An Experience with Multimedia

• Google Reader (326)

  This is where I will follow news, links, resources, and other information posted by my favorite people/organizations.

  tags: google, rss, reader, news, web2.0, blog, aggregator

• Wikispaces - teresaalesch - My

  This is another website that I will continue using. I have used it before, but through SLIS-Multimedia, I have gained a new appreciation for what it can do. I have a teacher who wants to start a wiki (my first project)

  tags: wiki, collaboration, multimedia, class, organization, information, resources

• VoiceThread - Group conversations around images, documents, and videos

  This site allows me to present just about anything. It is also a resource to view other people's presentations. I am looking forward to sharing this at the beginning of the year with students and teachers.

  tags: web2.0, photos, voicethread, audio, collaboration, tools, voice, slideshow, presentations

• Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds

  This is something I haven't played with much, but the end product of a combination of words is very effective. I will start by introducing this to our social studies teacher.

  tags: wordle, web2.0, visualization, tagcloud, cloud, graphics, word, creativity

• Home ‎(YAresources)‎

  I didn't realize Google had a site like this. This would have been so helpful when I was teaching my students to use GoogleDocs.. I plan to incorporate this with library students first thing.

  tags: class, site, organization, documents, files, posting

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

What I found interesting about this article initially was that I thought the student's first response (example) was good! When I read the second response I was astounded at the growth in analysis. This should reveal how much I need to learn, and how much teaching I need to do to improve my own students' reasoning and responding. This is definitely a skill that we need to work on at Graettinger-Terril Schools. I am excited to look further into the REED-LO model. I actually questioned my own analysis/reflection skills and as I looked through the stages, I know that going through this process would deeply improve my own responses as well as my students'.

As for the application WAIT, I am very enthusiastic about this tool. One very nice feature is that it requires students to publish their interpretations before taking a look at the expert's essay. This is helpful to promote independent thinking. If we don't push students out of their comfort zone, they will maintain at a level with little growth, will not learn to think for themselves, and will not gain confidence in their abilities to recognize evidence and produce quality responses.

Furthermore, this model and application together force students to research the content within a piece of art, looking deeper into the history of the photo and events and people involved. When responding students are combining different literacies to produce their responses.

Today, I received a most heartwarming baby gift from a group of my cohort peers (the Bettendorf gang)... It's a little jumper that says, "I (heart) Metadata!" ...It's a funny thing really, because last fall we were eating, sleeping, and drinking metadata in Cliff's class, Organization of Information (or maybe that was the book), but here I am reading more from Warlick and he says,

"Today, as information flows through a growing number of new applications, it tends to carry with it information about itself, enabling information to organize itself dynamically, as a function of its being and its flow."

THAT'S METADATA! You have to understand the humor here... it took me a LONG time to grasp the concept of metadata, and now I must get it.

This was a pretty interesting night... As I was reading Warlick's Redefining Literacy 2.0, I was stuck on a quote: "For the first time in history, we are preparing our students for a future we cannot clearly describe." I decided to post it to my Facebook page and minutes later I had responses from people pondering it. I'm guessing it still has room to take shape; the conversation is just getting started. I'm hoping some of my students will jump in and offer their insights.

I see that my response was cut off... so here is the final post shown in this image - which if you click on it, it will open up in another window (larger).

Teresa's response, "Hey everyone! Yea, it does make you think.. that's why I had to post it. David Warlick is the person behind that... and yes, it's something I'm reading. It involves technology, communication, and literacy. Some people are afraid of educating students with their modern tools... facebook, blogs, chatting, and other online tools - for fear of them not... Read More being able to socialize in person, not learning the "BOOK," and for fear of the technology itself, BUT - that's where our world is going. In the mid 1990s, people started chatting on yahoo - look at what we have now (look at what we are doing right here) - and yet, our classrooms are still quite traditional (the way we were taught)... The youth have changed, but the schools have not. ... And Darci - You are right on Johnson I've read a lot of his material and have seen some of his Webinars - I would love to hear him in person!"

A few important concepts stood out to me, but first of all the 5-year-old podcast was adorable. I have several teachers who would –WITHOUT A DOUBT– run with this project! ... I would LOVE to have a gift like this from my daughter.

1) Need to give students different tasks to get them to share different content through different mediums
--This reminds me of a quick project I threw together last fall that was unsuccessful. I gave students a topic and told them they could choose their mode of presentation. I purposely gave them the freedom to do what they wanted, but unfortunately, they didn't have a toolbox to work from. I need to add "tasks" to prepare them for this type of thinking, planning, and creating.

2) Privacy is a concern when publishing, but it isn't what we think it is. Fryer helped me to see this in a different way. Statistically speaking, predators don't see a student's picture online then kidnap him/her. Generally, predators know the victim... or have been corresponding (which is more of the area we need to watch out for). But this is an area that we need to think through a little more and understand a little better.

3) After watching a Voicethread, we heard from Sara. She said the toughest part about creating her Voicethread was not uploading the pictures but was the content (what am I going to say). This is important because this starts with writing... so even though this product reveals little writing, students will have written their script and rehearsed their script (and rewritten and edited)... and so on.

4) In this same Voicethread project, we see that another critical component is the response from peers. This means that students are preparing their product for a larger audience than just the teacher - requiring a different line of thinking. We can even invite parents to the link which takes on a whole new perspective.