All Blog Posts (9,927)

How will this blog be unique?

I have more blogs than I know what to do with. I like the look of this site and the opportunity to share with an educational group. After a full year of writing on a blog and an online writing journal and a tech team blog, without too many comments to respond to, it was more about writing asa personal habit and that's great! And I do have a collaborative blog that I know is read and shared....love that one.

I have invited lots of members to be friends. I have 31 already.… Continue

Added by Bonnie Kaplan on April 9, 2007 at 12:31pm — 4 Comments

365 days

Over at the Library 2.0 group, Libraryman(Michael) who is a power Flickr user, posted a great idea that I wanted to share here.

He's starting a 365 Library Days project, where you document your library for a year, and post 365 photos to the Flickr library group.

I thought this idea had a lot of connections for Classroom 2.0. What if we contributed 365 photos to a classroom 2.0 group on flickr? Or just took this idea back to our individual schools?

little cogs

I watched the TED talk that was posted yesterday. The one of Sir Ken Robinson, who asks the question: does education kill children's creativity? This really struck home with me...

I have been one severely angst ridden teacher this year. Nothing seems to go right and I find myself trying to instill creativity, collaborative skills and interdisciplinary thinking into students who not only aren't receptive, but whose parents aren't receptive either. I think I'm beginning to get ground up… Continue

Added by Shawn Moore on April 9, 2007 at 7:27am — 1 Comment

AWESOME Digital Learners Video!!

I came across this insightful video this morning about Digital Learners and why technology is important to incorporate when teaching students.

This is not a new idea, but one that is dear to me. Use this video anytime

you have a room full of teachers and you're trying to help them see why

technology is important. Not just to help them… Continue

Added by Jeff VanDrimmelen on April 9, 2007 at 7:00am — No Comments

Bluebonnets in the Snow in the Texas Hill Country

Ok, so it is not what I usually blog about, but I had an interesting adventure this last weekend, and I want to share it.

My wife, my 80 year old Mother, and myself, all decided on the spur of the moment to head for the Texas hill country for a couple of spring

days of wildflower viewing. We had been in this area before, on about

the same time of year, and found beautiful diplays of our native State

Flower, the Bluebonnet.

Our plan was to stay out at Joan Myers… Continue

Added by elderbob Brannan on April 9, 2007 at 6:43am — No Comments

What are friends for?

I came to Classroom 2.0 without any idea about how things really worked. Even though I've been on Linked In for a while and I sort of knew about the whole friends thing on MySpace, I hadn't experienced it myself.

What I've seen people post so far is that it's a tool to gain visibility, a competition for attention and/or a way to deal with larger crowds. (sorry I don't have the energy to link to these ideas or properly credit them!)

However, none of those things really applies… Continue

Added by Sylvia Martinez on April 9, 2007 at 12:27am — 5 Comments

An Easter/Passover Thought!!

Many of my current colleagues don't know that I have a B.A. in Talmud and Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. At one time I thought very seriously about becoming a rabbi. (Actually the word rabbi means teacher.) Though I'm no longer ritually observant, I still very much enjoy thinking about religious ideas.

So, on this day that is sacred to multiple both Judaism and Christianity, I want to ask three questions:

1. What does the word freedom mean?

2. What… Continue

Added by Andrew Pass on April 8, 2007 at 2:21pm — 1 Comment

NECC anyone?

I'm heading to Atlanta this week (on Spring Break) to go to a Braves game and scope out the lay of the land for my upcoming June NECC. It's a mere 4 hour drive from here.

Added by Cathy Nelson on April 8, 2007 at 11:52am — 5 Comments

Classroom 2.0 needs Educational Technologist 2.0

So I've spent my weekend (1am on Friday night and 2am Saturday night) migrating my schools moolde and wordpress mu site.

The moodle migration went find...due in part to the the fact that I've migrated moodle sites 5 times now...I pretty much know what I'm doing.

The wordpress mu site is another story...and as I go to bed tonight still is not ready for students to use tomorrow.

In a classroom 2.0 environment I think we're going to need educators that understand more… Continue

Added by Jeff Utecht on April 8, 2007 at 8:54am — 5 Comments

Why Wiki?

