I have not used any bookmarking sites before so this was totally new to me. I had heard of them before but I never felt that I would have a use for them. I have always used the favorites/bookmark option on my browser. For me that has been suficient enough for my needs. My only problem was when we had to wipe out the hard drive or get a new computer I would lose all of them and did not know how to get them back. Thanks to diigo and delicious I now have a way to save all my bookmarks that does not depend on my computer.
When I compared these two sites I did not see much of a difference. They both give you the option to tag, upload, friend and find popular sites. The one difference between the two that I liked was on diigo when I was looking at a certain tag to find websites there was an option to preview the website right there. I did not have to open another window and could even interact with the website to see if I liked it before I added it.
There was one problem with both of the sites. I tried to get the add on to my toolbar and after I downloaded it it told me it was not compatable with firefox 4. This was a major bummer because I wanted to see if there was an easier way to add favorites as I searched the internet. I also had a hard time putting my favorites from firefox on it. This was because the menu item that the directions told me to look for was not there. I had to search for a while and finally found it. I don't know if there is a way but they need to somehow have an easy way to add a new bookmark when I add it to my firefox bookmarks. Of course this may have been an option in the toolbar I could not have.
The only way that I would think that I might use these sites was to find new math websites. This would be because I know if they are popular then they must be good to use.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Virtual Worlds in education
I had already done some extensive investigating into Second Life before because of my online communications class. I find that it is a cool place to explore. It is very visually pleasing. It has some cool things to explore. I found a virtual hallucinations island. That was a weird place to explore. It is supposed to show you how it is to be schizophrenic. I have explored the virtual colosseum, aquariums and even a 3D Bloom's Taxonomy in the past. I think this is a great place to have meetings where you can put a face to a name. As a teacher you can post slides and videos for students to learn from. This is pretty much what I learned from the past explorations.
Since I was basically doing this assignment twice I thought I would go more in depth of how Second Life(SL) could be used in education. I started to do some research on the internet about virtual worlds in general. Really SL is the one that kept popping up. I looked more into what it had to offer then. I ran into an article that had a few top islands in SL. One that stood out to me was Really Engaging Accounting. I teach math so I thought I would look into how you could teach math using SL. This island was designed to make people into debits or credits. They were to actually go through the exercise of obtaining items and using formulas. As they obtained items they saw how it changed the formula automatically. I know I do not do the island justice but I would check it out.
Then I ran into the SLOODLE island. It is Moodle connected to SL. You can either comment while in SL or while you are in Moodle and the comments show up in both places. The Moodle website and SL are linked together. You can learn using the 3D virtual world of SL and the answers go to the online classroom of Moodle. It even had where you could take a quiz in SL and the grade goes directly to Moodle. Most of this is done using the Moodle toolbar that you must attach to yourself. This just shows how all the things we are learning about link together. If you would like to learn more about SLOODLE check out this article or just go to the SLOODLE island in SL and it will explain it all for you.
The last thing that I will add is the picture of me in Selmo Park. I found a cool place that I would like to hangout.
Since I was basically doing this assignment twice I thought I would go more in depth of how Second Life(SL) could be used in education. I started to do some research on the internet about virtual worlds in general. Really SL is the one that kept popping up. I looked more into what it had to offer then. I ran into an article that had a few top islands in SL. One that stood out to me was Really Engaging Accounting. I teach math so I thought I would look into how you could teach math using SL. This island was designed to make people into debits or credits. They were to actually go through the exercise of obtaining items and using formulas. As they obtained items they saw how it changed the formula automatically. I know I do not do the island justice but I would check it out.
Then I ran into the SLOODLE island. It is Moodle connected to SL. You can either comment while in SL or while you are in Moodle and the comments show up in both places. The Moodle website and SL are linked together. You can learn using the 3D virtual world of SL and the answers go to the online classroom of Moodle. It even had where you could take a quiz in SL and the grade goes directly to Moodle. Most of this is done using the Moodle toolbar that you must attach to yourself. This just shows how all the things we are learning about link together. If you would like to learn more about SLOODLE check out this article or just go to the SLOODLE island in SL and it will explain it all for you.
