Final+Examination

The Prompt: Your response must be supported with appropriate citations, links, and multimedia [videos, audio, images, presentations] content. All web reference must be linked to the site, all multimedia content should be embedded on your page, and all print media must be cited. During this class, you examined a number of Web 2.0 resources through the Richardson book. Using your current situation, discuss each resource read about with the potential uses in your employment including the pros and cons of its uses.

My background: I am currently in a position working with reading recovery students during the daytime and a 1-3 group afterschool. I do not get as much time as I would like to use technology in my daily plans but my essay responses will discuss more what I would like to do in the future when I am back in my own classroom.

**Paper Resource:**

**__Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms__ - Will Richardson Third Edition 2010**

**Blogs:** media type="custom" key="11643196"

**Uses: My first teaching position was in a K-6 building as the technology teacher. The school had a fabulous computer lab as far as the layout but the programs were out of date and the internet was not the best. One thing I was very interested in was starting a blog for my kids. I was never able to get it started due to lack of time at the job and lack of understanding of how to get started.I wanted to set up a blog for my students to work on each day they came into the lab. It would be used as a journal but the wonderful part would be other students could give feeback as well. Parents would be able to see what the students were writing about and feel as though they were a part of the class too.**

**Cons: My major con of blogging was/is making sure you can find a safe and secure blog for kids to use at school that will not be viewed by anyone else. At the time being unfamiliar with blogs I could never nail anything down to get started. I was also extremely worried about kids needing e-mails and how those might be used outside of the classroom. Also, negative comments being made are a concern as well.**

**Pros: There are many pros to kids using blogs in the classroom. It's a great way to publish their work, easier for the teacher to see right away and for other children to take a part in. This can lead to great discussions and teamwork. While typing skills are, writing skills are as well. A teacher must try and balance what is needed even in the changing technological times.**

**Wikis:** media type="youtube" key="1pR5yogCmkA" height="315" width="420"

**Uses: A wiki we are all extremely familar with is [|wikipedia]. I know many people that were put off by wikipedia at first due to the ability for anyone to log on and change the content. After getting to know wikis a little better from this class I find this type of tool very interesting.**

**Cons: It scares me that everything posted is at risk of being changed or dare I say it, deleted completely.**

**Pros: It's nice that you can see as people are making edits to the site in case of any issues**. **I think this would be great for an older classroom, group project. This type of site gives students a chance to publish their own content, develop collaboration skills, and negotiate with others. Any teacher interested in using a class wiki must keep in mind that they idea is not to impose on the group project and this may be hard depending on a persons teaching style.** **Many students also feel better about sharing information online instead of in a normal classroom discussion. This gives more students an opportunity to be a part of a classroom discusion than in the past.**

**RSS:** media type="custom" key="11643512"

**Uses: I absolutley love the RSS feed!With as much of a multitasker as I am this is such a helpful tool. I would love to incorporate this into a class blog where the kids each have a blog to work on journal questions and they can track other blogs to comment on all within their RSS feed. They would also have an opportunity to track news to use within the classroom. Obviously, this would be for an upper elementary classroom or higher but I think they would really fly with it once it got started.**

**Pros: With the lack of time in the classroom today this puts everything in once place and makes it so much easier. You are not directing the students to multiple different sites, they can have them all at their fingertips and get started right when the enter the lab. This would be great to use up some of those precious minutes used up during a transition time to the lab.**

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">**Cons: The age of the students it would be possible to use this with is a huge factor.I find a con to be that you are not able to link all websites to your feed. As more time goes by I'm sure this will grow and will no longer be a problem.**

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">**Social Web:**

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">media type="custom" key="11643570" <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">**Uses: My favorite social web aspect we have covered is our delicious site for social bookmarking. While I can't wait to get back into a classroom of my own I am building a wide variety of wbesites to use from student sites, teaching ideas, and many more. When we started this delicious site I was so excited and I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of something so simple before. Since then I have been given many more important sites that I do not want to lose or think back and say "If only I could remember that great site on...". I will without a doubt use it for my endless number of teaching sites. How great to need an idea and open up your delicious account to say "Oh I totally forgot about that great site." Love it!** <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">**Pros: Everything is right where you need it. You do not need to worry about storing everything under your favorites and not having it when you go to another computer. The students could do this as well. That way when they can't get a site exactly correct and are endlessly saying "Mrs. Spies, it's not working!" you can easily say to open up their delicious account and check the website address.** <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">**Cons: I can see where you could get bogged down as you continue to bookmark. Unless you can check your sites everyonce in a while to make sure they are being kept up to date you may end up pulling up a site that USED to be great but now is found lacking the information you need.** <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">**Flickr:**

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">media type="custom" key="11643644"

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">Uses: Flickr can be used for many inclass activites. Students can create presentations, pictures for slideshows, starting great discussions within the classroom, the possibilities are truly endless. I've been in many classrooms where teachers had stacks of pictures cut out of magazines to use as writing prompts. I find flickr to be a step up from these old magazine cutouts. Not to mention the picture assortment is endless.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">Pros:I was new to flickr this class and I found it very easy to use. There are tons of pictures to choose from and the students would be able to find nearly anything they needed for a project.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">Cons:As many of my friends are moving to use MAC's one con is that flickr does not work well with MAC computers. This is a huge brand of technology these days and this could cause many issues if you are an avid MAC user. [|Flickr pros and cons]

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">**Multimedia publishing:**

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">media type="custom" key="11643670"

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">Uses: Podcasting is one very popular multimedia publishing choice. I think this would be great to use in a K-1 classroom if you do not have a recording of a certain piece of text that you want at a literacy center. You do not have to spend money to buy a tape you can record one on your own and it will beneift the students to have your voice as the recorder as well.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">Pros:This is an easy resource for anyone who does not have time to sit and read. You can easily get information on current events or personal interest. For college or graduate classes this would be a great resource after missing a professors lecture. [|Pros and Cons of Podcasting]

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">Cons:I can't find many uses for podcasting in a K-1 classroom which is where I spend most of my time in the schools. When I did my podcasting project I made an audio recording that students could use at one of there centers for literacy. Other than that I feel very limited. Also, while it may be good to use for a classroom not everyone has a great voice for recording audio.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">**Social Networks:**

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">media type="youtube" key="feO-sk39Dsw" height="315" width="420"

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">**Uses: The social network I am most familiar with is Facebook. Many teachers have begun to make classroom websites but with popularity of facebook today I believe this may be a more convienient way to go. You could friend your students and their parents. These friends could see daily events in your classroom, pictures of projects, updates on events, planning for conference times, the list is really endless once again.**

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">**Pros:This is a major hub of communication. Many adults have notices sent to their phone immediately and it doesn't get much better than that. Forgot that it's your turn to bring snack tomorrow, forgot about your childs holiday concert time or how many kids are in the class, all of these things can be produced by checking your classroom facebook.**

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 120%;">**Cons:This would have to be classroom only. Teachers need to be very careful when having a personal facebook account to keep it private. Mixing a teachers personal information with the classroom information would be a terrible idea. While some teachers decide to friend their students, it's a better idea to keep things seperate. You would also want to make sure to keep your classroom information private from anyone who is not accepted as a friend. You do not need random people checking out what your classroom is doing and you should not be sharing pictures of your students with people outside of the students themselves and their families.**