Bill's Blog

Great presentations given today!!  I gave mine and it went well, as I expected most people liked Khan Academy.  I enjoyed the easy apps on photos and what Jenny showed us.  We had a super quick demo on Photoshop and Excel.  This class can be overwhelming because of the shear amount of information that we are taking in. Working on my final project and everything is going fine.

A good day today with Craig showing us some more very cool apps like photosynth and zamzar.  I used what I learned about forms in googledocs and embedding them in my blog to help out in a project we had in our afternoon class.  I made the form in a few minutes.  Embedded it in my blog, and the entire class used it in our evaluation of three interviews.  When all were done, I quickly organized the data and then shared the new spreadsheet with the class.  This is a GREAT tool and I can immediately see how I can use this in a classroom setting.  There were a few bumps, like the order of questions appearing on the spreadsheet changed from the order on the form I created and I couldn’t figure out how to change that.  Tomorrow I am presenting some math applications to the class, and I hope that I don’t bore everyone!!

Here is the link to the interview survey results.

Fill in the survey below for each group. Don’t forget to hit submit at the bottom!!

Comps are done!! What a relief. For the past two weeks I have been preoccupied with those 4 hours or questions. Thankfully there was a question on technology which I nailed!! Now that’s done, I feel like I can finally focus on this class, which I love.

I created a gmail account (finally) and I started playing around with all the options.  I can’t wait to be able to focus on that learning curve and I am looking forward to using google and blogs in next fall’s classes.  I am already prepping my applications for my students to use.

I have picked a few RSS feeds to look at on google reader and I set a couple of alerts just to play around with that app.

Good stuff Craig!! Keep it coming.

Good day working on google docs. I have been using just the most basic aspects of google docs, but with the ability to publish and embed, the power of the application is so much more than what I had thought. I like the ability to modify a published google doc and have that change imediately on my blog. I can really use that in my classroom.

Craig, can you remember to show us how to go about starting our own domain for a blog for personal and professional uses.

I am working on my Web 2.0 presentation, I have only one math website, do you have any suggestions that would work for a math class?

Very cool math video!!

EMBEDDING!!  I have never blogged before this course, so I have never had the need to embed.  I think that for presentations I make in front of staff, this will be a great thing to add.  The internet connection is a huge drawback to both using embedding and the cloud.  As we saw today, the connection was slow and we had to wait for a video to buffer.  When all students tried to work on their blogs at once, the system slowed down emensely.  This gives me pause on the technology.  But no doubt this issue will be resolved in a few months so that CHROME computer systems can work in school sites.

Craig taught us how to embed the translator and google search options.  WOW!  My school only uses Moodle, so I’d like to play around with that and see if any of the blog options exist in the settings there.  Moodle is too cumbersome!!

Jenny wants me to search on her blog, so I am going to do that.

Another great class. We worked on our blogs and I have to say that I would much rather use a blog like this for my regular classes than the Moodle system that is so cumbersome that we are asked to use. Craig showed us the guts of a computer, but I have put together plenty of machines in my time. His description of RAM as a table and the way the computer fills the space with programs and applications.

I am still not convinced of the CLOUD being pushed on computer users. What is it going to cost? On top of a service provider, we will have to pay for cloud space and access. Will this be cheaper than a harddrive with free software?

What an interesting first class. Professor Craig is a great resource and I can’t wait to see what he pulls out of his sleeve next. I LOVE his recording live scribe pen. I need to get one. I love to writing on paper and also taking notes. I haven’t gotten into using a tablet to take notes, so this sounds perfect for me. I am looking forward to the augmented reality becoming a part of my classroom. As a math teacher I can see how using 3-D in a lesson will make it easier on students to see tough concepts.

 Finally, I feel like I need to revisit Prezi and try again with that vehicle of presentation. I usually get a bit sea sick when I use it LOL. But I’ll try again.