The last thing that I will add is the picture of me in Selmo Park. I found a cool place that I would like to hangout.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Netbook Vs. Tablet
As I type this blog on my tablet I know that I will be partial to working with a tablet. I have to or I feel stupid for getting one. I really feel it is more fun.
One thing that we would like for students is something that is an all-in-one and is portable. I think that a tablet is more portable than a net book. They both can be an all-in-one though. I listed pros and cons of a tablet and really ended up with more cons but I enjoy it more. Lets start with the pros. A table is more portable, is just as fast as a net book and has the cool touch screen. Who does not love a touch screen. A con on both is battery life. I don't think either would last a whole school day of use on one battery charge. One big con on my tablet is I cannot download any programs off the internet that I may need to use. The big one was a flash player when I first got this. That thankfully was fixed a couple of weeks later in an update. There is no Microsoft Office on a tablet. Of course I can always access Google Docs and that takes care of that problem. I can't save anything directly to my tablet, but again I can use Google Docs and the cloud to take care of that. The last thing is the touch keyboard. I thought that I would beable to two hand type with it but it was getting to be too much of a problem. So I gave in and got a bluetooth keyboard to type with. Life is so much better now with it.
I had so much fun trying out apps that I could use in a classroom. Being a math teacher the first thing I looked at was a graphing calculator. I have found the free ones for the Android system to be very hard to use and follow. I found a nice one on the ipad called GraphCalcPro that was very user friendly and I think could rival parts of the TI series of calculators. This calculator can be used for basic functions and graphing. It also had available a table of values from your graph. It color coded each graph with the table for easy following. Another app I found on the Android was formula lite. This was similar to the formula book I had to buy for my Calculus classes in college. It had formulas for math, physics and chemistry. So it could be used for a reference to find formulas. It also had different calculators in it. It had a basic, scientific and also one that would derive a function for you. Where was that in my calculus class. I don't think I would mention this to my calculus students though for fear of cheating. One last app that I found was called my pocket prof. It is a program that you can use to store all of your notes. I only played with it a little, but you can upload notes from word and excel. It did not give you an option to upload powerpoint presentations. You can organize them by class and chapter. It also has an option that you can create classes and quizzes and sell them. The only problem that I saw was that I needed to get on my pc to upload anything or on the internet site to add in notes. The only thing I could do through the mobile app was to view the notes. I think this could be a neat option to share my notes with my students. There would not be that mess of papers to go through to find something.
I personally try to use my tablet when I can in my online classes. I love that even if I have an appointment I can work on school work while I am waiting. I have done this a few times. It is great for postings, research and blogs. I still don't think that I am sold on all the educational benifits of it. I think right now it would be more for personal use. I don't think this will ever replace my desktop computer.
One thing that we would like for students is something that is an all-in-one and is portable. I think that a tablet is more portable than a net book. They both can be an all-in-one though. I listed pros and cons of a tablet and really ended up with more cons but I enjoy it more. Lets start with the pros. A table is more portable, is just as fast as a net book and has the cool touch screen. Who does not love a touch screen. A con on both is battery life. I don't think either would last a whole school day of use on one battery charge. One big con on my tablet is I cannot download any programs off the internet that I may need to use. The big one was a flash player when I first got this. That thankfully was fixed a couple of weeks later in an update. There is no Microsoft Office on a tablet. Of course I can always access Google Docs and that takes care of that problem. I can't save anything directly to my tablet, but again I can use Google Docs and the cloud to take care of that. The last thing is the touch keyboard. I thought that I would beable to two hand type with it but it was getting to be too much of a problem. So I gave in and got a bluetooth keyboard to type with. Life is so much better now with it.
