Collecting Animoto Inspiration through the Social Web

I started writing this post about 35 minutes ago, and yet I'm still here on the first sentence. Something I find myself doing each time I sit down is continuously exploring other peoples blogs and getting so deep in thought (and experiencing minor "Blog Envy" of all the fabulous idea I find other teachers using) that I forget that I started writing my own post!

So...getting down to business I found a link to an Animoto video I liked in my search. I like it for three reasons:
1) It seems simple enough for students to listen/watch/actually LEARN something new
2) It seems simple enough for ME to understand how to create!
3) A wonderful visual for all my active and visual learners!

Community Unit Vocabulary (from Sara's Blog, Spring 2012 Class Blogs on EDUC584's site)

I'm still in the collecting stage of my Animoto. I'm thinking about all the terms I need to add and the images that will go well with them. To be honest, I'm getting very excited to start my Animoto!

If you're looking for Tips to make your Animoto better look through this site for helpful ideas!

If you ever thought that the surfing the internet was a solitary activity you may to rethink that. Richardson (2009) spends a whole chapter in Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts discussing the Social Web as a tool for communication, collaboration and building social relationships. You are never alone on the internet and with the relatively recent boom in communicating through Blogs, Wikis, Twitter accounts and Facebook there is always a person to talk to, a post to comment on or a picture to share.

In the world of teaching there is no such thing as an original idea. A new lesson always comes from someones old lesson or a conversation with colleagues or a textbook read on the topic. The Social Web that we all use so frequently is making it that much easier for educators to share their ideas and collaborate with one another. Until most recently (well...about 10 minutes ago) I was pretty skeptical about using Twitter as a personal or professional tool. Yet, I have to admit after reading Tales of a First Year Teachers latest post I see that using a Twitter account in the classroom can be pretty seamless.

There are so many accessible tools that help in making your life easier. One of those is Diigolet. It makes bookmarking seem so 1999, organizing all your favorite sites into one library that no matter where you are you can access with ease.

Now I admit, I just mentioned a lot of different sources and that may seem overwhelming to some of you (and some days to myself as well!). But just remember, they're simply suggestions of how to organize yourself before tackling all that the Social Web has to offer you!

Wiki, Wiki, Wiki

If any of you had that kind of day and you need a good laugh...I fell upon this and couldn't help but share. I am a sucker for funny/cute kid videos.

I feel like every time I come onto my blog and search around others I learn something new. I think I may be catching the bug...it's starting to become a lot more fun for me to share my thoughts and post to others. I went searching on some sites Richardson suggested in chapter 4 and it's funny but none of them appealed to me. I immediately was overwhelmed with the amount of text on the page and I could tell I was not engaged by the lack of pictures or interactive components to the blog. So...I have made it my mission to make my blogs as colorful, interesting and relatively simple as possible to attract a wide range of readers and followers.

My experience with Wikipedia started and ended in high school when our librarian told us that if we used as research or information from Wikipedia it was automatically false and we would be graded down accordingly.  So, needless to say I stayed away from the site. But, my how much has changed!

Richardson states in chapter 4 that wiki means quick...I have mixed feelings about this. The steps of researching, reading and blogging is a quick way to share information but every time I start looking at other peoples sites I get lost I start losing my breadcrumbs to where I began. Richardson also says Wikipedia is the poster child for collaborative learning because anyone and everyone can share and edit information. And if you didn't think Wikipedia could get better...if you love cooking and finding fast and simple recipes as much as I do check out this site!  I just found it and am automatically obsessed.

What's most interesting is that scholastic information is being shared and created freely using Wikipedia. My prediction is that one day (not any time soon), textbooks will be nonexistent. The children who are in my classroom are twenty times more literate with technology than I was at their age (and really still am!). Richardson made a valid point that in our Read/Write Web we are all editors and are becoming responsible for doing that job.

On PlanetMath math becomes accessible to all. Now, it seems that this is not as child friendly as I would need for my first graders but looking around this site made me think of how I could use a wiki like this. If my district allowed all the 1st grade teachers to create a wiki regarding our new math curriculum it would open a world of collaboration and co-teaching strategies that are not available currently. We could make it a resource to us as well as to the students and parents with activities to do at home as well.

There are even Wiki's that get the community involved like Operation Katrina 2009 which was started by a school group that assists each year in the area affected by Hurricane Katrina.

In all the blogging and searching you've been doing in the past few weeks, have you found a favorite wiki?