Stress Relief

Sometimes when you are having a rough day there is nothing better than a fresh sheet of BUBBLEWRAP!! So go ahead! Destress! Enjoy!

G-cast

I tried out the podcasting service offered by G-cast. It doesn't get too much easier than this. All you need is a telephone. You create the podcast via a simple phone call. That is something most students would be able to do. The site made me believe that I could add music to my post. It uses Garageband for this. Although I tried to do this, I was not successful. It seems that I may need to play around and experiment with their site a little bit more. If anyone knows the trick for this, please share.

Social Bookmarking

We are now living in a world where you can share just about anything on your computer, so why not your bookmarks? One great perk of using this is the ability to share them with yourself when you are using a different computer.

But think about how a service like this can be helpful to teachers. You can bookmark a group of sites that you want your students to use during a certain activity or a assignment. Rather than making a list of sites that the students have to type in, you can bookmark them and share them. Then the students can access them from any computer, too.

I am finding that more and more I prefer to just store all of the things that I might need somewhere that is accessible from the web. That way I can access information, no matter where I am.

Podcasting and vlogs

Thank you, Mary Beth! I wanted to add pictures to my podcast but did not know of a tool to use to facilitate that. She introduced me to Microsoft Photo Story. What an awesome and very easy to use application. This is very useful software for classroom teachers. You also have the capability to add background music. I didn't think that really worked in my case, plus I remembered all the worries about copyright law that we learned in School and Technology Law. So here is my podcast/vlog!

District Red Tape

I was a little upset to hear about a problem my tech coordinator had at his other school this week. It was related to our webpage redesign. You will recall that we are contracting with a content management system called School Fusion, a company that I learned about in my last class. He was very impressed with them, so he proposed the idea to his other school. After some negotiations, they decided to take out a contract with them as well.

Well, when running their contract through the district office, the head of technology from MPS was extremely upset and told them "absolutely not." The principal was called and scolded.

I feel this shows the lack of knowledge about current technology on the part of the district office. They are requiring the school to use the services of the district's technology office (at a price, of course) to create their page. What this "leader of technology" obviously doesn't understand, is the difference between what he has to offer, a static web page, and what School Fusion has to offer, a webpage where teachers can have their own classroom pages that they themselves can update from any computer.

I felt bad, because I was the one who introduced the whole idea in the first place. I guess I should be thankful that we were able to get our contract without being picked up on the radar. It sure doesn't seem very fair, that a school can be told how they have to spend their own budget.

Neck and neck, just like Hillary and Barack

Well, the logo verdicts are back. It rather amazes me how votes can go. I started with three choices and it was close. 21-17-21. So I had a run off vote for the top two. It then came down to an almost 50-50 split. Reminded me of the presidential primaries, where every time we vote, we don't really get much closer to a decision.

I decided that as the person who is driving the website redesign, I would make the executive decision. It didn't seem too unfair as my first choice was already out of the running. Right now I only have a pdf file containing the new logo, so I can't post it here just yet. I will as soon as I receive the image in a different format!

You make a difference

Just received this video called Who I am Makes a Difference in an email from my mom. It was one of those things that caught me at the right time. What do you think?

Schools' responsibility for technology in education

We continue to talk about how the world of K-12 education is behind the rest of society when it comes to technology. After doing some of the readings for my digital media class this week, I realize how irresponsible that is. Technology is the way of the future. The children that are sitting in our classrooms today will be immersed in technology in their careers as well as their day to day lives. Obviously we do not know what form that is going to take in the future, but isn't it our responsibility as educators to start preparing them for their own futures?

After reading the article The Rise of Crowdsourcing from Wired Magazine 2006, which discusses the livelihood of professional photographers who sell stock photos, I realize that the children who sit in front of us today will need to be fluent in technology to survive in the working world of tomorrow. These photographers used to be able to sell their photos for large sums of money. Now the availabilty of online resources has made dramatic cuts into their pocketbooks. If children are not prepared to function in this ever changing world, how will they survive?

It seems that no matter the field, technological literacy will be essential. At my doctor's office, a small hand held computer now comes into the exam room to record all of my medical history. Paperless statements are the wave of the future. (I paid my bills online for the first time last night.) Look at the large number of companies who are networked through Facebook. Then look back and try to find the school districts included. Better yet, try to find the school districts who even allow access!

It is actually apalling that schools, the places that should be embracing technology and teaching kids the amazing capabilities that come with it as well as the cautions that should be exercised, are the very places that seem to be afraid to accept the world in which we are already living, let alone the one that lies ahead. Can we really be that irresponsible?

Slide Show Widget

Tonight's mission was to figure out how to add a slideshow to my blog. When I simply added a flickr slideshow, I was not given the choice of which photos I wished to include. There were certainly some that I wasn't interested in adding to the show. So I set out to ask Google how it could be done. I was led to a widget that allowed me to find the photos I wanted to include.

I was not happy with the borders and such that were included, so I went to my color pix selector that I mentioned in my last post and matched the colors of all the background to the page color. Then you could not see the ugly borders.

I still prefer the look of the original slideshow, but it is better to have the option of selecting my own photos. Now I just have to go and take some photos that I really want to use. The winter photos that I am starting with need to make way for spring!

Update: Ah, much better. I found the photos I took of all of my flowers last summer. Much better than winter snowstorm pictures!

Finding a logo

You have no idea how difficult this has been. I was soooo happy with the eagle I found. I was sure that it was perfect. As a matter of fact I still like it a lot! I like the way the starburst around his head matches the starbursts that MPS uses in its logos. I showed it to a few of my colleagues and they all seemed to like my selection.