So, this is the first time I've been involved with Ning or any kind of social network. Normally, I lurk. Big time lurk. I have a pretty good list of Google Reader feeds and my own diet of info that I hoover semi-omnivorously (Arts and Letters Daily, Will R, Metafilter, Bookslut, Mr. Verb,… Continue

Added by SparklingDrift on April 7, 2007 at 11:10pm — 4 Comments

This is very new to me

Okay, I'm here to learn.

Added by Cathy Nelson on April 7, 2007 at 6:46pm — 4 Comments

Today's Thoughts on a Degree in Social Computing

So, I've been thinking about the role of a university program in social computing. I'll never forget speaking with my undergraduate advisor at Columbia. I told him that I wanted to major in business. He told me that I came to the wrong university. "The Ivy League doesn't teach people how to do specific things," he explained. "It teaches people how to think."

I'm not very familiar with the University of Michigan program. But, if it's worth consideration it probably does not teach…

Continue

Added by Andrew Pass on April 7, 2007 at 1:58pm — 1 Comment

The products tested in the USDOE study of educational software

The recent study from the US DOE about the impact of certain educational sofware packages on test scores was discussed here and here.

First grade reading software products (11 districts and 43 schools. 158 teachers and 2,619… Continue

Added by Sylvia Martinez on April 7, 2007 at 12:00pm — No Comments

Software’s Benefits On Tests In Doubt

I am reposting this entry from my blog site, here...

Educational software, a $2 billion-a-year industry that has become the darling of school systems across the country, has no

significant impact on student performance, according to a study by the

U.S. Department of Education.

Source:…

Continue

Added by Brian Grenier on April 7, 2007 at 11:53am — No Comments

What I don't get so far...

This is my first foray into social networking, other than watching over my daughter's shoulder. By the way, just yesterday she told me she has taken down her MySpace page. It's been a constant with her for the last 3 years and she has thousands of "friends", most of whom she met in real life first and actually seems to know. She taught herself Flash and HTML programming because of it. I tried to engage her in a conversation about it and the most I could get out of her was, "it's just annoying… Continue

Added by Sylvia Martinez on April 7, 2007 at 10:26am — 5 Comments

This morning on Ning, I learned...

After reading some discussion here, following links, and reading at 2 Cents Worth about Ning, I wanted to share a few things I learned here today.

I learned about the site LifeHacker, which I hadn't seen before.

I found Chris Craft's blog, Crucial Thought.

I followed the link to the Classroom 2.0 wiki and explored that some. (had heard about it but…

Continue

Added by Carolyn Foote on April 7, 2007 at 8:56am — 4 Comments

Starting to Get It...

There's a conversation going on here, that was started by nlowell and picked up on by several other Ning members. Cary Harrod's comments got me to thinking more about social networks.

I am fairly new to the world of web 2.0 and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the whole idea of transparency. I still haven't figured

out how I could…

Continue

Added by David Warlick on April 7, 2007 at 4:55am — 3 Comments

Multiple blog etiquette

I have little desire to seriously maintain another blog. One is

keeping me quite occupied as it is. I have added an RSS feed of my blog

to my Classroom 2.0 page. I know the network hasn't been around long

enough to develop its own etiquette yet, but would it be best for me to

post my posts from my Classroom Meets Technology

blog here so that they appear in the Classroom 2.0 blog feed, or should

I… Continue

Added by Teacher K on April 6, 2007 at 8:48pm — 4 Comments

Forty-Two Years Ago

I'm having a reflective day today.

A page fell out of my scrap book this morning and reminded me that April, 1965, was when I won second prize in the junior high school science fair for my home-built computer. It was a five-bit binary adder. It only won second prize because the high school science and math teachers doing the judging really didn't see the value in an arithmetic that had only a 1 and a 0.

Over the last forty-odd years, I've changed base technology about every… Continue

Added by nlowell on April 6, 2007 at 6:45pm — 2 Comments

CyberCompliment

Today is CyberCompliment day - thanks to Jennifer Wagner.
I would like to compliment all the members of Classroom 2.0 for the thought provoking dialogue and deep insights into using technology for our students now and into the future.

Added by Sharon Betts on April 6, 2007 at 4:53pm — No Comments