answer however with an online class like this one the student must wait for a response until the teacher may get a hold of them.

I never thought of learning this way and didn't know it had a name. Even its relation to when I talk to my friends through text messaging or online I never thoguht of it this way. So far the information I've learned in class is opening my eyes up in a different way when viewing technology. I never knew there were all these components to different technology for instructional settings even  though my minor in college was instructional technology. It's just very interesting to see that I've just touched the surface and theres all this information that we haven't even looked at yet.