K12 Online Conference – Part 1 – New Tools Strand
I have to say I was a bit apprehensive about what I could get out of an online conference when I first started this assignment, but as you will see from my blog posting I feel I learned a lot.
From a technology standpoint viewing an online conference was a little clunky, but it was a fun way to learn. Downloading the mp3 of the presentations didn’t take much time, but the audio was not complete on one of the presentations I chose. Listening to audio only presentations was not as easy to follow as with a slideshow or video. When trying to view the original video streaming through Google the video would skip and stall, even with high bandwidth. Downloading the complete movie file (if it was available) was the best way to experience the presentations, but the download time was very long. Being able to see the slides, rewind and pause was a great feature that allowed me to listen and follow at my own pace and repeat items I needed to review. I found myself wanting a ‘repeat last 8 seconds’ button like on Tivo because sometimes I could not understand a bit of what the speaker said. It was hard to rewind back just far enough without going too far back.
My Conference Agenda
“More Than Cool Tools – Keynote”
New Tools Strand
http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=149
“Step by Step – Building your Web 2.0 classroom”
Classroom 2.0 Strand
http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=169
“Challenging Assumptions About Technology Professional Development”
Obstacles to Opportunities Strand
http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=183
“The Technology Specialist as Teacher Leader: Strategies to Ensure Successful Technology Integration and Student Learning in Schools”
Obstacles to Opportunities Strand
http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=186
Professional Learning Networks
“Expanding Horizons – Engaging the Adult Members of your Community (Teachers, Administrators, and Parents) through the Use of Personal/Professional Learning Networks”
http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=199
More Than Cool Tools
I listened to the audio podcast of this conference and within the first 5 minutes I was a little lost. I am embarrassed to say, since I am a technology specialist, that I had never heard of the phrase Web 2.0 until this course. This presentation was a collaboration of many speakers and it was very hard to follow with audio only. I found myself writing a lot of notes, which is what I do when I can’t absorb what is being said as it is being said.
I kept listening to this talk hoping to hear what ‘cool tools’ we could use in the classroom, but it wasn’t until the last speaker that I heard anyone talk about education. I honestly came away from this presentation dreading listening to/watching the others because this was so poorly put together.
What I took away from this presentation:
- Web 2.0 is the phrase for the web based applications that have evolved to help people and web sites connect online
- The Embed Tag, which has been around for a while, help make a lot of this connecting happen
- Sites used to want you to go to their web sites, now you can grab parts of web sites to feature on your own
- Slideshare is the You Tube for PPT that converts powerpoints to flash
- API – tools that open communication channels between web sites, like coordinated Flickr and Picnic accounts
- Mixercast sounds like an interesting site that allows you to grab images and videos, put them on a timeline then produce a slideshow video
- Web 2.0 tools work well when you give a user something that helps them personally get organized to capture their attention then add tools and extend their social relationship with the web site.
- Good examples of this are Flicker and Delicious. Great tools to organize photos, tag them with keywords and geotag them to location, then there is a cascading effect that builds a community and helps you find others with similar tastes/interest
- Google documents is new and works well with multiple author editing and eliminates need for synchronizing which is final word processing and spreadsheet documents. Similar buttons and commands to word but file is saved online, which could be beyond comfort zone for some. Files can be saved as Word files. Zoho is a similar site.
What all this means for educators:
- When you create a relationship in one of these social networking web sites, you can then customize your web searches within those sites. This limits searches to those sites you trust.
- Creative Commons makes it easy to license and set criteria for use, like an online badge of approval
- You can use Google’s advanced search to filter by license
- It is easier to publish online now than it ever has been. You can control the flow of content through a community – edublog, bluehost
