Telecom and Networking in Education
This week I started a summer session class that I’ve been looking forward to taking for the last year. IT5710 is structured around Telecommunications and Networking. I was glad to find out in the first week that we would be covering Web 2.0 tools as well. During the first class I was a little overwhelmed with the tools being covered. There is so much out there! Things I hadn’t realized were Web 2.0 really were. One example is iGoogle. I talked about this tool on our class Wiki as well. I’ve enjoyed playing around with the options given for news and information in iGoogle. I’ve designed it for my needs and setup a calendar to be shared with my family. They like it and I’m hoping we use it. I’m excited to try this tool out with my 4th and 5th grade students next year. I want to see how they feel about using it and I’m excited to get their input. I’m sure they will teach me a few things along the way!
During class we experimented with other tools. Voice Thread, Google Docs, Gliffy and Bubbl.us were very interesting to me. I haven’t had a chance to play with many more, but I’ve got a good list going! I think I can use Gliffy and Bubbl.us in class with some of my kids. I’m hoping they will be able to focus on their tasks. I, on the other hand, keep playing with the architecture area of Gliffy making rooms and decorating them! Must be the summer fun coming out 
I’m surprised these tools are free. They can be used for any topic and are actually easy to use. Bubbl.us is more focused on data flow (from what I’ve used so far) and I think the kids would be able to use this tool easier. Since I teach K-5 I have to be sure the tools are to difficult for them to use.
Google Docs I plan to use at the beginning of the school year. I want to try out the survey function which puts the student answers to questions into a spreadsheet format. I’m looking forward to using the data they submit. It’s laid out better for me than using my Clicker software and I don’t have as much front end work to do. All of my 2nd graders on up can fill in the survey.
Voice Thread is one of the tools I have not yet played with, but from what I’ve seen in class I think my kids would benefit from the communication tools. If I can get them using the technology for communication, I think the kids would enjoy it and engage more. Time will tell! I’ll try a few out on them and see where it takes us
Alison Saylor said,
June 16, 2008 at 7:26 am
Excellent summary, you seem to be far ahead in thinking of ways to use these tools in your classroom. Just take one at a time and don’t expect perfection from the beginning, I usually have to mess up a time or two to get to where I understand all the functions. I just keep plugging away. Hope these tools can further engage your students. Sorry to dump so much at once but it is a very condensed class.
rroberson said,
June 20, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Well I got my family hooked on iGoogle! My daughter and husband are using it along with iCalendar. They like that we can see each other’s schedules so easily. My husband is even going to try it out with his company. They schedule contractors and often need to know each others schedules, but they aren’t in the same location. Being able to look at the calendars from any internet location may help their scheduling needs.
As for new tools, I’ve had so much fun this week playing with JingProject. I’ve figured out how to size my screen so I can view only what I need. I’ve also figured out how to save the files correctly and use them on a web page. One thing I’m still working on is the size inside the web page. I’m still working on this one. Overall the tool has been extremely helpful when trying to explain steps to someone who is not local. I’m really excited to use it next year at school. I feel it will help me help the teachers in my building.
I still haven’t tried out Voice Thread. Hopefully over the next couple weeks I can test it out.
Ronna Roberson said,
June 23, 2008 at 3:27 pm
This summer we had a teacher moving classrooms and she needed my help with setting up some PC microscopes in her classroom. She taught at our school last year (obviously) and I had no idea she had these little devices. They are so cool! The microscopes are Intel brand and they look like toys; blue plastic with bright green focusing buttons. They plug in by USB so the setup was easy. The only reason she needed my help was for installing the software on her new PCs.
We got everything installed and setup and then I asked her if I could play with them. Each microscope came with slides of different plant and insect parts, but you could easily use any science slide with them. I focused in on a plant cell and then found I could take still pictures of it! What a great idea for creating a slideshow with paragraphs on what the student is learning. The nice thing I found with these microscopes was the ease in focusing, zooming and brightening the object. They were so easy to use!
What she was doing in class was asking each student to bring something in from outside and letting the kids look at it under the microscope. She has them create a mystery with the item they have found and then the student presents the identity of the true item at the end of the mystery. It sounds like they have so much fun with it.
The software I installed for her has added features which allow the kids to record movies of the slides they view. I didn’t play as extensively with the software because I think she was wanting to leave for the day (it is summer). The little bit that I did play with was kid friendly. Steps were easy to follow and the buttons to click on are large and have graphics on them for labels. For a time lapse film, the kids click on the play button and then set the time between snapshots with a slide bar.
One other thing, you can take the head off of the microscope and move it over ANYTHING! It kinda works like a document camera (with less resolution).
This technology is definitely something I would like to play with more when school starts again. Oh, I asked her how she purchased them and she said her old school got a grant to buy them. Each classroom received one and she bought another one with her budget money. Great idea for a science grant!
asaylor said,
July 4, 2008 at 11:03 am
I had 2 of these microscopes,I finally gave them to the life science teachers but the uses are huge. Kids who are sometimes uneagaged were totally focused all period with them. Being able to take the images and repurpose them to create something new to show their learning is a big benefit. Glad you are exposed to them.
rroberson said,
July 5, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Upgrade, cleanup and/or purchase a new system?
