Internet Resources: Week 4

This week we took a look at copyright law and fair use, as well as Creative Commons; which are both important issues when considering use of technology in the classroom. There are many tools and techniques that make the process of "lifting" another person's creative work quite easy to do. The sharing and collaborative nature of the internet makes claiming ownership of one's creative and intellectual property difficult to control. One of the resources we tapped into is a YouTube video: Copyright 101 for Teachers which looked at copyright law and fair use from a more traditional perspective. We also refered to http://creativecommons.org which is a vast resource that helps consumers of information found on the internet know our limitations when it comes to how specific products can be used or adapted, and steps that need to be taken in doing so.

We also addressed Internet safety for children, which is a critical topic in an educational setting. Some of the resources we investigated include:

• Children’s Internet Protection Act: http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/cipa.html .
• Internet Safety for Kids:  http://www.komputers4rkids.com/Protection.html is a huge clearinghouse of resources for teachers and parents related to keeping children safe on the Internet.
• Government Publications:  http://www.fbi.gov/publications/pguide/pguidee.htm
• The Wise Kids website:  http://www.webwisekids.org/index.asp?page=parents

All of these websites were found to be quite valuable. I am especially interested in going back to look at the Wise Kids site in further detail.

Internet Resources: Week 3

Week 3 of Internet Learning Resources provided me with the opportunity to evaluate several educational resources for creating products and facilitating learning online. We looked at the presentation tool 280 Slides; polling tools on Google Forms and Poll Everywhere; cartooning tools of pikikids.com, toondoo.com and xtranormal.com; and Adobe Buzzword as another online collaborative word processing / office suite option. These online applications have a lot of potential uses in the classroom as well as in business application, so I look forward to having the chance to spend additional time learning more about the features they offer.

We also started an annotative bibliography of Internet resources of interest to us. I see this as something that will be helpful in keeping track of the various sites we have been introduced to throughout our coursework and I believe it will be valuable to maintain beyond this particular course.

Internet Resources: Week 2

This week's theme for me had to do with helping students think critically about the internet resources available. We took a look at Noodle Tools, which serves as a great starting point for students preparing to do research using Internet Resources. Noodle Tools helps students think about purpose, and the types of media they want to access when conducting the research. I think it is a wonderful resource that would be especially valuable to students new to the research process.

We also looked at Google Alerts and discusssed how this particular tool could be used both personally and professionally. I had never used the Alerts feature before, but I can see it being a great way to improve productivity and spend less time on the search process, and more time on the analysis of the information.

CEdO520 Week 1

This week we were introduced to wikis--we are using a wiki as the main mode of communication for this class, and while I was getting used to Angel, I am finding the PB works pretty easy to use. I am looking forward to getting more comfortable with it and learning how it works; I think it could be useful to have a wiki for communications with my staff. Once I learn a little more about it, I may decide to give it a try.

The question about the usefulness of our weekly blogs came up in our first class meeting, which left us with the task of coming up with more effective ways to chronicle our work in this cohort. As I stated in class, I think the blogs serve a purpose: It is going to be a great reference when we get to the end of our coursework and have to try to recall what we did back in these earlier classes. For that purpose, I think the somewhat repetitive question of "what we did and how we see it can apply to what we do," makes sense. In the moment it feels like it is getting a little old and there are going to be things we learn in class that doesn't always apply to what we do or currently have available to us in our workplace; but recording what we did in my own words and connecting it to how I could see it being used in education (if ideally resources were available to me) is going to help me pull it all together in the end.

I think the more difficult part in my mind is commenting on other people's entries. There are times I have felt compelled to leave a comment because I had an idea I thought would be helpful or had a reaction to what I read, which is how it should be. I also like reading other people's blogs because it gives me new perspectives on what we are learning. I had more of a problem in the weeks where I enjoyed reading other people's thoughts, but didn't have much to add; yet I had to comment in order to complete the assignment. I also would like to have some kind of notification when comments are made, which I have since learned can be changed in the settings of my account.

So, overall, I find the blogging useful as a journal of the work I am completing in this course. Because this is a fast-paced program, I find that I'm very into "the moment" and then I have to move on. I like that I can go back to read my previous entries and it jogs my memory of what I've done, what I liked, what I though was useful and want to go back to later on. It's also a record that belongs only to me, so if something should ever happen where I need to stop taking classes for a time and then resume, I know I can pick up where I left off regardless of the cohort I'm in.