Saying Good Bye to 2008

Happy Holidays with SmileBox!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Become a DEN Star and Teach to the Stars!

I cannot help it! I LOVE to learn and explore. I got an invitation to a FREE online conference on Discovery Educator Network (DEN) website. It was intriguing and promising! All about teaching with Technology. I immediately signed up and joined the conference from 9:00 AM till 3:00PM. I was listening to  the great, enlightening presentations and participated in the chat room with other 200 participants from all over the world. Teachers were sharing their experience with the Web 2.0 tools, their projects, etc. DE provided some flexibility in attending the DEN Virtual Conference - online or in-person at one of many regional events hosted by the DEN Leadership Councils. Here is the conference Flyer. I found out that the conferences happen every week and they issue Professional Development Certificates. What a generous gesture and opportunity for my teacher candidates!
Today's conference featured presentations from Discovery’s own Hall Davidson, Steve Dembo, who spoke about the powerful tools for teachers and students; Jannita Demian and Matt Monjan lead the discussion about the development of the research of H. Garnder on Multipple Intellingences and introduced the different types of Mind (Disciplined Mind, Synthesized Mind, Respectful Mind, and Ethic Mind) and the tools that could be used in the classrooms to feed and stimulate each type. Scott Kinney's presentation was about the Net generation from the point of view of the research on the brain. Fascinating and all presentations were masterfully designed with powerful images and convincing data. Participats were flabeggastered with the shcoking presentation of  Lance Rougeousabout the use of cell phones in the classrooms. All the presenters were involving the audience in their discussions and used tools to demonstrate the polling or surveying tools with the immediate results or video-streaming, etc. I do not regret I registered and spent half of my day on learning and interacting with the DEN stars. Do you want to become a DEN star? Go and explore the Discovery Educator Network site, filll out an application and challenge yourself to learn and prepare yourself for teaching to the Net generation - Digital Natives. Become a DEN star and teach to the stars!

Test your Knowledge about SIM!

Test your knowledge and understanding of Social Interactive Model (SIM), cooperative and collaborative learning. The Quiz has been created with the Web 2.0 tool My Studiyo.

The Importance of Feedback

It is amazing how differently students react to the course content and design, how differently reflect on the assignments. When the students are given an opportunity to voice their opinions and express their feedback on the course design and implementation, some of them use this chance to complain, get frustration out of their chests; but the majority seem to be glad to share positive feelings, excitement about the new learning; many develop understanding of how much technology brings to their personal and professional lives. Confidence and tolerance are the outcomes of this process. Most of the students stop being overwhelmed, feeling scared of using the Internet, stop being afraid of trying new technological tools, opening new accounts, joining new social networks.
I am grateful to my students for their sincere comments, insightful reflections, and constructive suggestions for the course improvement. I am open to this kind of feedback. It makes my teaching better. Isn't it the way to go? Isn't it the way to improve your course design and teaching? I will definitely use my students' constructive suggestions and re-design the rest of the course accordingly.
I am very proud of my students who opened their hearts and minds to the new learning. It will be reflected in their new ways of teaching. Here are some podcasts from the course:
Teaching with TecnologyHa3,
TwT MIDTERM,
PodOmaticTake2,
MidtermReflection, , I am sure more podcasts are coming.

Follow my Example!

I am experimenting with the podcasting tools. There is an assignment to create one in my TwT class. I assigned my students to create first a PPT and record their comments to the slides and for High Achievers (HA) the challenge is to sign up for a podcasting site and create a podcast using the same content they created for the PPT. Not all my students were clear about the assignments.
So, I created a podcast just to show that is it possible and does not take too much time! Here is the link to my podcast. Follow my example!

How About Audio-blogging?

Exploring the Internet is a never ending experience! I have just found a new exciting tool -- Vaestro (sounds like Maestro!) - the site that allows creating audio posts -- audio blogging! I see a lot of ways of how it can be used in the classroom to enhance teaching and learning. Just a few ideas to start the discussion. A teacher can post questions on any topics of the content in any subject area, or create personal channels for individual students to interact with them and answer specific questions; or comment on the submitted assignments. It can be used for ESL students to develop their English language skills. I invite you to visit the site, register and respond to my first Teaching to the Future Talk Show.

