BP15_2009123_OneMinuteMessage2

One minute video message on the benefits of using Flickr in Science class.

Animal photos: User created

Flickr logo: User generated screenshot

BP14_2009123_PeerReviewTK00

Original copied from:

http://tk00.blogspot.com/2009/12/bp1220091203tool5-gaggle.html

BP12_20091203_Tool#6 (Gaggle)

Gaggle.net is more than just another Web 2.0 tool. It is a software suite for elementary and middle school students that is totally protected from potentially harmful images, suggestive text, and can be monitored by school staff for bullying and other inappropriate behavior. As Gaggle’s slogan states, “Putting student safety before everything else”.

So what makes gaggle.net so great? The software suite includes student email accounts that can be monitored, safe blogs, safe chat rooms, safe profile pages, safe message boards, and safe digital lockers. These make school to home and home to school possible without forgetting your thumb drive. It makes student collaboration and communications easier.

“Gaggle’s new Velocity interface is based on the AJAX (Adobe) framework, giving the appearance similar to Microsoft Outlook, but it is inside a web page. Bother teachers and students can use Gaggle’s web-based interface and get the same productivity they would find in regular POP3 email clients. With Velocity, messages and folders load almost instantly, with significantly faster response time than traditional web based email.” (Gaggle, 2009)

The Gaggle digital lockers allow students to save documents online for use at home and at school. The locker feature allows teachers to share files with students. The locker allows students to collaborate with fellow students and facilitates group projects much like the ones online courses require at higher levels of education. Bottom line, the digital locker prevents viruses, and other malware, from ever having a chance to enter a school system because each document is scanned online before it leaves the digital locker. In addition, Gaggle is CIPA compliant.

The message boards allow for careful and effective differentiated instruction and can also motivate students who do not like to write with pen and paper. The message boards promote collaboration because they are teacher monitored.

Finally, the biggest feature to sell this website to a community is Parent Accounts. Parents can read their children’s email, help facilitate parent-teacher communication and aid in the restrictions established by the school and district.

Each student is allowed 100 megabytes of storage so even large presentation files can be accessed at school and home without purchasing external drives. Gaggle uses a Web 2.0 interface, has attachment filtering and can translate to other languages.

I am recommending this to school districts that require higher levels of student security while allowing each student to learn about Web 2.0 and utilize the educational value and productivity.

BP13_2009123_PeerReviewMarkWest

Original Linkhttp://mwestplace.blogspot.com/2009/12/3-new-tools.html

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2009

BP12_2009123_Tool#4_VoiceThread_Gimp

Art 2.0 web sites are hard to find! We still are locked in a texted based world even on the web but I did find a site for those of you

who are looking for something other than blogs, wikis, photo share, or something along that line.

http://artjunction.org/blog/?page_id=1024

This site gives me hope for the arts on the web. Altho

ugh it still contains

a lot of what the rest have as far as text-based apps. It also gives direction for the web in the classroom.

This site I find is needed because this is something that art teachers deal with everyday. Our students need to understand how important copyright is not only for those published artists but also for them. In this country and through out the world artistic rights are being violated all the time. Some violation are out of indifference to the artist and their product but I would like to think a lot of it is because of ignorance on the part of people. This site gives us a chance to open the eyes of our young people to the harm copyright infringement causes. I would encourage everyone to look at this site as a possible lesson to teach.

Voicethreads

How can a person use this tool in the art classroom? First an understanding of a VoiceThread is. It is an online media album. So how does that apply to an art classroom? First, the art student is creating a portfolio all year long. Each created piece of work must be saved and will to be graded as a complete body of work. The works therefore must stored some where. So this means that an art teacher will have at least one hundred fifty in that year with eight major projects, which equals at least twelve hundred projects to be stored. Wow that’s a lot to be placed some where in a thirty by thirty room where the students work. It can be a real problem because it is not only the space needed but it is the lack of respect an adolescent has toward other peoples work also. With VoiceThread the students can create an album that can be evaluated at the end of the year. Students can finis

h their work and take it home. Major storage problem taken care of.

Second is that the student must critique each of these projects. This is where they will explain how and why they did what they did. VoiceThread has 5 different ways for the student the student can comment on their art work. By using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video the y can describe, analyze, interpret, and judge their work inside the program. This program also allows classmates to also give feedback on the artwork and the comments.

The third thing that I like about it is that the teacher can place historical works of art for the students to go in and share their critiques of the masters to then be graded. All in all some great applications.

