Week 9- Google Docs

Week 9 - Taking Advantage of More of the Tools Google has to Offer

This week we learned about Google docs and the different tasks it can help us to accomplish us. As a matter of fact, this very post was accomplished as a result of Google docs. Its really convenient to be able to collaborate with other people from different locations. Also, since it enables you to access work from any computer by just logging in to your Google account its even more convenient than flash drives. When you also take into account how easy Google Docs is to use it's an invaluable tool for the classroom.

In addition to the basic writing that can be done, there was also a feature called Google Forms on Google Docs that allows you to make a short questionnaire. You then have other people answer the questions and Google Forms saves the responses in a convenient spreadsheet. (Questions submitted on the FAQs blog use this form)

by Darlene Levy and Beckie Benge

Week10: Screencasting

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The ability to effectively create and share a screencast is one of the most important skills of teachers in the 21st century. Teacher-leaders will learn what screencasts are, see examples of educational screencasts, and create their own.

Week 2... Really Late

For week 2 we talked about social bookmarking and watched a film by Brad Paisley called "welcome to the Future." We also watched a video about Nafiza who had joined a technology group and had gained leadership skills by being in the group. We also submitted our google forms... again.. and watched a video about our blogging buddies. We were instructed to get a twitter account and follow mentors teachers.

Week Seven Scribe

Week 7 Scribe



We took attendance and reviewed our discussions of advanced searches from last week.



Things we learned about searches last week : “Don’t use Google for images”, doing multiple searches, wonder-wheel.

Think of the search as a process and not a one- time event.



When searching for images:

1.Start off using public domain things.

2. Look for things with creative commons licenses.

*Does citing it properly mean you can do anything you want with it?

No. fair use is based off what you’re using it for. If you’re critiquing a book movie, etc, it is acceptable to use portions of that work for your critique.

Google reader review. You can, as an option, use you’re reader to help you with your comments on your fellow students blogs.



Wizard of Apps:

It really should be looked at in chunks using pauses because it is an overwhelming amount of information.

A roll: the talking head

B roll: the action in the background



Today’s video’s



Teacher Video(Marco Torres: makes the point that teachers should be open to new things and continue to improve one’s craft. We do not need lazy teachers. We need to work hard to help our students to learn.



An Open Letter to Educators Dan Brown: Education needs to adapt to technology today. The monetary value of information has moved to basically “$0” but that is not a bad thing. Governments, offices, individuals etc are using technology. Educational institutions need to catch up. “education isn’t about teaching facts.”



We then had a discussion via: todaysmeet.com about the video discussing the questions:

*What are the ways you think technology will change the way you teach?



*Do you agree with Dan Brown? Why or Why not?

Most of the class members agreed with Dan brown.



*What techniques does Dan use to maintain your attention in this video?

He moved around the screen a lot, used a high energy presentation.



Wiki’s in Plain English: email is not good at coordinating and organizing information. There is a better way. A “wiki” can be used to coordinate. Most work the same by changing what appears on a webpage. Clicking edit allows the user to create text and save the information. Ex for camping. Have: list things. Need: lists things. Saves it, now there are lists. Others log on edit and save as they write what they gather supplies. It is possible to create a link to a new page to organize other information. Gives sites at the end that show you where to sign up for a wiki.



Discussion using Etherpad:

*What does lee help you understand better about wiki’s?

how wiki works and the value of using on

he's great at explaining things!!! i like his 'visual aides' that he uses instead of just showing us on the computer.

How easy it was to use, and how much better it is than email when you have a group of people trying to communicate.

Wow, wikis are alot more simple than I expected...

He explains how easy it is to collaborate with wikis compared to email.

I love watching these videos!



*What have your professors told you or said about Wikipedia?

Not credible

It’s not reliable.

don't use not reliable

NOT to use them as a resource



Today’s Lesson

*How are you going to market yourself? The UCO required portfolio is 99% not used after graduation. There are free online resources that can be used to represent yourself.



*“flow”-when one looses time because they are lost in the moment. Becoming so engrossed in something that time is not even a consideration.



*Education is hard to change because people have so much experience at it.



*The goal of Wikipedia is universal access to the sum of human knowledge. Blogs have a bad name, Wikipedia does too. Wes suggests to use it as starting point.



Assignments

*Create Your Own Wiki

Link on Week 7 step 7 under Lessons



* DUE MARCH 10

Googlesites

Choose protected, Everyone can see your pages but only members can edit.

100mb of free storage

Can embed video, images, etc.

Week 7-scribes post!(sry it's late)

This week we learned about making our own Wiki's! Wes walked us through making and creating our own wiki through google sites. He showed us the wiki's in plain English video,Which i find this video very helpful and insightful, I find videos like these kind of like "Computers for dummies" books only because I'm retarded at computers!

We also watched a video called "An open letter to educators" It was a funny video that kind of told teachers "what was up" and said that "higher education" has become so dull and boring, who would want to sit through it?

We also had a quiz this week, just Quarterly Checkup, so if you have done the work for this class up until this point then you will be fine to take this quiz!