An Idea for a Parent Curriculum Night

This video clip can be shown to the parents of your class children in the beginning of the year and explain the issues connected with the Internet safety:

A New Challenge

Ready to embark a new adventure to become a more effective teacher? Go to the the provided pbwiki site to get a reward by joining Back-to-school Challenge:

The IWB Challenge Project is UP and Running

The Project was launched on Friday, August 15th. Here is the information about it:

Are you ready for a challenge?

My students know that I love challenge them with the Extra Effort assignments. They feel in the beginning overwhelmed but in the end rewarded as they gain the knowledge and experience during the process of tackling the High Achievers tasks and assignments. I love challenges myself. This time I accepted the challenge to participate and invite my students to become part of this International project "Interactive Whiteboard Challenge" announced on wikispaces. Please read and decide if you are up to the challenge:

Creative Commons: Important to Know!

Creative Commons designed a new video that "pays tribute to the people around the world using CC licenses to build a better, more vibrant creative culture." View it an visit the site to learn more about attributions, copyright, etc.

WiZiQ Public Session tonight

The day has come. I am doing my WiZiQ presentation "Exploding Education's Limits: Unlocking Learning with Web 2.0" tonight, at 7:00PM. I am incorporating different Web 2.0 tools to make the presentation engaging. Here is one of them, Wordle:

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I hope it will help me to warm up the audience for the discussion of Web 2.0 technologies and what they does to education! Come, join and participate!

Let's see where we are!

I love the Web 2.0 tools . They allow people to connect and collaborate in many different ways! Here is a Frapper Map. Please add your name and the place you live to start communicating!

Meeting New Friends!

I was participating in the WiZiQ session today "An Introduction to Moodle" with Alexandro Colorado. Nellie Deutsch was facilitating the session. There were problems in the connection, projecting the PPT slides, uploading videos, etc. Nellie kept the session going by guiding Alexandro and motivating the participants to ask and answer questiong. Sshe invited me and others to visit her site Blended Learning and Instruction at Ning. I did and joined this group! Exciting. Tat's what Web 2.0 is all about -- connecting like-minded people and creating spaces for collaboration. Visit these sites and join the groups you are most interested in.

Online Communities and Networks

New Internet is known as the platform for collective intelligence, the space for creating connections with like-minded people, collaborate with different professional and similar interests' groups. It is also called a PLE - Personal Learning Environment - the setting in which a person sets his or her personal goals, manages content and processes of what he or she wants to learn or to collaborate and communicate with. I myself have become a member of a number of professional groups via social networks like Ning, Diigo, Plurk, EdTechTalk, Wikispaces, Moodlerooms, Pbwiki,WiZiQ, etc. I have learned so many educators who are constructivists by the nature of the current Internet, they are progressivists, digital advocates, forward-thinkers! I will share my impressinos about them in my future blogs. Today I would like to advertise
Ben Hazzard. He is kown in the virtual teachers' world for his publications and podcasts about web 2.0 and Smart technologies,.Now he is about to launch a site for teachers and with teachers -- Learning, Together -- "to collect artifacts of his projects, thinking, and journey through thought and as well as life." Very inspriring. Watch for it -- the date of launching is Friday, Aug. 15th, 2008. Good Luck, Ben!

Back to School

I was plurking in the morning today and found the site that one of the plurkers, Stacey Kaase, shared with us. Back to school: First Day Checklist.Get ready to spend some time browsing through the site and jot down ideas and tips on how effectively to start a new school year and prepare teaching-learning materials to make this upcoming year exciting and engaging! Get insprired!

Have you heard about Ping.fm?

Go, register, and use code "pingscompany" so you can get in on the beta action! Ping.fm is an easy to connect with your networks service. Visit and learn it yourself!

Ping.fm - Check Out The New Skin (Botox Free!) (http://ping.fm/ibnUL)

My Blog with OdioGo

I am happy to inform you about my brand new podcast that became possible with Odiogo. Please go to my Odiogo Page and click Subscribe so you can listen to my blog's content on the go on your iPod or MP3 player. You will probably love this!

Great thanks to Mr.Staut's blog where I found this tool.

It never ends! Cameroid Now

Again a new tool! It never ends -- each day I find something new and exciting! Now it is Cameroid! If you have a webcam you can create pictures and avatars right in your browser. It is so easy to use! See mine and get inspired like I did when I visited my twitter network and read the post of Chris Smith (Shumblerguru in twitter).

Why They Tube?

I was browsing on the Ning site and found this video "Why We Tube?"

