People Who have Helped Me on my Tech Journey

I have not been using web 2.0 tools very long–3 or 4 years maybe. I have grown comfortable with the idea that learning takes place face to face, locally, and online with people half a world away. Lately, I find myself surprised when I come across people who are just beginning their journey. By no means am I knowledgeable in such things, just willing to try them out if they lead to good teaching and learning. I follow several people on Twitter who are much more advanced than I. One is Miguel Guhlin. He shares, tweets,

renting textbooks vs buying textbooks

I just saved $213.00 this afternoon, (no, not on my insurance)! It was time to order textbooks, and every time I do I cringe because I know that in one semester a $150 book will be worth $15 at the bookstore when I try to resell it.

So I checked out www.chegg.com, which is a textbook rental site. Of the 5 books I ordered, 4 of them were significantly less expensive to rent. I checked with Amazon.com and compared the purchase price of used books--and saved mucho dinero. There was one book that was less expensive at Amazon, so I purchased that one with them. I'll have to check out how much time it takes to get my books, I'll let you know. The standard shipping rate was the same, however, chegg charged tax whereas Amazon didn't. This is not really a technology post, but I thought is showed how there are now more options available to the online consumer.

Validation

So many times in life we pass by without validating or thanking the people who have made a difference in our lives. This video is about someone who really validated --it's almost like he didn't get the memo that said, "You don't really validate these people, just their parking."
Technology is a scary topic for some of us, it's new, different, and sometimes we may get it wrong and look bad. So let's take some time to validate each other.

Recorded Books

There is a lovely site called Recorded Books K-12 that has some great clips to use as book talks. This is wonderful for teachers or librarians wanting to get students interested in books. Great fun.

Digital Pioneer

I found this on FaceBook. I decided to look for some technology "friends" and as always I find the wisdom of Kathy Schrock.

Digital Pioneer: The Movie from Kathy Schrock on Vimeo.

Inspiration comes at the darndest times....

Ok, so we were driving down the highway about 2:30 in the afternoon on a wonderful, cool, blue Saturday. My husband and I were conversing about…bills, the economy, plans for the future, you know, keeping it light.
And then BOOM it hits me–what if I try to use a voki with a voicethread? Can it be done? Can the same sound recording that I use for the one voki be used for the voice thread??

Hey, Feedjit, I have another red dot!

You know the most fun on a Wednesday evening is to see a new dot on your widjit map. I wonder who the other red dot is? They were in Florida at the time they dropped by. What did they think? Was it a mistaken click that someone ended up on my blog?

Hmmm, fun thoughts to ponder. I wonder if I'll ever get a bunch of dots like Miguel Guilin (sorry if I spelled your name incorrectly, Miguel.)

Well, it's time to be off.
Karen

Challenges to be New and Fresh

There is one consistent fact of education: the students are going to be there, and they need to be educated. Now today was a good day. I seemed to have all the answers. Last Thursday, I had very few answers--even to the most elementary of questions. Here is a great quote that sums it all up: (It is from Darren Draper on Friday, June 15, 2007).

• No matter how good it went today, the kids will always be back tomorrow.
• No matter how bad it went today, the kids will always be back tomorrow.

I'm so glad it doesn't depend on me. On days like last Thursday, I found some very wise teacher friends and soaked in some of their wisdom. I didn't whine or complain about how I felt so unprepared, but sat back in a meeting and listened to what they had to say. There were lesson plan ideas full of preparation. There were mountains of patience to be seen. I felt much better knowing that maybe I could "grow up" to be like them some day.

Voki training--er how do I use this?

It's time to get started on creating my Voki presentation for TCEA. I'm looking forward to it because I want to make it applicable to teachers who have 100 students. Some questions that come to mind are:

1. It's fun, we get that, but how can users/students benefit?
2. You can give a student a cool tool, but how do you make them want to use it for learning?
3. Will voki work on several different platforms?

More to come later.