July 2007 Blog Posts (196)

The Future of Books

I 've always been a bibliophile, a lover of books. I once imagined a library filled with books that had no authors names on them. Just pure, knowledge, just pure experience and communication of the world out there. A library where you read from interest not authority.

I think technology gives us a chance to realize this dream and the dream of affordable access to the written word by everyone - a total sum of knowledge, that written and even that thought. Books updated every minute and…

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Added by ddeubel on July 11, 2007 at 3:07pm — 3 Comments

And so it begins.........

Well, I have finally made it to Classroom 2.0! I am excited, intrigued and to be honest, a bit apprehensive about it. Part of me can't wait to embark on yet another technology integration journey, but of course time constraints always come into play.

I will be adding content and making changes as I can, and I look forward to learning from all of you and perhaps taking part in engaging conversation!

See ya,

Adam

Added by Adam Dugger on July 11, 2007 at 9:57am — 5 Comments

Suggested Entry Level Teaching of Various Web 2.0 Tools

Now that there are too many web 2.0 tools to teach in any one year or school, when should we introduce them to our students. Are there web 2.0 tools that will benefit our youngest students? Which web 2.0 tools are better left for later grades? When should students begin having their own blog space, google account, join or create a social network, use course management software, and/or create and document their learning in a personal digital portfolio?

Prerequisite--Basic… Continue

Added by Shawn Kimball on July 11, 2007 at 8:49am — 3 Comments

SlideShare and WebQuests

I created a PowerPoint WebQuest template based on the San Diego State U. Webquest.org template. You can download this template from SlideShare and use it to create Webquests using PowerPoint. I plan on having my University students work on developing Webquests as an assignment and then… Continue

Added by James Folkestad on July 10, 2007 at 1:01pm — 3 Comments

ning for students

..hi...does anyone know is there is a NING for students...i was thinking it would be good to set up classroom networks for my students to share their work and interact on this social networking site...or is it a case of just setting up a network for them on the regular NING?....don

Added by don buckley on July 10, 2007 at 5:57am — 2 Comments

Working with Youth Right Now in Barbados in Wb 2.0

Check out what youth in Barbados are posting on our website www.youthlab.net as we create videos, google maps and digital photos on the living legacies of slavery. You can also begin to see their Flickr photos.

Added by Mindy Faber on July 10, 2007 at 5:47am — No Comments

Film Review "The Fog of War"

This is a review of the Documentary "The Fog of War". It's from my blog page on christonium.

The entire film can be viewed by searching for "The Fog of War" on Google Video.

Cohesion : 9

Composition : 10

Contrast : 8

Dynamics : 9

Humor : 1

Intelligence : 7

Production : 9

Quality : 9

Cohesion : 9

"The Fog of War" is a seriously entertaining interview… Continue

Added by Jared on July 9, 2007 at 5:18pm — No Comments

Fossils

My wife was doing a research project with her 1-4 students. The idea was to teach kids to use the web for resources and to cite resources. This all started at the beginning of the year. She was doing compare/contrast using dinosaurs as well as descriptive writing. She also used dinosaurs to teach technical reading, having kids study the steps used to get fossils out of the ground. As a culminating activity she allowed me to make fossils with her students. I am so grateful that she allows me… Continue

Added by Kevin on July 8, 2007 at 10:11pm — 3 Comments

Styro-saurs

Years ago I was looking at donated materials given for my summer art camp. Among the items was a large supply of styrofoam of all shapes and sizes. In art we've always been fans of recycling in all it's forms and this camp was no exception. I though how bone-like the pieces looked and it inspired me to create a camp called styro-saurs.

The class started with checking in with the kids who'd signed up and seeing what…

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Added by Kevin on July 8, 2007 at 9:40pm — No Comments

Knights of the square table

As I look at the accumulated experiences I created for kids over the years, I always think about the ways we could/should include technology to enhance and extend the experiences and empower imaginations even more. Web 2.0 and the emergence of amazingly powerful tools have created a palette for creative teachers to paint from that is unlike anything that has existed in human history. This to me is an amazing time, but let me take you back to a time of chivalry and knights, of bravery and pride,… Continue

Added by Kevin on July 8, 2007 at 8:19pm — No Comments

An open letter to Mark, a teacher.