Interesting and thought-provoking. Share what you think about this.

I am a member of Classroom 2.0 network

Visit the site and join in too!

View my page on Classroom 2.0

Do not Forget Gifted

Ning is a wonderful social networking space. One can find professional groups in any field of pedagogical knowledge. I belong to Web 2.0 group, Classroom 2.0 and today I learned about Gifted Education 2.0. These students sometimes are ignored or forgotten in the traditional classroom. Visit and join the network of talented teachers.

Plurking is Distractive and Inspiring

I was checking the plurks in the afternoon for a change betweeen reading and grading and found an interesting post about a new Web 2.0 service 280 Slides that is web-based (no downloads needed) and allows you creating PPT on the Internet and for the Internet! I can spend a lot of time exploring the plurks and the thing that educators share in their postings... When I find something like this I am inspired to try it right away. My Literacy and Technology students can use this service for their final projects! Check it out and leave a comment!

Professional Network is Growing with Web 2.0

I am excited to share the news. I was approached by WiZiQ company to conduct a series of lectures on the topics of my expertise: methods of effective teaching and shifting paradigm, e-teaching. I am in the process of designing a list and scheduling the lectures for the global community. When I looked through already posted lectures, I learned that there would be a very promising lecture tonight, at 7:00PM, delivered by Mari Aaeron Walker "7 Places Teachers Can Turn Your Expertise Into CA$H Online." You need to sign in and launch a FREE public session. I highly recommend to do it. The interface of WiZiQ is gthe same as Elluminate, but FREE! No down;loads requires. It is web-based beta.

Storytelluing with Web 2.0 Tools

I tried different tools to create digital stories. One of the tools is VoiceThread:




Another is a Photostory3 program, or Animoto

Welcome to the (R)evolution. Just created

Unbelievable! A new site has been just created for Teachers and English learners based on the Second Life concept and environment. The designers of this site give away free classroom space in Second Life, named "launchrooms" where teachers can hold group meetings and lessons. It means with this site teachers can get closer to the world of digital natives, they will create their own avatars, arrange a space for their meetings, and will use the virtual equitpment. What is also neat is this space is connected to the Caroline LMS (Learning management system similar to Moodle with the same functions - it will allow to arrange meetings, post assignments, create activities outside the real classroom, etc.). Cant's wait to try it out. Read the article "Do you speak SLEnglish?" and explore it yourself!

Plurknovella Experiment

Plurkers are really interesting and knowledgeable people. One of the plurkers, metaweb, shared his website and the tool "Wordle." Think how you can use it in your classroom, teaching different content areas. I read about many ideas that plurkers shared... Here is my WORDLE:

Creative Wordle

I cannot stop thinking --- this tool can be used for Word game, concept formation, sentence building out of the vocabulary of the current topic that is taught... Here is my second wordly for Literacy and Technology class. The task is to choose the words and phrases for the quotes we discussed in class and build sentences about "Learning to create."

Lively Google Experience

When I was plurking today I found out that the participants of the edublogers conference meet in Google Lively Group rooms. What a fascinating experience! It uses Second life interface! Look! It is me in the room:

Plurknovella Experiment

Plurkers are really interesting and knowledgeable people. One of the plurkers, metaweb, shared his website and the tool "Wordle." Think how you can use it in your classroom, teaching different content areas. I read about many ideas that plurkers shared... Here is my WORDLE:

TeacherTube Adventure

I was getting ready for my Literacy and Technology class, selecting sites, videos, and on one of the blogs I was sent to listen to this song. I found it absolutely adorable, interactive and educating. Enjoy it yourself and visit the TeacherTube site to sign up!

A Great Blog Editor Tool

For those who use Firefox I would recommend to install the add-on extension ScribeFire. ScribeFire is an extension of Firefox ®; it enables users to easily drag and drop formatted text from the Web into their blog(s). After you have install it to your Firefox browser,it will appear on the bottom of your screen and when you are browsing through the readings, sites and assigned taks, you will be able to write your blog entries with a click of the button! Make your blogging fast and fun!

My Plurk Widget!

What an exciting tool, Plurk! More fun than twitter! I can even send messages in Russian! or German! Here is my widget - a brief image of what Plurk is all about.

Plurk.com

Class Badges with Flickr

I find this amusing to create badges for classes and blogs with the pictures of my students. It brings personality to my classes.Flickr provides this opportunity.

