Not on Netbooks

I'm curious why no one has mentioned that Photostory is not available for their Netbooks; in fact, I am curious why it is even an assignment for this class if I cannot do the work at all on my Netbook.
So I watched another The Common Craft Show video about another innovative Web 2.0 tool and listened to them tell me that "digital storytelling is a digital explanation" and I wondered why they did not explain to me the uses and necessities of digital storytelling while using Photostory. Wouldn't that make sense? So that's exactly what I decided to do for my artifact application.
My plan was to use Photostory to explain to my students how to use Photostory. Unfortunately, (and let me state here and now Cindy Kukla has been extremely helpful these past five weeks teaching me the 2.0 Tools I have learned thus far) but unfortunately the Photostory program crashed on me two days in a row, and Cindy is not sure why.
I'm inclined to use the word "So" again. It's like Lays; one is never enough.
Needless to say, I have not submitted my Photostory artifact this week; I hope to finish it within these next 24 hours.

RSSin

I still like my bookmarks.
Been using bookmarks for years, then two or three weeks ago I learned Diigo and thought this is pretty cool; I can share my bookmarks (i.e. Social Bookmarking) Now I have my Google Reader bookmarked as a tab on my menu bar right next to another tab "Latest Headlines". A month ago this would have made no sense. Now I will have up to the millisecond world news feeds fed intravenously through mine eyeballs.
Here is a feed some of you can use to keep things level and real:
http://feeds.theonion.com/theonion/daily

BTW--I still use my bookmarks. Having difficulty breaking old habits.
Nate

Lipsynching Podcast

Clearly many of you are failing to recognize the applicability of this Tool! I have every intention of Lipsynching my future lessons. My voice in one corner of the room while I stand in the opposite; maybe I'll even chime in every tenth word just so my students can hear me in stereo! Just imagine how engaged our students will be! Now take this idea another step further...Imagine their captivation if you mouthed the words a full second behind your own vocal recording. Now you see where I'm going with this! It's Stupendously FaNtAsTiC!
Immediate relevance--I recorded a three minute piece I have on Freud which I use as an introduction to Golding's Lord of the Flies, who used Freud's theories when writing his novel. This done can stand by silently for nine minutes one day when I present this lesson to my three classes of sophomores.

You Don't Deserve My Blog

I know most of you have waited 15 or greater years for me to start my Blog. Yes, even before its inception you have dreamt of days wherein in I would convey my thoughts to you on a WorldWideVenue. Today, all of your dreams and wishes have become ReaLiTy. Gorge yourselves on my banquet array of Vowels and Consonants: http://thestarbuckstopshere.blogspot.com/

Those who have not Yearned for it, Know you have not earned it, and are therefore forbidden to Gaze upon my inscriptions. Not until you have proven your worth with tremendous abject groveling, will I offer my Gift. Heed and Discern: a King does not retain Divine Power by relinquishing his Crown, Throne, and rubied jeweld Sceptre, Nor will I mine Adjectives, Predicates or Subjects to such undeservers!

Stay Hungry My Minions,
Nate Gray

How will I blog with my students? I could easily make up a host of ideas, but I have no serious intentions to do such. Senior Skills students love to complain; I could have them blog about their high school issues and concerns, perhaps even have them explain how their attitudes might reflect their grades. With my sophomores, perhaps at the beginning of the year I could have them blog their goals and explain what steps they will take to achieve them. I would not be overly concerned about their academic goals (everyone wants A's and B's) I would want them to blog their personal, extra-curricular expectations.
I shall give it some thought.

Wikispaces

It sounds unrealistically too good to be true. I watched the video about four friends going on a camping trip all trying to help each other get organized, but our classrooms are not filled with only four friends and we are not excitedly going on a camping trip.
However, like Paul Wack, I too, with the help of Cindy, created a wiki page on Wikispaces so that my sophomores can categorize lines from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar into three persuasive rhetorical appeals: logos, pathos, and ethos.
I have two great concerns: 1. that some students will not take the assignment seriously enough or will maybe have a friend do it for them, and 2. I am concerned about the "Edit"and "Save" buttons. If a student chose to sabotage all the work done, how can we stop him or her from clicking "Edit" selecting all the text and deleting it, and then pressing "Save".
BTW--so I thought I had a pretty good Wiki page and was kinda excited to have my classes work on the assignment I created when Cindy informed me that they all need to download Wikipages first. That brings me right back to the first Element of Digital Citizenship! What if my sophomores do not have "Digital Access"? And what if our computers in the lab do not have Wikipages stored.
All for naught?
Nate

Research and Information Fluency

I found the Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship to be quite eye-opening. All nine are worth reviewing with any high school class probably once a semester, but four really stand out for me when I think of our students and the assignments we provide them: 1. Digital Access, 4. Digital Literacy, 5. Digital Etiquette, and 6. Digital Law.

Each year I see myself focusing more and more on having students write documented essays. They need to generate a thesis; then go out and find the sources that support their ideas. Before I discovered Diigo, I required my students to print out and show me their highlighted sources. They then had to place their sources on NoodleTools. This was how I combated plagiarism. Now that I'm learning Diigo, I will be promoting digital citizenship while using far less ink, paper, and highlighters.

Cindy Needs to Make a Video.