I had so much fun trying out apps that I could use in a classroom. Being a math teacher the first thing I looked at was a graphing calculator. I have found the free ones for the Android system to be very hard to use and follow. I found a nice one on the ipad called GraphCalcPro that was very user friendly and I think could rival parts of the TI series of calculators. This calculator can be used for basic functions and graphing. It also had available a table of values from your graph. It color coded each graph with the table for easy following. Another app I found on the Android was formula lite. This was similar to the formula book I had to buy for my Calculus classes in college. It had formulas for math, physics and chemistry. So it could be used for a reference to find formulas. It also had different calculators in it. It had a basic, scientific and also one that would derive a function for you. Where was that in my calculus class. I don't think I would mention this to my calculus students though for fear of cheating. One last app that I found was called my pocket prof. It is a program that you can use to store all of your notes. I only played with it a little, but you can upload notes from word and excel. It did not give you an option to upload powerpoint presentations. You can organize them by class and chapter. It also has an option that you can create classes and quizzes and sell them. The only problem that I saw was that I needed to get on my pc to upload anything or on the internet site to add in notes. The only thing I could do through the mobile app was to view the notes. I think this could be a neat option to share my notes with my students. There would not be that mess of papers to go through to find something.
I personally try to use my tablet when I can in my online classes. I love that even if I have an appointment I can work on school work while I am waiting. I have done this a few times. It is great for postings, research and blogs. I still don't think that I am sold on all the educational benifits of it. I think right now it would be more for personal use. I don't think this will ever replace my desktop computer.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Blackboard vs. Moodle
Both Blackboard and Moodle were similar. They have options to make discussion boards, quizzes, folders, and a nice calendar to post weekly assignments.
I think that I liked blackboard better. This is probably because I am a little more familiar with the program. I felt that it was very user friendly. I could easily play around with things on my own and not have to watch a tutorial to figure out how to create something. I felt like I got a little lost on Moodle. I had to watch a couple of tutorials to get me started. I think that I only scratched the surface on what I can do with Moodle.
There were a couple of things that I did on both programs so I could compare them. The first one was making a quiz. In blackboard all I had to do was go under the assignment heading and click on create assessment. I was then given several options of types of problems that I would want to create. It was also possible to upload a picture or use a link to ask questions on. The program could also grade the assessment for you. You just had to enter in the correct answer. It was also possible to give partial credit I saw on some types of problems. On Moodle you go under the weekly outline use the drop down menu for add an activity and choose quiz. It also gave you several types of questions you could use and you can upload a picture or use a link to ask questions on. The one thing I liked better about Moodle was the picture would show up in the quiz and you did not have to click on the link and wait for it to show up like on BB. Moodle also had an option to make the quiz timed and if you wanted to give the student a chance to change their answers with or without penalty of points. I thought that was pretty cool for an option.
The other item I checked out was making a discussion board. Both of them were easy to make. Blackboard already has an option for discussion board and you just make a title and add in your question. Moodle adds it in on the weekly outline. You again add a title and question for people to answer. It just adds onto what you already have in the weekly outline.
One cool thing I saw in BB was how easy it was to add a youtube video. I was under assignments and clicked on build content and saw youtube video under mash ups. I tried it and it adds in the video right into BB and not as a link. One thing I liked better about Moodle was that it lets us upload a picure to attach to our profile. I could not get mine to upload but I really like that idea. I like putting a face with a name.
In conclusion I liked BB better in designing an online class because I like its organization and it seems more user friendly to me. This may be because I have gotten used to using it but at the moment that is my opinion.
I think that I liked blackboard better. This is probably because I am a little more familiar with the program. I felt that it was very user friendly. I could easily play around with things on my own and not have to watch a tutorial to figure out how to create something. I felt like I got a little lost on Moodle. I had to watch a couple of tutorials to get me started. I think that I only scratched the surface on what I can do with Moodle.
There were a couple of things that I did on both programs so I could compare them. The first one was making a quiz. In blackboard all I had to do was go under the assignment heading and click on create assessment. I was then given several options of types of problems that I would want to create. It was also possible to upload a picture or use a link to ask questions on. The program could also grade the assessment for you. You just had to enter in the correct answer. It was also possible to give partial credit I saw on some types of problems. On Moodle you go under the weekly outline use the drop down menu for add an activity and choose quiz. It also gave you several types of questions you could use and you can upload a picture or use a link to ask questions on. The one thing I liked better about Moodle was the picture would show up in the quiz and you did not have to click on the link and wait for it to show up like on BB. Moodle also had an option to make the quiz timed and if you wanted to give the student a chance to change their answers with or without penalty of points. I thought that was pretty cool for an option.