TinyPic or Flickr Or Photobucket

Amazing! A new day brings a new tool or a new service! I was plurking and found this new service Tinypic.It is similar to Flickr or photobucket, but of course has some new features. It allows uploading videos. I will explore it more and report later in more details.

A competitor to Twitter: PLURK

My son, Boris, has just sent me an invitation to a new Web 2.0 tool similar to Twitter, it is called Plurk.I immediately registered and started exploring the service. With 140 characters, with a unique feature -- time line -- you share/respond your feelings, favorite video, etc. You can follow some people or be followed by the fans of yours. Some users say that they get the responses to questions faster than on Twitter. I need more time to paly with it. I sent the invitations to my students. Let's see what will happen.

The Future of Education

I came across with this video-lecture of Michel Wesch, the author of several You Tube videos, like "Machine Using Us," About Weg 2.0, ""etc. This lecture is very powerful and controversial, it raises issues of the new skills, students, new learning and teaching environments, about the information in the media environment and challenges for us regarding the ways of creating the new classroom settings that involve the new media and tools that encourage active learning, active participation. I would like my students to view this video and reflect on it. I am proud to say that the tools the author mentioned in the video I know and use in my classroom when I teaching different courses in the educational program when training future teaches.

Digital Learning Experience Attributes

While preparing for my Summer II Literacy and Technology Class I found a very interesting and powerful article about Digital Students, their learning styles posted by an experienced award-winning blogger, Anastasia Goodstein.

In her article Learning Styles 2.0: Digital, Social and Always on, she emphasizes the following attributes of digital learning and learners:

• Interactive. Students expect to pick and use various types of media and create a personalized “mash-up” of content. Students also use social media as a way to express their identity and creativity through creation of user-generated content.
• Student-Centered; Authentic;
• Collaborative.Collaborative work and peer feedback supports motivation by giving
  students a sense of active involvement within the learning community.
• On-Demand. Course content should be made available "on-demand" so the learner can view course materials when, where, and how (PC, mobile or handheld device) they
  want to view the content.
  

These trends in online and lifelong learning are being fueled by changes in the characteristics of student learners and the ways in which they use new technologies to exchange information. One thing is clear: the convergence of social software technologies and a generation of web-savvy learners are rapidly changing the face of education.

In light of these socio-cultural changes, educators need to “keep abreast of change” and embrace digital learning styles through curriculum design which integrates the authentic ways that students use social media to collaborate and interact with peers as a means to achieve short and long term learning goals.

Learning while Grading

I enjoy learning from my students! I am in the process of reading and grading my students' projects and assignments. In one of the students' blogs I found a reference to the article about the history of the Web from the New York Times. The article provides a video clip illustrating the points of the article. Do not miss it! Fascinating!

Never Stopping to Search

It is interesting to observe how the Web 2.0 tools are being developed; this process never ends! I am exchanging the tools with one of my colleagues - a Technology Guru on campus, Mary-Anne, and we find it fascinating to witness the evolution of the new web tools that are available for teachers to support and develop critical and creative thinking! Here are two sites that summarize the Web 2.0 tools and services, 12 Manage - mind mapping methods, and Top 100Tools for Learning that were selected by the 161 learning professionals and shared with the educational community.

Mind Boggling News: Converting words to sounds!

Listen to the article "Digital Citizenship" that was converted from the text to sounds! Isn't it amazing?! Go to the site Read the Words, open an account and convert the text files into words, choose the preferable voice to listen to and enjoy!

Here is the link to the converted article:

Playing with Flick

Here is a new Web 2.0 tool "PictureTrail" that allows you designing albums, slideshares and be creative with fancy flicks! Meet my first grand-daughter Aliyah (She is 9 months).

Instead of Good bye!

I created this web slideshow as a farewell card to TwT summer I class. I have just found the site and couldn't help but exploring and implementing its tools right away! I didn't have time to add the recordings -- I will do it later, but I added an audio file - music - that really makes a difference! So view my Teaching with technology slide show and bookmark the sites I selected for you to use to enhance your teaching:

More new Web 2.0 Tools

Turning bookmarks and feeds into interactive slideshows
Teaching with technology does not allow you to relax or stay idle. New tools appear, I think, every minute! I was fascinated by the new tool - WebSlides and Diigo, that turn bookmarks and feeds into interactive slideshows. See it for yourself and enjoy using Diigo and WebSlide!