Then I shared it with my tech coordinator and principal, the others on my web design team, and neither one like it. I couldn't believe it because I was sure this was "the one"!

So now I have searched all of the clip art sites that I can possibly find. Nothing fits the bill in my book. So yesterday I talked with one of the district's graphic designers. She is going to make a few mock ups and get back to me later this week. I hope she has the solution. I pretty much do not know where else to go after this. What do you think? Doesn't this guy look like the real "Rocky Zablocki"?

Making the Big decisions--First colors

I met with my Tech coordinator on Thursday afternoon. We have to start to make all of the big decisions regarding our web page. Things like top vs. side navigation. What size we want the page to be. Weather. Landing page or not. Rotating images on the header.

One of the decisions involves color choices. I found two really great sites to help choose colors. The first one, http://www.colorsontheweb.com/colorwheel.asp, lets you spin a color wheel and see what the colors will look like when they are combined.

The second, http://www.colorschemer.com/colorpix_info.php, is a handy little tool that you download. It will give you the hexadecimal number of any color that you roll the mouse over. You would be amazed at how many different colors there really are!

I spent a great deal of time spinning the wheel until I found several combinations that looked good. Of course I had to save the final decision for my principal. She was very agreeable to my suggestions. Now it is on to the artwork!

The webpage process rolls on

The webpage process took a hiatus over spring break. But we are back on track! Late last week, my small group of my principal, my tech coordinator, and myself met to discuss some "must haves" for our webpage.
We now have the lauchpad, so we have a list of tasks to complete. I am currently working on design principals......color and artwork, those kinds of things. I found an eagle that I'd like to use as a mascot. I have a second choice as well, so we shall see what the rest of the committee thinks.

First posted on Bloglines on April 7, 2008

The contract arrives

Today we received the contract from School Fusion! I cannot wait to get started. I just hope I get the launchpad materials before Spring break so I can start looking at it! Also...today I figured out how to put a counter on my webpage. Now we shall see if any families are actually using it!!

First posted on Bloglines on March 18, 2008

Website decisions

Today we met with some people from the district's communication department. They want to design our webpage. They just did not have the same things that School Fusion has to offer. What they are talking about is a more static webpage. It would be something you would put out there and pretty much leave it alone. Only a few people would be able to update the page. And only from one designated computer. With the School Fusion site, every teacher will be able to update their own page whenever and from wherever they wish. They were pretty persistent, but we know this is not what we are looking for!

First posted on Bloglines on March 17, 2008

School Website

I have decided to transfer over my Blogline blogs.......they predate some of the other things I have added to my blog. So this will upset my anal need to be sequencing accurately, but I guess life goes on!!

I am in the process of revamping the website for my school. I am currently working with School Fusion, a content management system, to develop a new website. This morning my principal, school secretary, tech coordinator, and I met with a rep from the company to view an online demo. I think they were all very impressed. I am really hoping that we will all agree to sign a contract with this company. Right now we are waiting for the rep to create a "sandbox", or practice site, for us to experiment with. I am keeping my fingers crossed. I do not hold the power here, so we whall see how this evolves.

First posted on Bloglines on March 13, 2008

Flickr in the Classroom

I have thought about how I could utilize this technology in my classroom. I currently have a website which I update on a weekly basis. I have a page to which I add approximately 8 - 10 photos. When I update with new photos, the old photos are no longer available for viewing. If I started a Flickr account for my classroom I could post the albums there. Parents would then be able to go back and see all the pictures from the year.

I am contemplating how I would be able to invite all those parents to be friends, as it doesn't seem like a good idea to have the students photos posted publicly. I feel that as I am adding more technology to my class, I will need to be asking parents for their email addresses when I send home those start of the year letters asking for contact information.

Experimenting with Flickr

It was over spring break while I was reading some of the material for my class, that I saw a link to Flickr. I clicked on it, and the next thing I knew, I was digging my digital camera out of my purse and experimenting with uploading pictures. My real motivation behind this involves my mother and her photo email attachments. She is a very new digital immigrant, and has learned how to take pictures and email them to the family. The trouble with this is, that it can be somewhat annoying and time consuming to download all of those photos one by one. My interest in Flickr was to see if this was something easy enough to teach my mother to do.

I feel that it is probably something that she can handle with a bit of instruction. It took some playing around on my part to figure out how the process works. But now that I have tried it, I will be adding my own photos to my own site. It is a great way to organize and share photos. I like the feature of putting the photos into sets. It is pretty nice that the program can tell you on exactly which day each photo was taken! I plan to continue to develop my web photo album. And one of these days, I should have a chance to teach my mom as well.

Why Blogger?

I am required to start a blog for my Digital Media course. I had started a Bloglines blog. It wasn't very exciting. I didn't see any way to personalize the blog. Then we started talking about adding comments and everyone in class was having some trouble with that. So I decided to try a new site. So last night I went back to a blogger site I had opened for an earlier class. Problem was, I hadn't done anything with it at all. I didn't know how! Now that I am studying blogging, I am able to do what I need to do.

This site allows much more personalization. Templates....font choices...color choices.......The ability to edit posts after you post them. I am now actually looking forward to using my new blog!

Blogging Baptism

I am about to embark on a new adventure. This is my first leap into blogging. I am not really sure that I have a whole lot to say to the world, but I guess I will give it a whirl. As a teenager who couldn't be kept off the telephone, I guess I must have plenty of things to say. It is just time to get out there and try it in a whole new way. So here, I go. I am blogging! Seriously??