I just wrote this letter to a teacher on Ning and I thought I would share it here.

Mark-

I'm looking for Beta testers for web application I'm working on located at http://christonium.com. I've singled you out because you're obviously trying to start a education focused community here and I think christonium is an ideal solution for long term education development and personal…

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Added by Jared on July 8, 2007 at 1:57pm — No Comments

Viking Voyage

My summer art camps offered me and my kids the chance to live in a culture, to inhabit it's people and the relics of their societies but the best part was that we had fun!

The relic of Viking Voyage was the helmets and once again KFC came to the rescue. We could have fabricated helmets from scratch but something about housing your head in a chicken bucket just felt right!

Add four toilet paper rolls per viking and you've got the makings of horns. A…

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Added by Kevin on July 8, 2007 at 1:32pm — No Comments

Educational relics and other dusty things..(Space Camp)

This past Wednesday I was in Ottawa Kansas at the Ottawa Community Arts Council, digging through photo-albums in the basement. The edifice is an old Carnegie library that was taken over by the Ottawa community after the library moved downtown. It happened that I was to meet… Continue

Added by Kevin on July 8, 2007 at 1:06pm — No Comments

Feed for All Forum Discussions and Replies

If you want to track every forum discussion and all the comments that are posted on Classroom 2.0, you can use this URL:

http://classroom20.ning.com/forum/topic/list?feed=yes&sort=mostRecent&xn_auth=no

link

If you need help understanding how to use a feed reader, you can watch… Continue

Added by Steve Hargadon on July 8, 2007 at 9:11am — 6 Comments

Using Del.icio.us in the Classroom

Read my post about Using Del.icio.us in Education and in Personal Learning Environments (PLEs)

Added by Eduardo Peirano on July 7, 2007 at 1:30pm — 4 Comments

virtual field trips

Virtual field trips, aka "outsourcing" or hiring another class (or group of students) to take a field trip to learn about particular content, and reporting back their learning and the learning your class requested from them: this concept is heavily on my mind. Students could photo, video, blog, wiki, or otherwise archive the experience so that literally anyone from across the world could have access to that exact same field trip! Talk about an engaging and memorable experience for all involved?… Continue

Added by Ginger Lewman on July 7, 2007 at 6:25am — 3 Comments

Who is doing What online?

Here is an interesting story and graph from Business Week on Online Activity:

And here is the link to the article.

I guess there aren't any real surprises here (young people make up the bulk of online users) but I think the number of…

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Added by Kevin H. on July 7, 2007 at 4:42am — 1 Comment

Reminds me of farming......

In our district, once that last bell goes off signaling the beginning of summer, those of us on the "wires and pliers" side of things get kicked into high gear. Our administration has been progressive enough to find ways to add technology to our buildings, which is great. I am now finding that adding 300 machines to our inventory is no small task for our staff of two. I haven't even taken the time to get my new macbook set up yet,… Continue

Added by Brad on July 6, 2007 at 2:09pm — No Comments

do something cool for summer vacation

[cross-posted at Higher Edison]

You have two choices.

You are 15 or 16 or 17 years old. Summer is just getting started, but already the days are passing too quickly. On the far shore of this beautiful inland sea of unstructured time, someone is waiting in a

September classroom with an assignment: Write an essay describing what you did for summer vacation.

There you'll be, hands poised above…

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Added by sschwister on July 6, 2007 at 1:13pm — No Comments

Reinventing... all over the Web

Hi,

Suzie Boss and I wrote a book but I won't be shilling here! What we've found in the process of writing is that we're part of a larger conversation around the learning functions of digital tools. We're especially interested in project-based learning. Please consider joining the community of interest forming around "reinventing" the learning experience in these different environments:

Reinventing Blog:… Continue

Added by Jane Krauss on July 6, 2007 at 11:41am — 8 Comments