Happy Father's Day!

Be creative with Smilebox - design cards on different occasions!

Make a Smilebox free ecard

Helpful Tips for New Teachers.

Helpful Tips For New Teachers

Johnny Cash on SplashCast

Johnny Cash on Splashcast

Splashcast is a Web 2.0 tool that allows users creating personal podcasts. This is one of the examples.

Learning from Mistakes

The time of the presentation came. The theme is "Integrating web 2.0 tolls with Learning Management System Moodle to Create Community of Active learners." I am presenting my workshop with Mary-Anne Campo, Director of Distant Learning at our college. We designed a presentation consisting of two parts, the PPT and practical part - playing with the Moodle tools on the Ninehub site. We felt very prepared and proud of what we designed for this workshop but when we came to the classroom (which was called B.E.S.T.) we found out that most of the sites and programs were blocked and the computers that were set up to project the presentations were not aligned. I was able to attached my laptop and was able to use the PPT from my computer. The audience was involved in the discussion of Web 2.0 tools right away and out of the group of about 40 participants, 4 or 5 knew the icons of the most popular Web 2.0 tools and services. When the characteristics of Web 2.0 platform were reviewed and the features of Moodle that make it an effective Learning Management System compatible with the Web 2.0 tools were discussed, I turned the floor over to Mary-Anne. She re-iterated the explanation of the Moodle's features was about to involve the participants in the activities that we posted on the site and...we found out that they were not able to complete the assignments being in the role of gusts. What a bummer! Now we know, we should have make them go through the process of creating their own accounts of Moodle on the Ninehub site. Well, we learned our lesson!

Mantra for Every Day

To learn to teach to the Future a beginning or any other teacher should start every new day with the following mantra published by Carl Glickman in his book Leadership for Learning: How to Help Teachers Succeed.There might be many ways of the solution of how to improve learning and teaching -- some of them are: to engage and be engaged in personal discovery, collaborative inquiry, problem solving and creative decision making. It is difficult to achieve if the school and college classrooms do not create conditions for this type of learning...

Teaching while Traveling

I am in Velacruz, Mexico. My proposal, entitled “Creating Collaborative Learning and Communication Environments with Web 2.0 Tools” was accepted at the EDRA conference. I have got the notification right when I started teaching my summer courses. I have never been to Mexico. What an opportunity! Here I am in Velacruz. I created a newsletter with Letterpop that I would like to introduce to my students and have an assignment to do during my class. More tools to explore!

New Web 2.0 Tools Help Teachers Enrich Teaching

Teachers love YouTube. There are a lot of educational videos. To download videos and then show them from your sites (blog, wiki, or your personal website) you can use a DownloadHelper. It is an add on plug in from Firefox. Here is a video that guides you through the steps how to install it on your computer and use it when you want to save a video and add it to your websites. Hit the hyperlinked word DownloadHelper. Enjoy!

A New TwT Class with a New LMS

New summer semester is ready to begin. I am somewhat in between the spring semester (finishing grading) and the beginning of the summer semester (setting up two courses). I had all my courses designed and happily ready to be uploaded to Web CT but... This comfort feeling is gone. The college is now using a Learning Management System MOODLE . It is exciting to explore something new and at the same time it is overwhelming --- you have to start everything from scratch. It is time consuming. I have been exploring this LMS during the spring semseter -- I was teaching 3 course. I also was in a pilot group of 10 MSMC professors who volunteered to experiment with Moodle. Last Friday was our last meeting. :-)

Here is a you tube video "What is Moodle?"

The IT department has just upgraded the Moodle and requested to watch what will be happening and report to Arthur if something needs to be fixed. I have already noticed some of Moodle's misbehavior and also head from my new students that it does not allow the students to easily upgrade the pages -- participants' page, in particular. It brings the user to the MSMC Web Module page. I also noticed that the chat room is not activated. The IT is informed about the problems.

I would like my class to be patient and open to the exploration of the new LMS. Next week I will add students' blogs' links to keep them in one place. I am excited to introduce some new Web 2.0 tools and services to my TwT students and to motivate them to learn to use them in their own teaching!
Let the summer learning/teaching adventure begin!

Visit my CoveritLive blog, explore the site, try it out and reflect on the experience:

Teaching to the Future

View the video and reflect on the content during the class and in your personal blogs:

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My 2007-08 Album