GIMP

The first art web site that I would like to share with you is a site called GIMP. One of the problems in education is having the budget to provide e-tools for the classroom. Licensure for products can run into the thousands and thousands of dollars. Adobe Photoshop costs approximately $700.00 per copy. When you multiply that by 35 copies, the number of student quite often in an art classroom, you have an expenditure of over $24,000.00. In a typical school budget the administration would laugh and tell you to find a grant. Well hope is on the web! This program, although not as powerful or sophisticated as Adobe, has the ability for the classroom teacher to teach a very strong web based tool. It in many ways mimics Adobe Photoshop. The tools are very similar and even have some useful tools that PS does not have. This would be good for private schools considering their budgets are even smaller than public schools.

The Art teacher can use this tool for any computer generated drawing project. The additional tool that I find exciting is the perspective tool. This tool allows you to manipulate the image plane into plane that fit the desired lines of angle. What else is nice is that any image that is on that plain also changes with that plane. This will be a great asset in perspective units.

BP12_2009123_Tool#4(GameClassroom.com)

http://www.gameclassroom.com/

For this blog entry, I am researching the Web 2.0 tool, GameClassroom.com. “Game Classroom is a one-stop web destination for accessing high-quality educational games, and homework help for K-6 students” (GameClassroom.com)

I have taught music at the elementary school level for 10 years as of this post. Because my initial undergraduate major was electric engineering, I have always stressed the importance of learning core subjects to my students. There would be many times where I would integrate my music curriculum with the subject material being taught in the homerooms. So GameClassroom.com seemed like a resource I would like to research in order to share with the core subject teachers.

GameClassroom.com is not directly collaborative as many other Web 2.0 tools, such as Flickr, Blogger, Wikia, etc. It is, however, very INTERACTIVE. Students who go to GameClassroom.com are not passive participants in their learning. Because the content is based on educational games, GameClassroom.com students are active participants in their learning.

GameClassroom.com allows students to select from two main categories: Language Arts and Math (as of this posting there is not a section for Science. Each category is separate skills for each grade. And each skill has a specific topic. Suggested games in the GameClassroom.com can be found in each skill level. The games give instantaneous feedback to the student. Games for lower grades have excellent demonstrations and are designed for the beginner learner. Games for older students have visual instructions and are designed for the older learner. The game engines do not frustrate the learner, so he or she is able to focus on answering the questions by whatever means the games use. Interestingly enough, I found it rather insightful to practice my skills on games for all ages. I realized that my teaching skills would benefit from occasionally playing these games. I found it interesting to compare how I present content to how the games found on GameClassroom.com present content.

There is so much good content on GameClassroom.com (except for the lack of a science section) that this is a highly recommended Web 2.0 tool for all elementary school teachers.

References:

GameClassroom.com (2009) Retrieved December 13, 2009, from http://www.gameclassroom.com/

Images:

All images are user-generated screenshots from http://www.gameclassroom.com/

"Thounds"...another great music collaboration tool!

http://thounds.com/

BP8_2009122_Tool#3(IndabMusic.com)

User created screenshot

http://www.indabamusic.com/

Indabamusic is a Web 2.0 tool that allows musicians to collaborate on music projects. A musician records his or her audio tracks. He or she then invites friends or even complete strangers to submit additional tracks that have been recorded to this composition.

As an teaching tool this would be a great asset. Students can safely create in the privacy of their home or a practice room before submitting their part of a whole composition. I say safely because composing is a very personal process and many times unwanted constructive criticism would hamper the flow of creativity. Most creative efforts are works in progress.

That being said, once a student submits their work. The other students would give helpful constructive criticism using a composition Rubric. Students would be able revamp their own parts a total of three times before the piece is “done”.

The networking aspect of Indabamusic would allow the student compositions to be shared with college-level composition majors, as well as professional composers and arrangers. Being able to get feedback from various viewpoints that extend into the working world would be a great asset to the students.

The main hindrance would be the acquisition of audio recording technology for the student. It’s not expensive, however, it would require an investment on the part of the parent or the student.

I would’ve loved to known about this tool months ago. A music student who is a senior in the advanced group, headed up by a different director, came to me to write an arrangement for her song. (The other director and I are friends, and we work with each other’s students, allowing each of us to use our strengths.). She recorded herself singing and sent me the file. I wrote the arrangement and delivered it to her. She said that there were some changes. And I went back… you see the process.

Indabamusic would’ve allowed her to record her track, have me write the arrangement to and line it up with her singing. And then we would’ve been able to collaborate with almost instantaneous feedback, versus burning CDs and such.

I’m looking forward to referring my composition students to music collaboration tools such as Web 2.0 tools such as Indabamusic.

BP11_2009122_OneMinuteMessage1

My "commercial" for TubeRadio.fm for my additional line of work as a church choir director. This can also be used by school music directors.