BP8_2009103_Skype_Web2.0Tool

Real-time communication is available with tools like Instant Messaging (IM) through Yahoo and Google. Text is the primary convention for communicating through IM, and it is done on the computer or a mobile device. The IM web tool has advanced to the point that people can attach videos, photos and other files as well as text. There are so many Web 2.0 tools available; it is hard to comment on just one. Skype is an additional real-time communication tools that I am familiar with. It allows Internet telephony, where voices are carried over the Internet in real-time. It is a service that is readily available for free or at very little cost. More than one hundred million people around the world are using Skype to converse in real-time. Skype is set up to provide video conferencing as well. (Schrum, p69)

As I investigated real-time web 2.0 tools for communications that carry voices using Internet Protocol, there were others. These included Talkety, tringme, flashphone, and jaduka, and they can be further investigated at (http://www.go2web20.net/#telephony). Some of these lesser known tools need head phones or other equipment to work, which may be why Skype has become more commonly known.

As the use of these tools becomes more common, students who need to work on projects out of class could use real-time communication tools to do assignments with classmates while at home. Our online course at Full Sail is conducive to this kind of communication, since classmates are spread across the country and need to collaborate and talk regularly. In some cases I have used Skype and ichat to conference conversations among three or four classmates simultaneously.

So long as students can afford a computer at home, and they have the proper connections to the Internet, Skype and other real-time communication tools could be something teachers turn to as a tool to accompany long-term group assignments. However the chance that computers will be found in every student’s home does not yet seem to be anywhere close to a reality. A census report in 2007 showed that home access to computers was inequitable across student population. “Fewer than 40% of American-Indian, Hispanic, and African American children had both computers and Internet access at home” (Schrum, p166). Until the vast majority of students have the tools at home to go with assignments, Skype and other real-time tools will have to find their way into the educational systems in bits and pieces. In Michael Wesch's video, Wesch referred to Ray Kurzweil's comments that we are living in exponetial times. The landscape of technology is changing exponentially in terms of the rapid speed at which Technology, Internet, Bandwidth, information processing and applications are moving and growing. With that I hold onto hope that we will find ways to equip homes of all economic backgrounds sooner than we can imagine.

References:

Real-time Web tools information retrieved from

http://www.go2web20.net/#telephony

Schrum, L. & Solomon, G. (2007). Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools. Washington D.C. ISTE.

Telephone image with computer created on Power Point using clip art manipulated by Beckie Lamborn, 2009.

Wesch, M. (2009). Video retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4yApagnr0s

BP8_2009103_CommentClassmate_Web2.0Tool

BP9_2009103_Reflective Post 1

The Web 2.0 tool I have used most is the National Gallery of Art's The Art Zone, with it's interactive activities for students to create their own masterpieces with Virtual paint, clips, or other digital tools for making their own art works.From first grade through 6th grade, my students have enjoyed this site. Watch out for the ink supply in your printer, because students love to print their compositions to share.

BP7_2009103_Ning_Web2.0Tool

As a member of Maryland Art Educators Association, I attended an art educators’ conference in Maryland this week. The conference brought together teachers from around the state. It provided workshops, lectures, and exhibits to equip teachers with fresh ideas, inspiration and innovation to take back to their classrooms. Besides assisting with a workshop presentation, I also attended an art and technology workshop.

There were close to fifty workshops offered throughout the day, and the tempera-painting workshop that I co-presented was well attended by more than twenty-five teachers. The workshop brought together people with common interests and goals. We not only presented our lesson ideas, but they then brain stormed and built on the ideas that others had used in their classrooms. The environment was ideal for social interaction and sharing of ideas.

I then attended a workshop titled “Integrating Technology in the Art Classroom”. The first question was about web 2.0 tools and defining what the tools are. As I’ve learned from Full Sail, these new web tools are different because they allow for interaction in multi directions. Not only is information directed out to viewers as was the case in earlier web tools, but information is now coming back in a multi directions between viewers. Viewers can respond and interact with each other and have a dialogue that brings together scores of opinions and ideas.

