A Letter to My EDM 310 Students

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Part 2 of Blog Assignments Now Available

The blog assignments for April 5 and the rest of the semester are now available by Clicking Here.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Twitter - John Dunlop (T2) Makes A Find

John Dunlop, a student in T2, has found an unusual use for Twitter. Read about it!

Concatenate

In class Thursday we covered combining fields in a spreadsheet using the Concatenate function. If you were not in class Thursday March 26 you should review the material on spreadsheets found in the handouts section of this blog and in the instructional videos found here.

Forms

On Tuesday we did Forms. If you were not in class Tuesday you must construct a form following the instructions to be posted on this blog later today.

ALL students (whether present or not on Tuesday) must complete all forms which they have been sent. These are to be completed by next Tuesday class time (March 31).

Twitter

In order to learn about Twitter and to see whether Twitter can be useful to teachers, we are going to use Twitter.

So...
1. Go to www.twitter.com and create an account
2. Follow me: winetimejs and USABaldwin (Baldwin County Campus twitter account)
3. If you are in T9, follow christinadotcom; If you are in T11 follow RachelCallahan; if you are in T2 follow newelljamie1
4. Watch the movie Twitter provides
5. Watch the movie in the class blog about Twitter. (See the post Even More About Twitter below.)
6. Find out all you can about twitter.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Our Tools Will Always Change

Technology is creating new tools for teachers and students to use every day. This week I have added 4 new tools to explore and discuss that were not in the syllabus at the start of the semester: EverNote, Delicious, Twitter and Tinyurl. The tools will change even more by the time you have your own classroom.The changes in technology and our tools demands that we, as teachers, be constantly learning new things.

Even More About Twitter

The Ultimate Guide for Everything Twitter from Web Designer Depot.

Attention Class: Writing With Multimedia in Action

You have heard my arguments that we now are living in a world of listeners/watchers rather than reader/writers and my insistence that the teachers of tomorrow must encourage students to "write" (produce) with multimedia. Two excellent examples of this are in the two preceding blogs. Read them. Think again about my arguments. Lee LeFever is making a living with that approach!

Social Bookmarking (Delicious) Explained in Plain English

Another Commoncraft Show by Lee LeFever about Social Networking and Delicious. This show uses teachers as an example of how Delicious works.

Twitter Explained in Plain English



A Explanation of Twitter by Lee Lefever at The Commoncraft Show. This site also has brief, simply stated explanations of Blogs, Social Networking, RSS, Wikis, Social Bookmarking, Podcasts, Web Searching and many other topics.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Did You Fail to Share Your Midterm Reflections With Me?

Several of you who were in class Tuesday and did do the Midterm Reflections assignment failed to share it with me. Do so NOW. Share with me as a collaborator strange.john@gmail.com

Did You Miss Class Tuesday March 10?

If so, you were not alone. Nine were absent in the 9:00 class and 8 were not present at 11:00. BUT EVERYONE WAS IN ATTENDANCE AT 2:00! Thank you 2:00 Class!

If you were not in class you missed several announcements (all of which are on the class blog so read the other posts as well).

In addition, you missed the Midterm Reflection assignment. Click and download this assignment. Complete it in Google Documents. Share it with me (as a collaborator) at strange.john@gmail.com

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

ACCESS Lab Visit Changed to ACCESS Lab Video and Google Earth Project

Due to a variety of factors, you will not have to visit an ACCESS Lab. We will, instead, do a video which you will watch. I will do a visit to the Daphne Lab, conduct several interviews, and create an ACCESS Lab video tape. You will be expected to watch it during the time you have set aside to make a visit to an ACCESS lab. The video will be available by April 15.

If you are interested in helping me conduct the interviews, take the video, and edit the resulting tapes, please contact me. You would have an opportunity to learn some new skills!

IN ADDITION, I will be assigning you a tenth project - in Google Earth. This assignment will be discuseed and posted immediately after Spring Break.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Podcasts Have Started

The podcasts for this semester have started!

You will be sent an email later today explaining how to listen to your podcast NOW and the date on which it will become available in iTunes.

You should subscribe in iTunes. Tell all of your friends, neighbors, family to subscribe as well!

To subscribe in iTunes, go to the iTunes Store, then click on Podcasts, then search for author: john strange.

Listen to your podcast NOW. If you need to add links to any sites you mention (or books or anything else), email me immediately.

If there is a problem with your podcast, email me immediately.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Can't Find The Edible Schoolyard or A Night in the Global Village?

If you can't find something in iTunes, do a search in iTunes. Often podcasts are moved or reorganized. For example, The Edible Schoolyard is now in the Integrated Studies section of Edutopia. The Edible Schoolyard is at the top of the list of the Integrated Studies podcasts.

A Night in the Global Village is now in the Social and Emotional Learning section of Edutopia. Go to Edutopia, click on Social and Emotional Learning. A Night in the Global Village is at the top of the list of podcasts.

REMEMBER: If you can't find something in iTunes, do a search in iTunes. That usually works.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Isn't It Amazing!

Miranda Hill found this site: CU-Online:PK-12 Ed Tech News and Resources. It is chock full of very useful information. Check it out!