K12Online2007 Conference Reflection #7

This presentation was

Obstacles to Opportunities“Pushing the Envelope or How to Integrate Web 2.0 Tools on a Shoestring”

Lisa Durff

Hagerstown, Maryland, USA

Blog: http://durffsblog.blogspot.com/

I met Lisa on Edtechtalk.com, but I had never seen what she looked
like. She looked thinner and younger than I envisioned her, but her
voice was instantly recognizable.I loved how she used her coffee seem very personal.

What were the main points made during this session, the “takeaways?”
Lisa talked about several free tools:
Blogs
Wikis
Electronic meetings with other classes
E-mail
Google Reader
IM
podcasting

In terms of your own professional development, what did you gain from the session?

This is a great list of foundational Web 2.0 tools to use in the classroom. I can be pretty sure that I am using lots of technology in my classroom if I am using these tools. Money is not the barrier keeping me from using these technologies. So why don’t I use them?

What questions did you have after this presentation?

I wonder about how PodOmatic compares to hosting student podcasts on our class blog.
How do I teach my kids to take notes, so they can use Notestar?

How will you apply the learning to your professional situation?
I’ll have to try out Flashmeeting that she recommended to meet with with another class
Many of the free tools she mentioned, I already knew about. However,
most of them I have not used. I’m glad she mentioned Classblogmeister.
I would like to try it out with my class next year.

What other resources (including reading material) are relevant to this session?
Gmail
Free email account for teachers.
Gaggle
Free email accounts for students.
Meebo.com
Gathers all your IM accounts in one place. I have contacts in AIM, MSN,
& Yahoo. With Meebo, I see them all. Students contact me through
Meebo outside of school.
Classblogmeister
This is the home of our school based blogs.
Notestar
A free notetaking application which is useful for research papers.
PodOmatic
Podcast host which we use. They do have their own recorders, but we do
use Audacity, then upload to this site. The primary wing does not have
wireless, so this works well for us.
PeanutButterwiki
The wiki home for most of our student wikis. I have found that each
middle school group needs their own wiki for uploading space (they need
those images).
Wikispaces
Home for my wikis and a few student-accessed wikis. They prefer the
PBwikis and I prefer the wikispaces. Wikispaces does have
advertisements.
Google Reader
My RSS aggregator, which collects all my subscriptions in one place. I
can quickly scroll through blog updates, grade student work, and listen
to podcasts.
Flashmeeting
Conferencing software similar to Elluminate. Uses video and audio to connect participants for free.
Audacity
Free audio editing software which uses the llame file to export to mp3’s.
Twitter
Social network allows 140 characters per message. Great for short posts and/or questions.
Skype

Free VOIP, voice over IP, allows connections with text chat, audio, or video.

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