Web 2.0 Learning & Reflections

This course, Web 2.0 has been the best $100 that I have spent in a very long time. Again, I highly recommend it to any professional or layman of any age above 14. I think I’ve learned so much about my capacity to learn and the gazillions of off-shoots that can be harnessed to my ultimate benefit. This in turn benefits my students and every one around me, because as I grow so does my community as long as I am willing to share. I am!

http://voicethread.com/share/313195/

My Ning exploration is gonna need more time and attention. I’ve found that materials for guidance counselors are not necessarily plentiful. Somehow, I have the feeling however, that the resources are there- I just have to dig a little deeper for them. Which, I have to say, this kinda falls in line with what I’ve found in research in general. There are a ton of educational materials to choose from, but to get things specifically that aid counselors in the subject content that we’re responsible for- career development, social skills, academic advisement, and the like, you just have to search more. It helps tremendously when you’re connected to other professionals through conferences, professional organizations, and group trainings- so,
on-line networking just goes to increase the size, distance, and tools included in your network.

You’ve gotta read this article if you are challenged with getting much needed rest. I really enjoy checking for articles in my Psychology Today RSS feed. Other than this one, I didn’t see too much that caught my interest today worth sharing. But I will share this digital artwork site that I love to visit on the regular digital blasphemy.com. Nice, huh?

The Pageflakes situation was like the mother of all tools. It stores all of the above- wikis, rss feeds, url bookmarks, the whole nine. It’s really like an online desktop. This could be cool to use in an activity center that you can plan ahead for when students enter the domain. It could also be cool for normal communication and stretch activities involving the whole class if students have on-line access. For me personally tool-wise, this one is less useful to me in a sense because of all of the other tools I’m employing. However, what is the big to-do about pageflakes is the fact that you’re able to share your desktop of whatever contents you have chosen and have the option of your invited guests to collaborate in the interaction with yours and their flakes.

I’ve DJ’d a few functions for school. Even thought I’m a guidance counselor, most people at my school knew that I had an interest in music. Many of my students listen to some of the same music that I enjoy. I could see this google document as a great way to collaborate on making request for an event. It would be open to everyone’s input and could save a lot of time by having the submission process localized.

Googledocs could also be used for teaching the technology of using the tool itself and students can collaborate remotely on long-term projects and incorporate many resources like links, embeds, podcast, blogs, pictures, and music from the internet to put together in an effort to get their point across…

On teacher tube, I did a search for videos that guidance counselors can use. I found one on manners for elementary school students and another one to use as a guidance supplement as well. Both links are listed below.

On you tube, I decided to look up how to read body language. There was plenty to choose from… Here’s one of the examples that I came across.

And as far as the one for fun goes, I frequently catch music videos on youtube when I hear about them. One of them that I watched recently was by one of my favorite rappers, Young Jeezy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etz4xQQjC0A

This one gave me a little trouble… I take that back, it was a lil’ more than a little trouble. I was doing ok I thought, until my podcast wasn’t listed along with my classmates. Other than that, my mp3 just took a long while to upload. For me, the most valuable part of this exercise was researching the different podcast directories as well as subscribing to many podcasts of interest. I wish that my google reader made a distinction between podcasts and blog subscriptions, but it probably does and I just haven’t figured it out yet. At this point, I’m just trying to wrap the course up so I can get my credit and continue to move on all of this other work I have to do. This course is truly a Godsend being that this is the age of information. If it’s all about being in the know, the tools are definitely available along with the community of on-line warriors to inform you from A-Z and empower you to do the same for students and colleagues.

I tried to capture a few more sites by bookmark and realized that Delicious was down for the day. For those of you that have Macs (and maybe your PC has this option also), there’s also a bookmark saving system already in the browser that can be used. If you ever need information of any sort in the future by way of blog, podcast, or published research, I would start first at googling the subject matter and mixing up your search terms by including the terms podcast, blog, or the current year. This will send you on a very fruitful path!

Educators can use podcast and blogs to enhance their lesson plans, continue their own education, create stand alone lessons, I mean, you can do a lot of stuff! For Christ’s sake, I came across a website that includes in the title: Skip the tuition: 100 free podcasts from the best colleges in the world!!! Are you kidding me?!?! You can’t beat that with a stick! Somebody with some fire in them could really do something great with this wealth of information. It might as well be me!! I’m thinking…. I”m thinking….

OMG!!! You do know what that means, don’t you? Oh my God! I am so glad that I’m taking this class, it is beyond what I remember being so fun about learning… I feel like I’m getting exponentially smarter with each podcast, bookmark, and blog I subscribe to. I’m reading so much information from so many different sources and topics that it can be overwhelming, but at the end of the day, this knowledge I’m getting about these online tools are hands down the best thing since sliced bread. I’m telling you. I would tell ANYBODY no matter what profession or age to take this course. I subscribed to music podcasts, science in 60 seconds… I listened to two history podcasts! I’m not even really into history (not formally anyway), but I really enjoyed learning about the lives of Steven Biko and John Coultraine. I subscribed to Fresh Air (my favorite!) on www.npr.org, some of my favorite music in the world on www.kcrw.com/podcasts and keeping in mind that I’m not occupying real “space”, I just went crazy with quite a few casts that caught my attention. I think these items could be used very successfully in the classroom across all disciplines. Not only can students get information from the various presentations, but it can be a great note taking exercise that the instructor can use as a teaching tool, truly for the notes and retention of info., but here- there’s so much freedom in what the content is.. You may attach a podcast to an already planned lesson as a supplement, but in other cases the podcast, or series of podcasts can stand alone as lessons in and of themselves that you design the demonstrations of mastery for…

I used to work at the school library when I was an undergrad at U.G.A. Then when I went to grad school at Ga. State, I worked as a grad research assistant. Although I enjoy reading, I can’t say that I’ve read a lot of books. I’d like to read more. I find that when it comes to novels though, its tricky to pick something that I’ll deem worth my time at the end of such a large amount of text. I think that Library thing could be a lot more useful to me if I were familiar with lots of titles, but then again maybe its just right for me because I don’t.

I researched an author that I’ve always loved, Kahlil Gibran- and they had a lot of stuff on him. So I’m sure there are lots of ways that I could use it. I just need the time…

Ok, Delicious was hot. I like it a lot. I see what you mean when you say it helps you get a handle on things. Well, somebody said that. I’ve listed below some of the sites that I tagged. It’s amazing how you can have access to this insane amount of information AND you can save and keep the info coming using relatively no real “space”. Incredible!! I went ahead and did a couple of the stretch exercises and checked out a few different and interesting relatively quick reads. Added a couple of network users and I think its very valuable. I just hope I can keep up with all of these pass words. Geesh!

http://thisisindexed.com/

http://thinksimplenow.com/relationships/how-to-find-true-love/

http://www.onesentence.org/

http://wellknowwhenwegetthere.blogspot.com/2009/08/sincerely-john-hughes.html