Thing #12 - Creat a Slideshow

WOW!

So much to learn!

See picture credits in Thing #11

Thing #11 – Photosharing with Flickr

Well not one lesson has come and gone without me learning something new. My trip through Flickr was no exception to the rule.

I did not know that you could store pictures on Flickr and they could be private as well as public. Once again my family has a gazillion pictures that we need to store, share, tag some way—Flickr could be the answer.

The photos that I captured from Flickr are sunrise, sunset, sun rays, etc.
a. I really like nature scenes—sunrise, sunset, water, flowers, etc.
b. They make great background pictures for any project that you may be working on—classroom, power point presentations, away from school, scrapbooking, etc.


Silhouette by phythonboot http://www.flickr.com/photos/python_boot/3338285519/sizes/o/



Sunrise
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fmc550uz/3248368384/


Lumineux voile by alpha du centaure
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alphaducentaure/3237246096/



welcome Sun by Xavier Fargas
http://www.flickr.com/photos/xfp/3238838522/

Thing #10 – Creative Commons

Yes, I have seen the CC logo, but I never gave it much thought until this lesson.

I think CC will give students more freedom as they work. They tend to not think about copyright laws and so this will give them some leeway without legal issues. This is sort of taking away the plagiarisms issues that students face when writing a research paper.

I think plagiarisms were so thoroughly ingrained when we were younger and writing research papers. However, students don’t think too much about taking something off the web for use in projects. So with CC students have legal rights to use some material off the web in projects.

I think there is still the issue of publishing something as though it is MINE when it is full of things that belong to someone else.

Teaching materials, written articles, etc that I want credit for must not have materials that were created by someone else without specific written permission.

Potentially there is the problem that students will get too comfortable using CC things and forget that not everything is CC material.

Thing #9 – Play in the Wiki Sandbox

I felt like a Dear in the Light!

I really wanted to throw it up in the air and see where it would fall, but since I am not a quitter that didn’t happen.

Instead I did what all good people do—I went and ate. Then I felt better, and then it all made sense.

I printed all the links in Thing #9 including the Quick Reference Guide. I placed them all on the table and went from one to the other until I had all my ducks in a row. It was not easy at first but then it became fun. So here is the link:

Deer in Lights

Thing #8 - What in the world is a wiki?

Ward Cunningham was a smart cookie! I know there is hype about/against Wikipedia, but I will say they have greatly increased their accuracy and reliability over the last few years and for my lack of technology I can really get carried away with the links and trying to remember how to get back to the main subject at hand (I need some bread crumbs).

After watching the video Wikis in Plain English, I think my family could use a wiki quite successfully. There are times when we have emails flying like in the beginning of the video. At some point no one really knows who or what they are responding to. Since a wiki can be private I think we could have some real fun in that department.

I glanced at several of the educational wikis listed, but the ones that really caught my eye:
Go West--the flow chart was clever and the history of the westward movement always fascinates me.
Holocaust Wiki Project--another of those fascinations for me and the depth of the project was intriguing--tracing family names, etc.
Kindergarten Counting Book--cute!
Welker's Wikinomics--anything to help the study of Economics (not my favorite subject)--the ski mountain concept was clever, even the pronunciation of the words.
Wiki Wiki Teaching--she is great, young and enthusiastic--I get the distinct impression that in the beginning she was flying one step ahead of the students. I like that honesty. We have all been there. I really like the dog and cat graphic.

PS The word Wiki really disturbed my computer’s spell checker.

Thing #7 - Creating community through commenting

I read the blogs and try to think of a comment that is appropriate. I am still very guarded when it comes to writing anything when I know the world will be able to access everything that I say.

Several of the ones that I read have good rules and thoughts regarding Etiquette. Yes, they stress commenting on what I read. One thing that I read caught my attention. When someone comments on one of my blogs, I should at least say Thanks. That makes sense! I will get there eventually.

I always enjoy the graphics I especially like the Blue Skunk.