Unit 3 Assignment 1

Posted on April 9th, 2008 in Uncategorized by misstizzy

The next two weeks will cover one of my favorite tools, Skype. This first week will involve having you set up Skype on your computer and play a little with the chat feature. Next week, we’ll take it to the next level and actually set up a Skype call.

First things first…
Just what is Skype? Skype is a free computer to computer calling system. You can chat instantly and conduct audio and video calls live from your computer. There is also a paid version of Skypethat allows you to call regular telephones and mobile phones.

Why would you want to use Skype? Teachers all over the world are using Skype to connect their students. Imagine teaching a unit on Asia and connecting with a teacher in an Asian country. The students can share cultural information first hand. On Read Across America Day teachers from all over the country had their class read a book to another class via Skype. The possibilities are endless.

To see a quick Skype demo check out this video.
Download Video: Posted by eduwikius at TeacherTube.com.

Assignment Part 1

Go to the Skype website and download the software onto your computer. On the set up screen, you may want to uncheck some of the options - like start Skype as soon as the computer is turned on.

Once it is loaded, create a new account. Make sure you pick a username and password you can remember.

Once you have your account and you’re logged into Skype, click on the Contacts tab and click the Add Contact button. Search from “misstizzy67″ (that’s me!). Click on my name when it appears. Click Add Skype contact. It will send me a notice when that’s complete.

Part 2 of this assignment - Learn a little more

This video does a great job of explaining some of the details regarding using Skype.

Unit 2 Assignment 3

Posted on April 2nd, 2008 in Uncategorized by misstizzy  Tagged

Diigo - (Dee-go)

Diigo is a social bookmarking site that has become all the rage in the past couple of weeks with ed tech folks across the globe. Not only does it allow you to save and access your favorites from any computer with an internet connection, but you can highlight and make notes directly on the page.

Check out the Diigo Demo video: http://www.diigo.com/index

and the Diigo overview: http://www.diigo.com/learn_more?p=1

Learn to Diigo:

Diigo also has the social aspect like Del.icio.us. You can add friends and view their bookmarks. You can create groups such as your grade level that allows others to share relevant links. It allows you to start discussions and send messages to others in your network. It enhances the “social” part of social bookmarking.

If you decide you like Diigo better than Del.icio.us, you can import all of your Del.icio.us favorites into Diigo with little effort.

Your assignment this week is to take a look at Diigo and see what you think. Post your thoughts in the comment section.

Next week we’ll start to learn about Skype. If you don’t have a Skype account, you may want to go to http://www.skype.com to learn more and sign up for an account.

My Apologies

Posted on March 15th, 2008 in Uncategorized by misstizzy

Sorry I didn’t get a chance to post an assignment for this past Wednesday.  I got kinda bogged down with all of the preparations I had to do for this year’s NCAECT conference in Concord, NC.  I’m the rep for this region, so I

There were some really great things happening behind the scenes though.  We used a site called UStream that allowed us to not only record sessions, but to broadcast it live to the world.  We had folks from ALL over the US and as far away as Australia and New Zealand joining the conference through the UStream chat.

Many of the presentations focused on the Web 2.0 tools we have been or will be discussing.  You can visit the NCAECT Conference wiki to view some of the presentations online as well as handouts, and links from various concurrent sessions.

Poke around to see if you find anything interesting.

I’ll get back on the topic of Social Bookmarking this week with Diigo.

Unit 2 Assignment 2

Posted on March 5th, 2008 in Uncategorized by misstizzy  Tagged , , , , ,

You’ve signed up for a del.icio.us account and saved a few favorites. Now it’s time to explore just what makes del.icio.us so cool.

1) Del.icio.us makes it easy to search through your favorites. You’d don’t have to try and remember the folder you saved a link under since you can add multiple tags. View this video to learn more about finding links in Del.icio.us.
Download Video: Posted by cs272 at TeacherTube.com.

2) Del.icio.us allows you to easily share your bookmarks with others. You can set up a network of folks with whom you share a common interest and subscribe to their bookmarks as well.TRY IT OUT! Click on the “your network” link at the top of the page. Type ecstechacademy in the box on the right and click add. To see the links saved by ecstechacademy then click on the link on the right. To return to your bookmarks, click the “your bookmarks” link at the top.

3) You can also use your Google Reader account to subscribe to someone’s bookmarks. This means that every time they add links to del.icio.us a message will pop up in your Google Reader to show you what they’ve added. You can do this by finding the person - such as ecstechacademy - and clicking on the RSS button found at the bottom of their page.

There is a longer, more comprehensive guide to using Del.icio.us (32 minutes) if you’d like a more detailed guide.

Download Video: Posted by lburch at TeacherTube.com.
Assignment:
Add ecstechacademy to your network and subscribe to the favorites using the RSS button to add it to your Google Reader. Watch the top video to learn about searching techniques in del.icio.us. Using the feature to search the sites of others who have bookmarked the site, find and bookmark a site that is interesting to you.

Share with the group the link you have found and what features you liked most about del.icio.us.

…COMING NEXT WEEK

We’ll be exploring another social bookmarking site called Diigo. This site takes it to the next level and allows you to not only bookmark the site but highlight information and leave yourself notes.

Unit 2 Assignment 1

Posted on February 27th, 2008 in Uncategorized by misstizzy  Tagged , , ,

In our next unit we’ll cover social bookmarking and Google Tools. Social bookmarking allows you to save your favorite sites online so that your favorites aren’t just tied to one computer. We’ll start off with a site called Del.icio.us. Watch the video below to learn more about social bookmarking and Del.icio.us.
Download Video: Posted by leelefever at TeacherTube.com.

For this assignment, sign up for a Del.icio.us account and post a comment on you think social bookmarking could affect your personal or professional computer use.

