Introduction

• The Devaluation of Factual Knowledge
• A Tool with Specific Uses
• The Age of Ubiquitous Technology
• Get Relevant or Get Out of the Way!

Constructivist Activities

WebQuests

• The Basics
  • Created by Bernie Dodge and Tom March
  • A web-based inquiry-oriented activity
  • Learners are provided with a task and a starter set of links—this keeps the learning focused and minimizes down time
  • Students generally work collaboratively in groups—many times with different roles.
  • Sample WebQuest

• Resources
  • The WebQuest Page - A great place to start—you'll find tons of resources here.
  • The WebQuest Search Page - This is the place to go to find WebQuests. WebQuest creator, Bernie Dodge tends the collection listed on the WebQuest site.
  • A WebQuest About WebQuests - Great introductory WebQuest for teachers. Learn about WebQuests as you work through one. Good in-service activity!
  • WebQuest Design Patterns - Here are some examples of different flavors (patterns) which WebQuests can take. Great for stimulating ideas on creating your own!
  • QuestGarden - Ready to create or modify a WebQuest? This tool developed by Bernie Dodge himself (free until September 2006) will generate the pages and host a WebQuest that you create. A great free resource!
  • Filamentality - Nothing fancy, just the ability to create hosted WebQuests, Hot Lists, and Scavenger Hunts quickly.

Slam Dunks

• The Basics
  • Created by Jamie McKenzie
  • Usually designed to answer a key question
  • Designed to be completed in 30 minutes. All resources are linked

• Resources
  • questioning.org - fno.org - Two sites by Jamie McKenzie with excellent resources
  • Slam Dunk Workshop - A quick overview of the slam dunk (in slam dunk format)
  • Five Kinds of Slam Dunk Digital Lessons - Descriptions and examples of five different formats for Slam Dunk Lessons
  • Image Based Slam Dunks - How to create Slam Dunk Lessons based on images—Links to some great sources of images
  • Collections of Slam Dunk Lessons: 1 - 2

Cool Tool #2 - Celestia - Travel the universe from your computer.

• Download software - (12MB) Fast processors and good graphics cards are recommended to run Celestia
• Educational Resources - (159MB) Textures, scenarios, and learning materials. You can download a piece at a time, or even order a CD

Teaching Resources

United Streaming

• The Basics
  • Owned by the Discovery Channel
  • Thousands of online videos and video clips
  • Search engine interface, aligned with state standards
• Resources
  • Thanks to the purchasing power of our CPS, this service (normally $1000/school/year) is available at a great discount. The cost for this year at CLHS was under $300. Check with the CPS for details.
  • Consider downloading clips and inserting into presentation software

Marcopolo

• Collection of links and resources...very extensive—a half–full day workshop all by itself

Blue Web'n

• Collection of personally evaluated educational resources—a good place to browse for content and resources.

Cool Tool #3 - Keeping Track of Resources with Furl (Check out My Furl)

Publishing on the Web

Blogs

• The Basics
• Blog - (from weB log) Easily updated web site ideal for sharing thoughts, images, and links to cool sites.
• No expertise in web design necessary
• Uses
  • Writing reflections (composition, literature, history)
  • Current event sharing (science, history) - example
  • Class web site - example
  • School News - example
  • Literature Discussion - example - in this blog, the author actually contributes to student discussions
• Resources
• Weblogg-ed - THE authority on educational blogs—Will Richardson
• Blogging Across the Curriculum - A blog about blogs in education
• Bernie Dodge on Blogs
• Erasing Distance - web site from a workshop on blogs and wikis
• Bloglines - Keeping up with numerous blogs used to be a tough process. Not everyone blogs every minute, hour, day or week even. Bloglines use RSS feeds (Real Simple Syndication) to keep you up to date.
• Services
  • Blogger - owned by Google (my favorite)
  • Blog Meister - especially for education—allows teacher approval before messages are published from students (I haven't used it ... but have heard good reviews!)

Wikis

• The Basics
  • Web pages that can be edited and updated by anyone (or a restricted subset of everyone!)
  • Wikipedia - The world's largest encyclopedia (Is it a valid source?)
  • Holocaust Wiki - An example of a wiki used in an AP World History project
  • Wiki Strength: Anyone can edit content
  • Wiki Weakness: Anyone can edit content
  • Examples: CLHS Physics Wiki | CLHS Chemistry Wiki
• Resources
  • Teachers' Conference Wiki - Feel free to add technology resources you find useful on our own wiki. Create a wiki for your own class in minutes.
  • Design Patterns for Wikis - Ideas on how you can use a wiki for your classroom.
  • wikispaces.com - Set up your own wiki in minutes (free, with Google ads)
  • PmWiki - Free wiki software—you'll need web server space to install it, but no data base necessary.

SchoolFusion

• School Fusion will give 3 teachers at every school a class web site for life—sign up here. Lots of resources—calendar, links, downloads, chat, etc. If you want a classroom web site without learning to make web pages, this could be for you! Check out mine (a practice site only)

Cool Tool #4 - WildCam Africa - I'll admit it! I check this web cam a little too often. National Geographic sponsors this web cam at a watering hole in Botswana. In the past month I've observed elephants, giraffes, warthogs, zebras, lots of deer-like creatures. A window on a part of the world I may never visit.

Too Good to Pass Up

• Open Office - Even though MS Office is reasonably inexpensive for schools, it can still run into the thousands of dollars just to upgrade. This Open Source office suite has word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and database software that rivals Microsoft at no cost (donations are encouraged!). You can open and save files in Word, Excel, and Power Point formats.
• Gizmo and Skype - These are two Internet free phone services. The have great potential for collaboration with colleagues (free conference calls) and bringing speakers into the classroom.
• cMap Tools - If you like concept mapping, but not enough to purchase a site license of Inspiration, check out cMap Tools. Not all the bells and whistles of Inspiration, but a great piece of free software for making concept maps.

What Does the Future Hold?

• The $100 Laptop? - Computing costs will continue to decline. Will we be ready when cost is no longer the issue? It's almost here!
• Inexpensive video conferencing - As a geographically divided body, Will the WELS shrink the distance through video conferencing?

Be Aware of the Dark Side

• Online Communities for our Youth - What happens to unsupervised kids? They do things they shouldn't. Unfortunately many of our teens look at online communities like these as 'adult-free' zones. Like any cyber activity...it should be monitored by teachers and parents.
  • MySpace
  • Xanga
  • LiveJournal
  • DeadJournal
• Software/Music Piracy - I've noticed a surprising lack of conscience in regards to piracy of software and music off the web. If no one sees you...
• Cyberbullying - Kids feel anonymous on the web. They can strike out and hurt, even destroy others. Here is a great resource on cyberbullying. If it hasn't hit your school yet, it will!

How about an Onsite Workshop?

There really wasn't enough time to do any of these topics justice. You'll have to do some exploring on your own. If you're interested in an onsite workshop for your school, area or conference—contact me (rafaust@rocketmail.com) or Martin Plocher (mjmplocher@hotmail.com) about setting one up. The now defunct TelTech Taskforce trained us to be your resource people in the AZ-CA district of the WELS.