The video watching for this week was a little boring, but for the most part very insightful. we are supposed to watch the video and blog about it as usual!
Hope this was helpful,
Again Sorry it was late!
Kayleigh

Week9: Realtime Collaboration (Google Docs) and Presentation Zen

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Productivity software traditionally includes functionalities like word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation software. Open source / free productivity software is now available, which is competing with commercially available versions. These client-based / software based productivity solutions are also being challenged by

Week 8 Scribe Blog

Welcome to week 8! This week, Mr. Fryer introduced us to a new concept called GeoApps. GeoApps are applications which permit learners to connect concepts to geography. We primarily focused on two different resources-Google Maps and Google Earth.
We began class with a short review from last week-and he reminded us to complete our Quarterly Checkup Quiz 2. We also watched a video called “The State of the Internet” by Jesse Thomas. This video presented some very interesting statistics about the growth and impact of the internet in our society today.
The first and important new area that we covered was the site Google World. We learned about many benefits of this site, which included using the site to measure distance and even diameter. Mr. Fryer showed us how easily we could use it, and played a brief video of a homemade cell phone video in which he used Google earth to measure the diameter of the top of a window that he was looking out of. In essence he was proving that the possibilities of technology are literally endless. We also went over how the site can be used to see buildings in 3-d, as well as other “perks” of the site including satellite imagery and ocean floor and surface data from experts, and the site even allows one to take different virtual tours.
Next, we talked about the benefits of using a site called Google Maps. This site is similar to that of MapQuest, but provides a wider variety of tools. One of the best tools is that you can save your maps to your google profile and revisit them later if you need them again. We tested this site out by creating a classroom map, with each student pinpointing a place of interest. One of our assignments this week is creating a map, highlighting places of our choice.
Mr. Fryer also briefly introduced us to Sketchup by google, which is a program that helps to create 3-D models.

Recap of assignments due:
1. Write a video reflection blog over Sam’s EduTopia Digital Youth Portrait.
2. Create a google map on a topic of your choice. Be sure to include 10 placemarks, text, images, and at least 3 hyperlinks that go to a relevant Wikipedia page.

Happy Week 8! –Adrian and Brooke

Week Eight Summary

William Harris
Jordan Hunter
Jamie Malone

In this weeks episode, We learned how to utilize chat rooms. Often, these sites are considered dangerous with all the predators online seeking vulnerable individuals. However, used the right way as we have learned, chat rooms can be a great tool in a teachers arsenal. What we did was set up a back channel to a private room.

We watched a video

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

This gave us all kinds of facts about the internet. Did you know that Facebook needs 30,000 servers? Also, 148,000 zombie computers are created every day. A zombie computer deals with the hijacking of a computer in order to steal identities. These are comprised of Malware, Trojans, and Viruses. They can also be used to send out spam mail or cyber attacks.

We learned that whenever we speak into the microphone, we need to have the mouth piece off to the side and not directly in front of our face so that we can avoid those "C," "T," and "P" sounds.

Next, the class spent some time going over the copyright rules and saw "The Giving Tree."

It was a video that may not have used the copyright laws in accordance. We then learned some ways to correct this situation. First, look for Public Domain or homegrown photos. If that doesn't work, try sources such as Flikr and Compflight. Last, if the latter is unsuccessful, there is what is called fair use, which allows anybody to use the copyrighted material as long as it is used for critiquing, or a parody of the work.
Sometimes, it is easier to just ask the publisher for usage of copyrighted material.

Lastly, in this weeks discussion, we went over Google Earth. With this program, one can easily maneuver from taking a trip to the moon to search the depths of the ocean. Google Earth can also be used for flight simulations as well as view the entire world. This could be beneficial in that if a person is looking for a new residence, they can view the area and see where potential threats may live.

Week 8: GeoApps

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GeoApps are applications which permit learners to connect concepts to geography. Google Maps is a browser-based Geo-application environment, and Google Earth is a software-based GeoApp. We'll explore both and learn how to use resources created by others as well as make our own.

Week 6

During Week 6 in our T4T class, we discussed "An Invitation to Move." Moving referring to how our society moves and changes over time, and looking at how the relationship between technology and students has changed over time. To help illustrate this, we watched two videos:

"Rewiring Young Brains" examines hindrances on development of young brains that technonlogy may have. The man in the video said to whatever kids see and expose themselves will be part of their future.

"Old School, New School" discusses how technolgy will change the ways teachers teach. One teacher said educators have to be entertainers. Wes, however, disagreed with this idea because that can become exhausting. Instead, we as educators need to help students do things; make class more hands-on learning. The video also addresses the opinion that excessive exposure to technology, such as TV, has made young people expect to have instant gratification, and when they don't have that in the classroom, they loose focus. How can teachers keep their focus? An interesting point made by a teacher in the video was that it is OK for students to use things such as SparkNotes to aid them in writing papers. He believes this because in the real world, the value of an employee is not necessarily what they know, but if they know how to find the information they need. Allowing students to practice this in the classroom is a good idea, he says. The teacher redefines cheating in favor of letting students gather information from a variety of sources.

We also practiced embedding voicethread video in our blogs in class. Here are the steps:
1. open voicethread and blogger in seperate tabs or windows.
2. make a new post in blog.
3. in voicethread, go to the last page, click "copy link," and past that into your blog.
4. return to voicethread, go to the last page, click "embed" and copy that to blog in "Edit HTML" tab, paste (right click or Ctrl + V), and post your blog.

Next, we learned how to do various searches in Google. We saw two slideshows that helped illustrate this, which can be found at Google Search Tools and Options.




Some new vocabulary:
oneboxes: want to search weather, for example, there is a light blue box at the top of screen after you have done a search that has that information.
queary box: search box

How to do a basic search:
1. to find key words: Ctrl + F
2. naming the un-namable? Type in a quetsion or keywords. For example, you want to define philtrum, google can do that. We also practiced with the Reverse Dictionary that allows you to look up the definition first and then the word. This is good when you are asking yourself, "What is the word for that...?"
3. Wes discourages Google Images because they may or may not comply with copyright laws if used in a student project.

The main take-away is that we need to work on learning more about what we take for granted in Google.

And, also, to not trust the first few hits as the best hits to use.

In class, we also learned about an aggregator, or a collection of headlines. For this, we created our own GoogleReader to aggregate news headlines and information from classroom communication tools. To do this, go to www.google.com/reader