Catch Your Breath!

Posted on February 19th, 2008 in Uncategorized by misstizzy

I know that everyone has extremely busy schedules and you haven’t had a chance to complete all of these assignments.  Use this week to catch up or catch your breath before we start the next unit.

Some of you have started blogs either for yourself or for your classroom, so please post the link to your blog if you’re willing to share.  I’m excited to see how you’re progressing.

So, no assignment this week, unless you have homework you need to finish.  If you’re stuck on an assignment, please let me know I’ll be glad to stop by to help you get caught up.

Have a great week!

Unit 1 Assignment 4

Posted on February 11th, 2008 in Uncategorized by misstizzy

Now that you’ve had a chance to look over various blogs, think about how this resource could be used in a classroom environment.  It could be used as a classroom “newsletter” to communicate with parents, a collaborative writing tool, or as a response log.  To get some ideas, checkout Classroom Blogs and Wikis.

For this assignment, respond to the following questions:

1. Do you think blogs could be a useful resource in your classroom or work environment?
2. If so, how?

Taking it to the next level…

Some of you have expressed interest in blogging with your students or for yourself.  A great classroom- based blog site to use is 21classes.com . The site is easy to use and individual accounts can be set up for up to 50 students free of charge.  Debra R.  from CMS is conducting a classroom blogging workshop on Feb. 19th.  Her students have been blogging all year and she’s done a phenomenal job managing it.  If you’re interested in a classroom blog, I’d definitely try to attend.

For personal blogging, I’m a fan of Blogger.
The interface is very easy to use.

If you do set up a blog and are willing to share the link add that to your comment for this assignment.

Unit 1 Assignment 3

Posted on February 4th, 2008 in Uncategorized by misstizzy  Tagged , , ,

This week’s assignment will contain 2 parts: blogs related to work and RSS.

Locate a blog that is related to education. You can use one of the blog search engines from last week or one of the lists of educational blogs I’ve included below:

Top 100 Education Blogs from OEDB

Links to School Blogs

Kathy Schrock’s Educational Technology Blog List

Yahoo Education Blogs

Once you find an educational blog that interests you, reply to one of the posts. Blogs turn into conversational tools when people respond to a post.

If you’ve started following any blogs, you’ve realized that it becomes rather cumbersome to return to the blog each day to see if there are any new posts. There is a simpler way to see if a blog has been updated. It’s called RSS (Really Simple Syndication). This video does a great job in explaining RSS.
Download Video: Posted by leelefever at TeacherTube.com.

From the video, you saw there are different types of RSS Feeds. My favorite is Google Reader. It’s one of the easiest and most widely used.

Part 2 of the assignment is to sign up for a Google Reader account and subscribe to at least one of the blogs you’ve chosen from either assignment. (You can subscribe to as many as you like and they don’t have to be on the same topic.) To view a video demonstration of how to get started with Google Reader go to How to Use Google Reader by Andy Wibbels.

The Google Reader FAQs will help, or just email me if you have problems getting started.

Once you’ve completed both parts, leave a comment on the ECS Tech Academy post for Assignment 3 telling the group to which ones you have posted a comment and are subscribed to in Google Reader.

Unit 1 Part 2: Exploring Blogs + Additional Resource

Posted on January 28th, 2008 in Uncategorized by misstizzy  Tagged , ,

Download Video: Posted by leelefever at TeacherTube.com.

The best way to learn about blogs is to explore ones that already exist. Two good blog search engines are Technorati (http://www.technorati.com) and Google Blog Search (http://blogsearch.google.com )

For this assignment, use the search engines listed above to find a blog or blogs focused upon topics of personal interest. The topic can be sewing, crafts, a specific sports team- anything as long as it doesn’t pertain to school!

For the next few days, check the blog for new entries. Make sure you save it to favorites so that you’ll be able to find it easily. If you find the blog doesn’t contain the content you’re looking for, then search for another.

Respond to this post with the blog you’re following and what you think of the information you’ve discovered thus far.

Target Completion Date: Feb. 6, 2008

Help Tip: When you search for a topic in Technorati, the first page that appears with responses contains individual blog posts (like each one of the assignments in this blog). To view entire blogs centered around your topic, click on the “Blog” tab across the top of the search results.

Unit 1 Assignment 1

Posted on January 22nd, 2008 in Uncategorized by misstizzy  Tagged , ,
  1. Please go to Wikipedia and read the entry on blogs. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog )
  2. Go to the Blogger Tour to learn more about blogs. (http://www.blogger.com/tour_start.g)
  3. Visit a couple of the blogs listed on the left side of the screen under the BlogRoll section.
  4. Take a look at the Technology Academy blog.  Note the layout of the blog. Notice the main part of the page is the posting. After each posting you can see if there have been any comments on the post. This posting and comment is the “meat” of the blog. There are some add-ons that may or may not appear on blogs. One is the list of bookmarks. We will learn how to set this up later. It is called an RSS feed and it is a list of websites I’ve “tagged” as pertaining to educational technology. This list changes as I bookmark new pages. Another part of the blog is called the “blog roll”. This is a list of links that are always on the page. There will also be a picture section. These pictures come from an online account and only pictures I’ve tagged as pertaining to educational technology show up on this site.
  5. Activity: Post a comment to the first entry. The comment can be a  general thought about the class itself. You will need to  fill in the name and email sections.  Email will be kept private. It can be your first name and last initial so I can keep track of who has commented.
    Your comment will not show up instantly. The comments are “moderated”. That means I have to approve the comment before it becomes public. This is an important step to reducing spam in the comments. TARGET DATE: 1/29/08
  6. You will get the remainder of this unit’s assignments on this blog. Check the next entry for your next assignment.
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