The tool that was highlighted was Ning. We opened an Art Education 2.0 Ning site and the amount of educators present on the page was dramatically larger than the well-attended workshop that I had just left. There were groups on the page that talked about AP Studio Art, Street Art, Elementary art, with over one hundred members in just those categories.

This Ning site brings together teachers with common interests, and it provides a place for teachers to talk about education and art. The advantage of using a Ning site is they are free and easy to create. Any person that has a topic or area that they want to explore could start a Ning site. The site can be set to public or private, so members could be regulated or open. With regard to the Art Education 2.0 site the forum is open allowing more collaboration and sharing at just the touch of a computer key. From any location a teacher could access the site and have fellow educators as a resource. The site has access to blogs, chats, groups, forums, videos, photos, and individual members that all have to do with art and education. Setting up a Ning site or being a part of a Ning site is an easy way to communicate and be informed in today’s technological world of social networking.

Reference:

Art Education Ning site retrieved from:

http://arted20.ning.com/

BP6_2009103_ReflectiveMediaAsset_iGoogleWebTool

BP5_2009103_FlickrLessonPlan

Looking at Flickr and all the amazing photographs that are uploaded by the public has been inspiring for me as a teacher. Since the images are so varied and they have tagged words that organize them into groups, it would be fun to use the images educationally. The arts or languages would be a likely outlet for educational lessons. Even the sciences, history, social studies, and cultural studies would be possible areas that teachers and students could investigate using the images.

One lesson that Flickr presented online that an elementary teacher might use talked about looking for action words and teaching verbs to students. Students are introduced to new verbs and relate them to the photographs that match up to the words. Students repeat the words and use them in sentences.

In the elementary art class this lesson could be extended to drawing. When drawing portraits one topic students have to think about is action. “What is the person or animal doing?” Having looked up action words for the language assignment students could build on those ideas and make a drawing showing action.

Students could all look up the same action word and see how the same word is represented in different ways. For example “run” could be depicted using an animal running on a mountain, or a group of animals running near a river, a person running on a sunny day or on a rainy day, a person running in the city or running in the wilderness.

Or each student could pick an action word and do a drawing which they then share with their classmates to talk about their action word.

Students could title their work of art and include the action word in the title. Also Students could make a creative writing piece that corresponds to their artwork. Using Flickr as the inspiration, students would be provided a multitude of visual samples that have the potential to put their creative processes in motion.

Flickr lesson plan idea retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/19387797/Lesson-Plan-With-Flickr

BP4_2009102_SocialBookmarking

Social Bookmarking is a term that I had not heard prior to this course at Full Sail. The term refers to a web 2.0 tool that is used to save links to your favorite sights, so you as a reader can refer to those sights by the simple touch of a link. Social bookmarking goes a step further than the standard bookmarking tools that I have used, because these Social bookmarks are set up in an account that is online. The account is accessible from any computer, whereas the traditional bookmarks are remembered only on a reader’s personal computer.

Educators will find this tool beneficial while searching for content and research relevant to their studies and teaching. Whether searching authors, artists, biographies, cultures, or history, teachers can organize their findings using social bookmarking as their virtual folder. Beside the benefit of bookmarking using this Web-based service, a teacher can also tag the bookmarks. This means a teacher would write a few descriptive words about the site they are going to save, and those words are then attached to that link for organizational purposes. Bookmarks are alphabetized and also organized by tags. While reading an article by Lorrie Jackson (2009) I learned one additional piece to tagging, “your sites are organized automatically with sites saved by other users, using those same keywords. Thus you benefit from the research of others, while having a far more dynamic and helpful system of organization.”

With so many people using the computer and its ever-evolving tools, educators have an opportunity incorporate networking tools into their classrooms. Social networking and online computer use was studied at University of Minnesota (2008) for it’s educational benefits. Technological proficiency was being seen across the board including low-income students and totaling 94 percent of students studied who used the Internet. Christine Greenhow, a researcher at the university, stated, “Students are also sharing creative original work like poetry and film and practicing safe and responsible use of information and technology. The Web sites offer tremendous educational potential.” Greenhow’s research realized the students’ skills and proficiencies, but pointed out that there are still untapped educational opportunities available using networking technologies

(University of Minnesota, 2008).