The other item I checked out was making a discussion board. Both of them were easy to make. Blackboard already has an option for discussion board and you just make a title and add in your question. Moodle adds it in on the weekly outline. You again add a title and question for people to answer. It just adds onto what you already have in the weekly outline.
One cool thing I saw in BB was how easy it was to add a youtube video. I was under assignments and clicked on build content and saw youtube video under mash ups. I tried it and it adds in the video right into BB and not as a link. One thing I liked better about Moodle was that it lets us upload a picure to attach to our profile. I could not get mine to upload but I really like that idea. I like putting a face with a name.
In conclusion I liked BB better in designing an online class because I like its organization and it seems more user friendly to me. This may be because I have gotten used to using it but at the moment that is my opinion.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Cam Studio Vs. Camtasia
For me the answer is hands down Camtasia. This program can do much more for your video and is easily uploadable. Cam Studio was not hard to actually make the video. My problem was that it gave my computer the green screen of death if I tried to use hot keys to stop taping so I would not get the program in my video. So I just ended up having that little window in my video so I would not crash my computer. Then the real problems began when I tried to turn it in. I even had my husband try to help me convert it to SWF but the conversion never looked or sounded quite right. So I ended up uploading it to youtube and it took around 6 hours for my computer to do that. I thought I was back in the dial up days. Ugh!
Camtasia was really easy to video my app. My only problem with the video was getting my app to work correctly. Then I had so much fun playing with the music and zooming in and out and adding in arrows. I think my video looks cool. My only problem is my computer is having issues uploading it to youtube. The small video uploaded fine but maybe this one is too large. I'll just blame it on youtube because I think that Camtasia is fun. I like personalizing my video myself.
Here is my Camtasia video I created on making a prezi presentation.
Camtasia was really easy to video my app. My only problem with the video was getting my app to work correctly. Then I had so much fun playing with the music and zooming in and out and adding in arrows. I think my video looks cool. My only problem is my computer is having issues uploading it to youtube. The small video uploaded fine but maybe this one is too large. I'll just blame it on youtube because I think that Camtasia is fun. I like personalizing my video myself.
Here is my Camtasia video I created on making a prezi presentation.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Tablets in Education
With the recent unveiling of the ipad 2 and releases of a few android tablets I thought this would be a good topic. This topic is also for me because my husband just got me the new motorola xoom. He said it should be great for my classes and also should have a good use in my classroom when I start teaching again. So I thought I could use my research in proving him right or wrong for my blog.
First, so far it has proven quite well for my classes. The internet speed is pretty fast. I am able to do research on the internet and type up comments in discussion boards. I am even trying it out to type up this blog. I am amazingly typing with two hands on a touch screen. I never thought that I could do that. My only problem for this class is I cannot download programs that I need to create my videos. I guess there is no getting away from the pc for that. I really love the portability. I was able to do some stuff in blackboard yesterday while my car was in the shop.
Now for uses in my own classroom. Most of the things I have seen on the internet are if everyone has a tablet. We could send and receive data from eachother and interact with it. All of their books could be digitized and there would be no more huge backpacks in the middle of the isle to trip over.
One negative thing,probably because I have not really tried to figure it out, is correcting my typing errors. I have to line up my finger perfectly where I want the cursor to add or delete letters. Another thing is saving things. I know there is an SD card slot but there is no office program to work with. Although this class has taught me several ways that I can get around that using web 2.0 tools.
In conclusion I am having fun using this tablet and look forward to using it to its full potential.
First, so far it has proven quite well for my classes. The internet speed is pretty fast. I am able to do research on the internet and type up comments in discussion boards. I am even trying it out to type up this blog. I am amazingly typing with two hands on a touch screen. I never thought that I could do that. My only problem for this class is I cannot download programs that I need to create my videos. I guess there is no getting away from the pc for that. I really love the portability. I was able to do some stuff in blackboard yesterday while my car was in the shop.
Now for uses in my own classroom. Most of the things I have seen on the internet are if everyone has a tablet. We could send and receive data from eachother and interact with it. All of their books could be digitized and there would be no more huge backpacks in the middle of the isle to trip over.
