Thing 14 - YouTube

I had very little experience with YouTube prior to this class. In fact the only experience I had included two comedy skits. With Mother's Day being this Sunday, I'm embedding "The Mom Song," as my video. I love showing videos in class, or at least short ones. Even as a student, I never liked videos in class. They were always too long and only loosely related to the topic or they were used with substitutes (not a good idea in my opinion). I like the ease of use with Youtube, but seriously get annoyed with it being blocked at school. Don't get me wrong... I understand the reasoning behing it being blocked, but still.

TeacherTube...all I have to say is "What a waste!" Were these two even made by the same people? TeacherTube could be so great, especially because it's not blocked at school. But you can't find ANYTHING on TeacherTube. It's....It's just....ARGGGGG!!! It could be done better.

Thing 12 Challenge

One of the assignments we are currently working on is a research paper on a famous mathematician. I also suggested the studdents make a Blabberize about their mathematician and/or a glog. One student who is ahead of the game has started his Blabberize and finished his glog. Check it out below. I'll also embed it in the wiki sandbox.

Mason's Glog

Thing 13

I love voice threads. This is so neat and easy. The only downside is the fact that we need microphones and having to keep other students quiet while you record. So, I haven't figured out the logistics of it yet, but I plan to. The other thing I find difficult with voice threads is the drawing tool. I've had a Promethian Board in my classroom for two years now and I still can't draw/write legibly with a mouse. I wonder if there is something you can get for a home computer that looks like a pen, but acts as a mouse no matter where you write.

Even with the few kinks I've found with voice threads, I can't wait to use it in the classroom. One way I plan on using it is to have students tell different ways to complete the same math problem. Below, I am including one that I want students to add to about adding technology in the classroom.

Thing 5c - WallWisher

I found this great bulletin board called WallWisher using my reading. I have used it to create an easy to use announcements page to my classroom wiki. It's free, which is always something I look for when looking to use stuff in my classroom. Though I did have so issues at first, it is extremely easy to use. WallWisher is literally like using an electronic bulletin board, thumbtacks, and stickynotes. You can have a private or public wall. Though you can't delete old postings, you can rearrange the "sticky notes" to show the most important ones on top.

Google Epiphany!!!

What if every student had an Google Account...

• Students typing papers could work on the paper, both at home and at school, with ease. No bringing in disks or emailing the paper back and forth.
• To "turn in" the assignment, students could share the document with their teacher and the teacher could type in a different color to grade it.
• Students could share the document with each other and peer edit.
• Students loosing their assignments because they save them in the wrong spot and DeepFreeze erases them would be a thing of the past.
• Students purposely deleting or messing up other students papers would be almost impossible.

Now all we have to do is get the block lifted to where we can create Google Accounts at school.