At Miami University Jason Abbitt (2009) implemented a Social Bookmarking activity for a ten-week course involving undergraduates pursuing a teaching degree. The assignment was set up as a study to understand the value of bookmarking in an educational setting and how it might be used. One finding was that the users of bookmarking increased their valid site resource references (for lesson planning, and strategies and methods of technology integration) at a higher rate than those who did not use bookmarking. (p. 95)

With this in mind it seems the benefits of collective searches for information and resources could result in quality findings that benefit the user whether and educator or student.

As Clay Shirky’s book made clear with his description of the Birthday Paradox (2008) the number of connections that are formed when even a group as small as thirty-five people correspond, is exponential. In my mind having access to resources that thirty-five or even a thousand people have searched and tagged through Social Bookmarking can very well lead to a useful and beneficial library of information for any teacher or educator.

References:

Abbitt, J. (2009) Evaluating the Implementation of a Social Bookmarking Activity for an Undergraduate Course. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, Retrieved October 11, 2009 from http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/PDF/8.1.5.pdf

Jackson, L. (2009). Education World. Sites to See: Social Bookmarking.

Retreived October 2009 from http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/sites/sites080.shtml

Shirky, C. (2008). Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. New York: Penguin Press. (p. 25)

University of Minnesota (2008, June 21). Educational Benefits of Social Networking Sites Uncovered. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 11, 2009 from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080620133907.htm

BP3_2009102_web2.0_tools_iWeb

A Web 2.0 tool that I find interesting and one that will help me in my professional studies is the iWeb. I never thought I would be able to create a web page, but with our Full Sail program it was the first tool we were asked to use to create a bio of ourselves. Uploading iMovies, Garageband audio files, and setting up a blog were among the assignments that I navigated while learning some of the features of the iWeb tool. The iWeb will be useful in education to set up communications with parents and family about art that is happening in the classroom and at school.

The iWeb allows a teacher like myself to create a site on my own computer, and then export and upload it to the web. The site can always be republished and updated, and it is user friendly for a teacher. The blog pages are formatted so the most current blog entry is accessible first followed by a list of other blog entry topics. The blog posts are shown with a title and blurb so the reader can push on a link to read further. There is a comments box that readers can use to respond to the author’s posts. Parents and teachers could share dialogue about the projects or events going on in the classroom.

A website has multiple pages. The home page is where the site is introduced, and in preformatted websites one navigates to other pages using the links that are listed along a bar at the top. It is important to activate the link back to the home page on a website, so the reader can find his or her way back to the introduction page.

Another feature of a website is that the author can subscribe to RSS, (Really Simple Syndications). This is a feature that I am still learning about. The web page can link newspapers, journals and writings and ….”have the latest news and features delivered directly” (Schrum, p. 197). Having an RSS feed on your website is an attractive feature that allows you to have the news you want regularly delivered right to the sight instead of having to navigate from site to site.

As described in an article by Microsoft Corporation, if the author subscribes to a current syndication the feed will provide constant updates keeping your sight fresh and making it more likely to be visited by readers. Having a relevant feed is also helpful. For example a site on harbor cruises might benefit from a syndicated weather report subscription, or a real estate investor could benefit by having a subscription to a realty company. Authors of websites can also provide RSS channels for readers, so that any updates you put on your website will be fed directly to the readers. This way readers won’t miss an update if they don’t get a chance to check a website regularly(2009).

An art website might have an RSS feed to the local museum.

Resources:

Microsoft Corporation (2009). RSS Feeds: Benefits for You and Your Samll Business.

Retrieved October, 2009 from:

http://www.microsoft.com/australia/smallbusiness/themes/sales-and-marketing/rss-feeds- vista-outlook.mspx

Schrum, L. & Solomon, G. (2007). Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools. Washington D.C: ISTE.

Spiderweb image from Pics4Learning.com manipulated in Power Point by Beckie Lamborn. Retreived from: http://pics.tech4learning.com/index.php? search=qsearch&query=spider+webs&sfield=1&sorder=desc&viewmode=2&page=5&mult=1