One negative thing,probably because I have not really tried to figure it out, is correcting my typing errors. I have to line up my finger perfectly where I want the cursor to add or delete letters. Another thing is saving things. I know there is an SD card slot but there is no office program to work with. Although this class has taught me several ways that I can get around that using web 2.0 tools.
In conclusion I am having fun using this tablet and look forward to using it to its full potential.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Discovering Prezi
For the assignment this week I thought that I would explore around Prezi.com. I knew that it was a different way to make a presentation but had no clue how to use it. I wanted to see how easily I could use it in my math class.
First I had to sign up for an account. I signed up for the educators package which let me upgrade to the second step of the program. I then watched the tutorial video on the site and found out it is so easy to make. You just click on the screen and type in what you want. You can then click on the words and a zebra circle shows up to make your words bigger or smaller and also to turn them. I played around with it for a while and discovered how to group things together and to make the path of my presentation. I could not figure out how to make it auto play, but I did not think that was a big deal. The program even had some backgrounds to use so it is not all boring white. You can also add in pictures and videos. I had no idea that you could add in videos. One other thing I could not figure out was how to do a voice over. I figured if I really wanted to do that I could use the Jing program that we used last week.
There were a couple of problems that I had with it. First I tried to add in a video from youtube and it would not let me copy and paste the url into the box. So I had to type in the address myself. The other thing was I had some problems getting out of the presentation when I pressed play. After looking for a long time I found the exit button. Boy did I feel silly.
As I was trying to come up with a history lesson using the program I found myself thinking of my own class and how to use it. The program is so easy to use I think that my high school students could make one. In fact as I read about Prezi I saw that one mom had her kindergartener making a presentation to help with show-and-tell. I thought in my math class I usually have students make a pamphlet explaining some concepts. I thought this would be another great option to my original project. Who doesn't love to play on the computers. I also found a nice rubric making site to help me with the grading. It was called rubistar. It has many options to choose from, while you are still making your own rubric. What it does is gives you options of categories to grade that might apply to your project. If you choose one of their options then the descriptions for the grades automatically show up. You can also add in your own grading options but you have to type in the descriptions for the grades yourself. I think this is another cool site that I might use in my own classroom.
All in all I think that both of these web sites are great places for you to check out for your own classroom. If you would like to see I attached the Prezi presentation that I made to introduce you to it.
First I had to sign up for an account. I signed up for the educators package which let me upgrade to the second step of the program. I then watched the tutorial video on the site and found out it is so easy to make. You just click on the screen and type in what you want. You can then click on the words and a zebra circle shows up to make your words bigger or smaller and also to turn them. I played around with it for a while and discovered how to group things together and to make the path of my presentation. I could not figure out how to make it auto play, but I did not think that was a big deal. The program even had some backgrounds to use so it is not all boring white. You can also add in pictures and videos. I had no idea that you could add in videos. One other thing I could not figure out was how to do a voice over. I figured if I really wanted to do that I could use the Jing program that we used last week.
There were a couple of problems that I had with it. First I tried to add in a video from youtube and it would not let me copy and paste the url into the box. So I had to type in the address myself. The other thing was I had some problems getting out of the presentation when I pressed play. After looking for a long time I found the exit button. Boy did I feel silly.
As I was trying to come up with a history lesson using the program I found myself thinking of my own class and how to use it. The program is so easy to use I think that my high school students could make one. In fact as I read about Prezi I saw that one mom had her kindergartener making a presentation to help with show-and-tell. I thought in my math class I usually have students make a pamphlet explaining some concepts. I thought this would be another great option to my original project. Who doesn't love to play on the computers. I also found a nice rubric making site to help me with the grading. It was called rubistar. It has many options to choose from, while you are still making your own rubric. What it does is gives you options of categories to grade that might apply to your project. If you choose one of their options then the descriptions for the grades automatically show up. You can also add in your own grading options but you have to type in the descriptions for the grades yourself. I think this is another cool site that I might use in my own classroom.
All in all I think that both of these web sites are great places for you to check out for your own classroom. If you would like to see I attached the Prezi presentation that I made to introduce you to it.
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