My Web 2.0 Journey

I cannot believe how many amazing programs I’ve learned, skills I’ve acquired, and ideas I’ve created during the past 23 Things.  I love this course and would love to take it again just to become more familiar with all the tools, programs, and lessons I’ve learned the past 10 weeks. 

I feel a bit overwhelmed about implementing and using some of these tools, but I know that once I begin digging into a lesson, I will find a lot of golden opportunities to share with my students.

My next step is to take my lessons and see what I can do with Web 2.0 to enrich  them, to make them more exciting, and to make them impressionable.

Thank you, Shelley, for facilitating such a great class.

Ok.  I just finished producing my first podcast.  Again, a bit overwhelming because of all the steps, but I know I will just have to practice to get used to it.  I think I would like to try this with my 5th graders &/or high schoolers at my shul.  With the high schoolers, I’m their Holocaust educator and might have them read testimonies, poems, or letters from those who did or did not survive the Holocaust.  With my 5th graders, I would have to arrange them in groups due my classroom size and spend one class writing the dialogue ( instead of the skits I usually assign based on certain lessons) during one class and then record them the next class. 

Classroom 2.0 has so much to offer.  As I made my way through the list of recommended Tips, I found discussions pertinent to my teaching – reading comprehension, gifted readers, writing workshops – and well as to my personal – a RSS feed for National Geographic articles for kids, which all my children would love to read.  Again, like many of the other “Things” I’ve done, this, too, is a bit overwhelming with the amount of information available and the amount of avenues I can take to find what I might (or might not) be looking for.  Since most of my teaching doesn’t involve a classroom of students, I can see using this sight for my personal, professional needs.

One of the several items I starred and will definitely use in my Holocaust teachings is the testimony from Holocaust survivor Gitla Rosenblum.  What makes this piece so effective is that it’s as if you’re reliving the experience as she tells it.  Her sentences are short with some broken English, while black and white photos align the text. 

Boy, I’m tired!  Just spent an unknown amount of time figuring out what I want on my pageflake.  I had fun looking and felt as if there’s so much more gournd to cover out there in Pageflakes Land.  I definitely added more professional than personal flakes and am content with my current work in progress. One idea I had as I was creating my page is to use this for my Reading Comprehension workshop I’m teaching in a few weeks.  As part of the class, I would like to have students create a page and add topics of interest that they want to read as part of their lessons for the week.  I do have to flesh out this idea a bit more, but truly feel these students will and can benefit from a tool like Pageflakes.

For my Holocaust classes, I can add flakes of visuals, podcasts, articles, etc. that will give my students a variety of avenues and topics from which to learn.

What a wonderful alternative to Outlook Google Docs is!  While the spreadsheets & Docs programs are very easy to learn, I do need to spend more time on the Presentation tool.  Collaboratively, I can use this with my colleague who also teaches 5th grade Judaics at my Shul.  Since we teach the same lesson every Sunday, we can work on our lessons via G. Docs.  As for the Spreadsheets, I can use this with my Holocaust lesson plans as I create lessons for three different grades and need a visual overview of each lesson and when I plan to present.  The Presentations tool has so many opportunities for its use – a more creative way of teaching a lesson, whether it’s a Jewish holiday or a story about the Holocaust.

YouTube definitely has great potential to distract me from all my other responsibilities, but I stayed strong and focused. On YouTube and TeacherTube, I researched Holocaust survivor testimonies and found LOTS of video – great for when I teach the Holocaust to my 8th, 9th, and 10th graders at my shul.
As for videos on teaching writing and reading comprehension, I found very little; yet, I do believe if I spend more time searching and refining my search, there will be more to uncover. I did find a fun exercise on helping reluctant writers and plan on using it for my August writing workshop for rising sixth graders. To see it, visit my Wiki page (Traci’sWorkingWiki) or my “Thing 8″ blog.
 

I do believe that podcasts have a place in education; however, after listening to a few educational ones, I came to the conclusion that the person speaking has to have a fluctuating voice and a true passion for what he/she is saying.  I mean, students can learn to tune out podcasts just like they have with certain teachers. 

I have not used podcasts personally or professionally but do have the desire to get to know this tool, especially in conjunction with my Holocaust curriculum.  How amazing would it be for students to hear the voice of a survivor ?  And even better, what if I could find a video podcast of a survivor or anything related to our studies?  Too cool! 

I look forward to digging deeper and wider into this world of podcasting.

My head is still spinning.  Am I dreaming?  I think I’ve gone to a place like Heaven called Library Thing.    Very, very cool.  Very, very exciting.  And very, very overwhelming.  But…it’s all good!  I have to tell you that I focused my searched on Pat Conroy, my favorite author, and found that he is reading from and talking about his new book here in Atlanta at the Carter Center on Aug. 19th.  Yes!

As for my uses of this site for my classroom, I would love to research Holocaust literature with my students and come up w/ a 50 Book type challenge w/ them.  Personally, my uses for Library Thing are unlimited.  Gotta go.  My book adventure is awaiting me.

Delicious is a great resource site – professionally and personally.  I spent most of my time searching for innovative and creative lesson plans on the Holocaust – and found a lot.  Although I didn’t look at all of the available sites, one of the ones I bookmarked had a learning site and on-line workshop for teaching the Holocaust.  The other topic of interest I searched was book recommendations for pleasure (although this can be used professionally as well).  I do look forward to more searches and findings using Delicious. Oh, and feel to view my current bookmarks.