Labyrinth of Learning 2.0

Thing 12 - Attend a “21st Century” Conference (in your PJs!)

Task
PART 1: Write a blog post sharing your thoughts about the session you viewed. Was it worthwhile? Did you learn anything new? Is there anything from the session you might use in your classroom or professional leaning? Be sure to include “Thing 12″ as part of your post title.

PART 2: Check your adopted blogs, or explore any other participant blog you wish and leave TWO comments (on two different blogs) in response to any posts that interest you. Be sure to include a link back to your own blog.
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Thing 11 - Create an online Slideshow using your own or Creative Commons photos.

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I created a slideshow on Animoto.com. I had difficulty finding the embed code and the site was not posting it for me to copy. However, I resorted to uploading it to YouTube and embedding the video on my wiki page via YouTube’s embed code. Yeessshhh….

Anyway, my slideshow contains photos of Australian Rainforests. Our Pre-K classes will be investigating these rainforests in the coming weeks and I wanted to have some pictures for them to see. :o)

Here is a direct link to my wiki sandbox page: http://k12l20sandbox.wikispaces.com/daniklaus

Thing 10 - Intro to photosharing and tagging; explore Flickr

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It is photos like this ones below that inspire me to want to be a photographer. If only I could get over the inherited “shakeness” that I have…

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cesarcabrera/408666504/ by Cesar R.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcelgermain/1789708830/in/set-72157602132442457 by marcelgermain

Flickr Creative Commons is a great tool for students and classroom teachers to use when working on school and personal projects. One idea I had would be to have students pick a topic of choice relating to a unit of study throughout the year and then search for photos relating to that topic. Once they have gathered “enough” photos, they could create a collage of the photos to accompany a report or podcast about their topic.

Thing 9 - Learn about Creative Commons (not just for photos)

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I am very excited about Creative Commons and hopeful for the coming future of a shared culture. I often try to explain to teachers that they need to be aware of using copyrighted material in and outside of class. Too often I walk into a classroom to see a teacher searching Google Images in front of the class and then copying and pasting pictures straight from the search results. When I later try to explain that those images are copyrighted and they need to begin using Creative Commons to look for media they look at me with confusion and bewilderment.

I think it is ridiculous that corporations like Disney have gone to such lengths to extend the length of copyright protection. Copyright as it now stands is a parody of its original intent, so maybe it’s appropriate that Mickey Mouse should have held such a prominent role in making it so. The original purpose of copyright was to protect the creator’s right to earn income from their work. It was not intended to lock down all intellectual property for decades and prevent society from creating a shared culture.

It is my hope that more educators around the world began using Creative Commons, so we can begin to grow a shared culture of art, music and science once again. I share my creative work openly with teachers and colleagues in my personal network. However, I hesitate to share openly on the internet because of the legal jargon surrounding many of the applications and tools I have used in its creation.

Thing 8 - Set up your own page on the K12 Learning 2.0 participant wiki.

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Visit my K12L2 Sandbox wiki page!

Thing 7 - What is a wiki? Explore Wikipedia and other “public” Wikis; Explore educational uses for Wikis.

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Although I was familiar with the term and idea of a “wiki” prior to the start of the school year, I had never really explored nor interacted with wikis. Now, I feel immersed in a cloud of wiki, wiki, wackiness.

Currently I am working with the teachers in the sixth grade Math & Science Academy to develop two large wiki projects. Both projects are designed to be a part of a technology-infused culminating unit in correlation with the sixth grade TabletPC Program. Our sixth graders take math and science as single gender classes. Both wiki projects will be launched in Spring 2008.

The first wiki project, TrinityMD, will be a series of informative podcasts covering a wide range of diseases and disorders that affect the human body. Mrs. Stafford, the sixth grade science teacher at Trinity School, developed the project idea for TrinityMD. The sixth grade students work in pairs to research a particular disease or disorder in order to develop an informative podcast episode. The students begin by researching and conducting interviews with experts or individuals affected by the disease/disorder. Then, the students work together to develop and write their podcast script. After revising and editing, they record their episode using their tablet pc. Finally, each pair of students will develop a wiki page for their TrinityMD podcast episode that contains their podcast mp3 file, the accompanying podcast script, and a list of resources used throughout their project creation.

The second wiki project, the Atlanta Math Trail, will be a yearly project created and maintained by Mrs. Story & Mrs. Heise’s sixth grade math classes. The Atlanta Math Trail is modeled after the National Math Trail project. At Trinity, students work together in groups of three or four to research and visit various Atlanta locations in order to develop a series of geometric math problems relating to well-known, historical sites. Then, each group develops a wiki page about their designated Atlanta location. Each wiki page contains the history of the historic location, the original geometric math problems and solutions, as well as a bibliography of resources used throughout the creation of the project.

I have also set-up a private (personal) wiki as a means of collaboration and communication between my sister Becky and her Bridesmaids to help coordinate wedding details. With conflicting schedules and personal obligations, I felt that using a wiki would be a great way to eliminate the frustration of playing the games of email and phone tag. So far, Rebecca’s Bridesmaids, has proved to be a great tool!

Thing 5 - Learn about RSS and set up Google Reader

Thing 6 - Feed your reader: find & subscribe to feeds and build a reading habit

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Ok, I think I had too much fun with these “Things”. Namely because while browsing through the list of blogs I came across David Pogue’s blog, Pogue’s Posts,
within the NYTimes.com RSS feeds list. I attended the Georgia Educational Technology Conference (GaETC) in November 2007 where David Pogue was brought in as a keynote speaker. He was hysterical! I had never heard of David Pogue before attending his keynote, but now, it is a name I will never forget. Anyways, David Pogue is the personal-technology columnist for the New York Times. He is also an Emmy award-winning tech correspondent for CBS News and an accomplished author of many how-to books.

After subscribing to Pogue’s Posts, I found it impossible to just scan and skim his entries. I HAD to read them all! He has a way of presenting the truth in a very real, “call it like it is”, hysterical manner. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud as I read many of his posts, while at the same time, experiencing many “ah ha” moments and “I completely agree” thoughts. While David often targets certain groups, like bad tech-support reps in his post Today’s Tech-Support Nightmare, I think readers (even those belonging to the targeted group) will find it hard to be offended by his articles. He recently posted an amusing article, Tech Support Gets a Reprieve While Users Take a Hit, that turned his attention to the technology USERS rather than his usual targeted group of tech support reps.

In his post, Readers Respond to the Debate Over Responsible Downloading, David blogs responses from his readers regarding the many shades of gray that exist in the law and in human ethics surrounding copyright-morality situations. I found the responses to the series of hypothetical questions he posed incredibly interesting. Another post I found on David’s blog referenced the Frontline documentary, Growing Up Online, that I recently blogged about and shared with the technology team at school. (You can read my blog post here.) His article, How Dangerous Is the Internet for Children?, reflects on an article he was asked to write a few years ago for a parenting magazine. He quotes his chief message for the article was this: “Sure, there are dangers. But they’re hugely overhyped by the media. The tales of pedophiles luring children out of their homes are like plane crashes: they happen extremely rarely, but when they do, they make headlines everywhere. The Internet is just another facet of socialization for the new generation; as always, common sense and a level head are the best safeguards.” This was not at all what the editors of the magazine where looking for, rather, they wanted another scare tactic message for parents.

Anyway, if you have never heard of David Pogue, or would like to enjoy a laugh or two sometime in your crazy-busy life, I would highly suggest checking out and subscribing to his blog feed. I have a feeling you will really enjoy reading his posts and finding them incredibly easy to relate to. J Enjoy!