Thing #11

Flickr..............WOW.......... I have spent hours upon hours fishing through all of the available pictures. It's amazing to me the vast majority that are available to use through Creative Commons. I was disappointed at times, when I realized that a photo I had viewed previously was not available to use. I found myself reasoning, why it was okay to still use it. Don't worry, I kept myself from temptation and ended up with some awesome pictures. My topic and theme is Space......... and the things in it. I spent a huge focus on the Earth/Moon relationship as well. Blue Marble is thanks to WoodleyWonderWorks on Flickr.

Thing 10 - Stretch

I played around with OER (Open Educational Resources) a bit. I was amazed at the amount of content that people are so willing to share. It has such a wealth of information. I can't wait to sit with my lessons and "remix" them to contain the new information.

Thing 10

Creative Commons is such an amazing concept. I've noticed on the right hand side of some of my browser's there is a Creative Common's search box. I never knew what it was, nor explored it prior to know. Copyright is such an overshadowing part of our society, always in the back of our minds, especially as teachers. I know how hard it is to want to share something that has that "not for reproduction" or "not for distribution" etc., on the bottom right hand corner of it's pages. I haven't ever noticed the CC logo, but I will be looking for it now. I'm guessing the pages, that bring up the search box I mentioned earlier, are probably, Creative Commons sites. Hmmm................ I think Creative Commons provides us with the opportunity to do so much more for our students, and for them to share, reuse and remix what they and others have created. I use pictures often in my teaching, Science simply can not be taught with out visuals, and I often find myself wondering if the pictures I use are "okay" to use; now I have a place to go to find pictures and KNOW that they are "okay". In Lawrence Lessig's blog he mentioned that certain books that are copyrighted, can not be read aloud!!! OMG!!! My only response to this nonsense, is Why???? I share content quite frequently with my students and their parents on my classroom blog. When reading this "thing", I found myself questioning if the items I was putting on there were okay to share, "Where did I find that picture?" "Can I link to that website?" etc. The videos really helped me to understand the concept behind Creative Commons and how now we have "some rights reserved" versus "all rights reserved".

Thing 9- Stretch

Here's my voki!!!



It's also on my wiki!!

Thing 9

My wiki on our "sandbox" page is JandMEchols. Well, I first started playing with Wikispace for another class that I am taking. I very quickly became frustrated and overwhelmed, and mad at myself for struggling with creating a page. I consider myself to be somewhat savvy, but this had me down for the count. After reading your instructions and creating my page, it was like a breath of fresh air, so much more easy. After creating my wiki, I found myself wanting to go back and change my URL, because I thought it wasn't "creative" enough. Oh well, it is what it is, right!!?? I really enjoyed being able to create the page about me, and getting to see those that others created! I especially enjoyed creating my banner for the top of my page. I also loved learning how to create a Table of Contents on our page. It is so useful. This one "thing" created so many "ah ha" moments for me, it was like the proverbial light turned on. :)

Thing 8- Stretch

I chose to look up the term "softball" on Wikipedia. I originally had searched the term "blogging" which led me to "blog". Though I thought, this information would be interesting and useful to this course, I was upset that there was no discussion. So then I tried searching "softball" this response included information that seems very factual, and is written with very good grammar. However, when looking at the discussion tabs, I only found 2. These provided wikis that you can link to, as well as a post stating that this page was nominated for "good article", and one stating that it did not win. Once, again I felt let down. I think many viewers may be like me, without this class, I was "uninformed". I had no idea what a wiki was, nor that Wikipedia was interactive, especially that you could discuss topics on it. I had heard people talk about how you couldn't trust all of the information, that anyone could change it, but I did not know how. Unit Now!!!! When looking at the history, I learned that this page was created on April 17, 2007 and has not been updated since February 3, 2009.

Thing #8

Wiki teaching seems to be a very useful tool. I love the opportunity that they provide for collaboration in the classroom. While exploring, I visited Go West, a wiki in which the students were broken up into groups, I'm assuming, and the students each reported on different aspects of the Oregon Trail. Some of the information included on the pages I explored were; time lines, explorers, hardships, luxuries, and women. I found this a much more meaningful way to explore the Oregon Trail versus the game I remember playing in the computer lab as an Elementary School student. :) I also visited the Thousands Project. This site was a bit confusing to me, but had such an awesome concept. The teacher/class authoring the Thousands Project posts a new topic of discussion each month. Their goal is to receive 1,000 responses by the end of the month. This would be a good tool to foster communication amongst students and set a basis for acceptance and a gain in knowledge of other cultures. It seems to me however, that this wiki is not maintained quite how it should be, the content seems scattered and incomplete. I'd love to see what the teacher does with the responses, to give the last bit of "meaning" the "why" to why they are doing the projects. Lastly, I chose to visit 1001 Flat World Tales. This wiki provided the opportunity to "share" a writing project. It's an ongoing story/stories, that are edited constantly by different people. I love the premise behind this, however I found the wiki a bit confusing to navigate through. In the Intel class that I am currently taking I created a "sample" wiki that would be a student example of work that would be expected. The process was very eye-opening for me, and I think our students could really benefit from the shared experiences.