I watched that 9 minute video hoping to learn something new that Cindy did not already explain in 90 seconds, but came up short. Actually, that's not true I did learn the proper pronunciation of U-boon-tu, and I did learn that "Gnome is a default distribution..." but that means absolutely nothing to me.
Cindy did send me to the Ubuntu Software Center and I did examine the list of tools and resources available under "Education." The "problem" however, (not really a problem) is that my netbook already has the good ones installed. I tried downloading one ("Math Wars" I think) that was not pre-installed just to go through the motions, and I encountered some application problems; so after twenty minutes of dawdling, I uninstalled it.
I think I will wait for someone who is overzealous about new technology to introduce me to the newest Web 2.0 Tool that will inspire adolescents to read--on their own--the classic literary works we provide them.
Can anyone show me that Linux, Ubuntu, Gnome, FOSS Web 2.0 Tool?
Nate

How have I survived without it?

Afternoon Colleagues,

I conducted my first official Skype conversation this week with a True Wolf! Mr. Frederick Wulfram. With the invention of this remarkable technology I felt it was historically necessary to recite "Mary had a little lamb" but instead I did as advised and simply recited our alphabet, and yes we had communication. Of course I was required to leave the room because Mr. Wulf and I were sitting beside each other in Cindy's office and therefore could not Skype properly. I think one of the requirements to proper Skyping is that we need to be continents apart or at least 50 feet. If you sit too close, conversation is impossible.
I encountered this same problem days earlier when Cindy and I tried to connect, and she had to walk out of the room. Unfortunately, after walking nearly two miles away from me the only sound I could hear was the squelching of an Alien. If I had studied the art of reading one's lips I might have been able to read some words because we did have video. We tried connecting with "ToughGuy" Matt Weatherington, but after 15 minutes of effort he still could not get login.
Needless to say, I am missing the necessity of Skype. Clearly I have not lived enough.
I look forward to the day when District 219 funds my trip to Costa Rica so that I may teach a semester of all my classes from a cafe there; at which time I promise I would Skype no less than three days a week!
BTW--you ever notice that when the conversation of Skype comes up, the word "Africa" always seems to be lounging on a divan nearby?
Thanks for Reading,
Nate Gray

Leggo my Diigo. Alright you can share.

I did not know it had a name, but I have been sharing bookmarks with students for a few years now, and they have been sharing some with me. It all started with our first Orwell documented essay. After teaching Orwell's 1984 for a few years I started projecting websites in class. Then when students began their mini-research essays I would remind them about the sites I showed them in class. This was obviously a problem for any students who were absent or distracted, so I started copying and pasting the URL's to a word document and posting it on my website.
Now I learn we have Diigo. I like the fact that my Bookmarks can now go with me wherever I go regardless which computer I am using. I also like the fact that my bookmarks or favorites will no longer be forgotten when a Web Browser is discontinued like Explorer was by Mozilla, and like Mozilla will be with Google Chrome.
However, Diigo is not as clean or as visible (i.e. accessible) as my Explorer Favorites were. With Explorer a slight motion of the hand and I could view hundreds of Favorites inside folders on a single page. With Diigo I cannot modify the font size (yet) and I can only view about twenty bookmarks per page.
O' well, hopefully by the time Diigo 6 arrives I will have all the features I want, just in time for it to be replaced by another software program.

Two Grads and CK

So I asked two graduates of Tech 1 and another colleague, whose name I will not disclose, "What is Moodle? Why the goofy name? What does it stand for? What does it mean?" and none could really give me a direct answer.
For years I have been using Dictionary.com, but just this semester one of my sophomores, Jessica M. explained to me that if you go to the Google bar and type "Define: (your word)" it will provide you with the most extensive definitions in our galaxy. I did this with the word Moodle and this is what it gave me:
"1. Moodle: Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment is a free and open-source e-learning software platform..."
The second definition was even more striking. It read:
"2. To dawdle aimlessly, to idle time away; The process of lazily meandering through something, doing things as it occurs..." Toss in the words "...and rather anxiously..." and this would describe how I felt while sifting through our millennium’s newer, burgeoning technology.

But I am not a hater; I swear I’m not. I love my smartphone, my iPod shuffle, my bluetoothed Bob Edwards podcasts, and so much more! It’s just that there is too much more. Just trying to complete this assignment I feel a little overburdened trying to choose the next best technology from the million others available; then of course, try figure out how to incorporate it.

In many ways I am already a Web 2.0 teacher. I currently share my bookmarks with my students on my school website; I guide my students with Wikipedia to launch them into their research assignments. For example, my students are asked to compare Orwell’s 1984 to a current nation. Using Wikipedia they can scroll to the section on Human Rights and find some Buzzwords like “Human Trafficking, Slave Labor, Arbitrary Imprisonment, Torture” which they can Google for credible sources. I also require my students to use NoodleTools to document their sources. BTW--There are three buttons on NoodleTools which I find extremely useful: Weblink, parenthetical reference, and Export.

Now that I am researching Web 2.0 Tools I found Diigi, Zotero, and two helpful websites Cool Tools for Schools and Box of Trix. Cindy just helped me setup my Diigi account as she has for many of us, and I need to transfer my old Webpage to Google Docs soon I’m told. I’m sure I will see others of you in her lab in the weeks to come.

One thing that concerns me as I watch the videos for this assignment—and I learn that kids 8-18 spend 61/2 hours a day interacting with media; and students today are no longer the consumers of yesteryear, they are creators and writers—is how do we get our students to read the novels we assign them. I do not want to Moodle with any students if they have not closely read the works first.

Well, I’ve uttered an earful.

Thanks for reading,

Nate