Early this year my parents asked me what I thought they should do about their computer. I knew it was old. They purchased it in 1999. That was a sure give-away to what they should do, but they didn’t have the funds to spend on a new computer. I told them I could look into a couple things and asked if they had their old invoice. Sure enough, they had kept it with the install CDs that the PC came with. I couldn’t believe it. I need to be more like my parents!
I took a look at the invoice and they were running a P3 600MHz Gateway desktop. It only had 128 MB of memory. I couldn’t believe they were actually working on the internet! Even some of my kids games still played on it. I was surprised that it had a 34 Gb hard drive with 80% free space. That made me think we might be able to do something to help it run faster.
I started to do cleanup routines on it (disc frag, delete history files, etc.). These things helped a little, but nothing too noticable. I had some old RAM from school that I used to show the kids in class. It looked to be the same type my parent’s PC took. I knew that the newer PC didn’t take this type of memory because the cuts in the brick were different and I couldn’t buy what my parents needed at Best Buy. I thought it was a long shot becuase I had never installed new RAM in a computer, but I took the computer apart and installed the memory.
That’s where my techie knowledge ended. I put the computer back together and had no idea what to do next. The computer still ran, but it ran just as it had before. I tried to find information to tell me what I should do to test it, but couldn’t find much. The reason I don’t think it worked is when the system boots, the memory was not detected. Under My Computer it still says 128 MB RAM.
I have a feeling I either have the wrong type of memory, the speed doesn’t match or it is worthless. We decided to stop at this point and save up to get a new PC. They don’t want to pay to take it in to someone to look at when that money could be put towards a new computer. I’m at a loss. I really wish I knew more about what to do.
kevin said,
July 8, 2008 at 9:06 am
I think you’re doing the right thing. The most reasonable upgrade to try is memory (RAM). I legitimately think that a RAM upgrade would noticeably improve the performance (128 is so little RAM!), but would never put it on par w/ anything modern. the tough part about the problem you ran into is knowing what is compatible. Typically systems built in ‘99 were designed to be upgraded, so my guess is there was no sticker on the RAM chip that indicated what kind it was? You could try looking on that invoice, or possibly looking up the system on the vendor website by serial #. I’ll be honest, sometimes it’s just plain hard to find out what type of RAM it needs. Even Vendors like Dell don’t always have good records for machines that are that old. Sometimes their support site can’t even reconcile a valid serial #.
rroberson said,
July 11, 2008 at 7:47 am
IMAGE AND VOICE EDITING
There are so many tools out there for image and audio editing. Many of the image editing software I had used before. I have not played very much with audio. I did create a PhotoyStory presentation for another class and I also helped a teacher create something from a bunch of pictures. Neither of these included voice recording. Music was loaded and off we went.
In class this last time many people talked about Google’s Picasa. I had heard of it but never tried it out. Since people were talking about it in class, I figured it needed a try. I was amazed!! I have folders of pictures all over my home PC. Most are in My Documents or on my Desktop, but I’m not good at organizing them. As a matter of fact I have lost pictures because I didn’t know where I downloaded them.
What a tool! After I went through the install process it asked me if I wanted the program to scan my entire PC for pictures or just My Documents, My Pictures and the Desktop. I chose the later and off it went. It found and organized folders based on date for every picture type file. AMAZING!! The format is great and the image viewing is a nice size. I have to recommend you try it.
After playing with Picasa a bit, I moved on to VoiceThread. I played with it in class, but never updated anything. For this weeks project I loaded in a group of pictures from a family trip. It took a while to figure out the editing features, but once I got it it was fun! I added voice to each picture, rotated the images and shared it out. I also played with drawing on the pictures, but did not save them into the project. I’m hoping the sharing of the link will allow you to view the files. It as a bit tricky getting it to be public but I found the settings for making it public, but unsearchable. I can see this tool being useful for collaboration on projects in the computer lab. Here’s my link. I hope you enjoy it! http://voicethread.com/share/165004/
Alison said,
July 11, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I’m glad you liked Picassa. I have read about it and downloaded the album for Mac, I don’t use it because I use the Mac iPhoto which is the same essentially. It does help to have all photos organized. I back up to DVD frequently to avoid loss. I like the fact that there are so many ways to use and edit photos. It makes it easier to encourage our students to be digital creators.
Your voice thread was great. I have been there but didn’t know about the dolphins. Very cool experience for all of you. What a nice album to share with your extended family and keep as a keepsake, I notice that they charge for a download, maybe their business plan to make money. This app is very easy to use with kids. I shared my student Colorado experiences with a class in Palestine, they were very interested in what it was like to live over there. I hope you’ll try it with your own students this fall. Keep up the great work! Alison