Peanut Butter Wiki

I have always been interested in how to use a wiki in the classroom. I have attended several workshops on this, but nothing has sunk in yet. So for my final assignment, I will be sharing the Peanut Butter Wiki. www.pbwiki.com

First of all, a wiki is a web page that multiple people can edit. Most people are now familiar with the "wikipedia" in which definitions and descriptions can be added and changed. Some examples of using a wiki for education include the general uses of a class web page and also having assignments that students can work on together. For distance learning, I think this would be very good. I think we had some difficulty in doing group assignments in our course. In a distance learning course each person could be given a piece of an assignment and it could be joined together on a wiki. Members of the group could add their contributions. They could edit each others, and so forth. I think this would be an excellent format.

The Peanut Butter Wiki advertises itself as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich. In fact, it was easy to make and only took a few minutes. They provide a video tour at http://pbwiki.com/tour/pbwiki.html Check it out for more information.

PBWiki is Free, but like most free software, it is limited to 10MGs of space. However, it is a good way to get started and the prices are not high to acquire more space and more features. For just $10 month you can jump to the next level.
Some of the features include point and click editing, audio widgets, chat room, and a calendar.

The features I like are that it can be totally private and available only to those who have the password and I can know who added what to the page. This would be very good in my classroom and also in working with a group of teachers.
PODCAST interview with another teacher sharing information on PBWiki
movie to be added

hot potato quiz

quiz

Hot Potatoes

Since I cannot use the Raptivity software, I am trying out Hot Potatoes. This is a quizmaker that makes simple quizzes like crosswords, matching, multipe choice, etc. While I did not find it innovative, it does work on the Mac. Shortly I will post a link to my exercise.

Number 9

Assignment #9 is presenting problems. I completed the reading and was very excited about trying out the Raptivity software only to learn that it is for windows only. I will not have access to a windows machine for 2 weeks. I am limited to my Mac computer. I have gone ahead and done the PollDaddy optional assignment.

Responses to survey

So far I have received two responses to my survey. Reading the responses was really fun. This is definitely a useful tool to organize opinions and needs. At the same time, I have already talked with these two people extensively both in person and through email, so i don't know if it is really needed. I think it would be more useful for a group of people that you don't know like for a class evaluation.

iChat

Because I am using a Mac computer, I will be available to iChat with others, not Google Talk. My emai for iChat is Sewalter4@mac.com. Please let me know if you would like to iChat with me. I also have a video camera set up.

Survey Info

I think that you can check out my survey at the following:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=dgNlWchfRqE_2bcuQe223egQ_3d_3d.
or click on the link at the bottom of the page.

Survey Monkey #1

Using Survey Monkey was easy and fun. What a great tool. I did have some difficulties due to my slower connection right now and I couldn't find a "save and return later" button which would have been a great help. I have created a survey about use of technology for a group of my teachers. These are teachers who I will be providing professional development to in the Fall. I thought it would be a good idea to ask them a few questions about how they rate themselves in technology skills and what kind of training they think they might be needing. I do not have the results back, yet. They are on summer vacation. So I will make another posting when the results are in.

My First Video Post

Click here to view video

O-deo O-day-o

The last few weeks of assignments have been a challenge for me. Most of the difficulty was due to computer issues. First, I could not access audio from Odeo on my work computer. Then, my connection speed was not fast enough at home. Then, too, there were Mac issues. And finally time issues. When I finally got my first Odeo posted, I felt like I was way behind in assignments. So I dove into the podcasting using Odeo with anxiety and determination. And I was successful. So then I proceeded to look up the Odeo recordings on my colleagues' blogs. I could not find any. I was sure that I had done something wrong again. I have focused in particularly on my Jupiter group looking for the little Odeo icon. Finally,today I found ONE! Paul K., thank you for having one on your blog, and yes I listened to it. I signed up for it in iTunes and that audio worked. But still no others. I am feeling way out in space with this Jupiter group and will check into some other blogs soon. But for now it is on to next assignment: moviemaking. O. day-o is a local drive-up coffee franchise, and I need some now!

My Podcast URL

One of my interests includes creating opportunities for upper elementary school students to enroll in distance learning courses or even creating them. Here is my Odeo link to subscribe.

http://odeo.com/channel398383/rss.xml

Adding podcasts

I am not exactly sure what the Magic is that just happened, but while listening to podcasts for my assignments, I seemed to push all the right buttons in Odeo and ended up with a podcast on this blog! This is amazing to me as I had such difficulty with Odeo before. What is different? Well I was able to subscribe to Google Reader, thanks to a suggestion from one of our classmates. (BlogBridge doesn't work on this computer.) That was easy.

Podcast: Why it's open season on Microsoft

Gabcast Link

Listen to my Gabcast!
Gabcast! ATP class assignments #1 - First attempt

atp

First Podcast

Can't believe how excited I am. I was successful in adding my Class Lesson to my school website and then students accessed it this morning. Much more to do and learn: do it faster, use more music, etc. But I am very proud to have gotten this far. You can listen to my post at the website where it is posted by clicking on the link below.
Listen To My audio Post

Assignments done; Off to Florida

So I did get the Site Feed right because I now see two site feeds on my blog. I just had not posted it to the class. Success is not that sweet. My computer is running Mac OS X 3.9 and will not run BlogBridge because of not having the updated Java. I could upgrade to Tiger, but don't have the time to save all my files. Does anyone know of another aggregator that I could try? Help would be much appreciated.

So I have been trying to work on my husband's Mac. Using some one else's computer is just not that easy. But I think I will manage today to get the assignments done. I am loading all of the class site feeds. I am happy about this method as I really did want to read everyone's blog, at least from time to time, but the discussion board was not loading well. Maybe by next week when I am back in my classroom I will start all over with my PC, there.

In the meantime, I am flying off to Florida as my mother has just gone in the hospital there and I need to make various arrangements. Not sure if I will have computer connections there, but will try to use the time to catch up on reading everyone's blogs.

Banner Post

Frontiers in Tech Ed- Online Database Software

What do you consider to be the cutting edge, the new frontier, in Educational Technology? For each school or District it may be something completely different. Some schools are already one-to-one computing. Others are using PDA's or iPods. While many are just trying to replace 5-year-old computers. For me, Today, and I say today with a capital T because I don't know what the challenge will be tomorrow, it is online software programs. That is, software that resided on the internet with a database that remains with the company. My students sign on via the internet and save their work in the company database.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of this? Obviously one of the pluses includes no tech support. This can be a big plus if, like me, you have struggled with software on your server. Another is that students have access from any location where the Internet is available. One of the major disavantages is the cost. These programs are costly for a small school district such as mine. Another is the need for staff development, but this isn't necessarily a new need.

For me the jury is still out as I have only just begun to use these programs. Is it the future of skill-based computing?
Have you tried any of these new software programs? What do you think?