You Tube

I poked around on YouTube today, but I didn't have too much time to find anything really intriguing or particularly useful for our purposes. I think we've posted a couple of videos there already (the GEM/EF video?)--do we have any feedback or tracking of hits? Also, out of curiosity, I looked at Facing History, and they seem to have a number of videos, including a commercial with Matt Damon, a clip by Bill Moyer, and a video with Don Cheadle. This seems out of our reach (unless some of you know some famous people and just aren't telling us!), but I think we can also use it to demonstrate student impact somehow. How about a video interview with students about how PS has touched their lives, or shaped their perspectives? Unfortuantley, this production would be coslty and time consuming, so I don't think it is high priority now. However, if we do decide to produce a video about PS (either for the Gala and/or the major gifts campaign), YouTube or these other sites could be another (free) way of promoting our work.

catching up

Although I haven't been blogging about 12 Things lately, I have been actively pursuing web-based tools that I think are useful. For example, I recently joined LinkedIn, a social networking site, that is specifically geared toward professionals who are looking to network with colleagues. This was recommended to me by someone I met at a professional development workshop that I attended 2 weeks ago.

The Global Education Collaborative through Ning seems like a rich resource--I just signed up and am looking forward to checking it out more thoroughly.

That's all for now...stay tuned.

Wikis

Here are my findings in the wonderful world of wikis....two of the wiki discovery exercises were very relevant to our work and I can see many applications.

The Flat classrooms project is a very cool idea--connecting classrooms around the world in this way is very powerful. For example, I clicked on one of the discussion topics posted by a 9th grade teacher in Israel who was teaching her class about WWI and WWII. She was seeking input from other classrooms around the world about their perceptions and how these historical moments are taught--this is a great way to get kids to start thinking about multiple perspectives and frameworks. I think our teachers could definitely jump into something like this is their own classrooms.

The wetpaint wikis in education have a global connections wikis that do a similar kind of thing that is very accessible for teachers and can be used by American teachers more actively to teach their students about the world and really connect students in different parts of the world.

Global Connections Wikis

How can wikis be used to connect students globally?

Group projects:	Students from around the world can create a site together
Cultural Exchanges:	Students can post pictures and stories of places where they live
Point of View:	Students engage in different points of view on a given topic
Peer Review:	Post questions for student brainstorming, or have students post papers for peer feedback
Group FAQ:	Students and/or teachers post and respond to questions on a given topic

Great resources!

Technocrati and Delicious

So I poked around both of these sights. I think Delicious could be especially useful if we could start to tag and bookmark important sites that we would commonly access. For example, I think using tags for the grants sites could be good, if we came up with a standard set of tags that we would all use.

The Monkey dance

I happen to have my camera at work today and it has my pictures from Bali on them still. Here is a video of the Kecak dance that Justin and I saw at the Ulu Watu temple on our honeymoon. :)

Web 2.0

In my exploration around the Web 2.0 tools, I found a site that really caught my eye.

It's http://www.donorschoose.org and it's a philanthropy site where teachers can post their classroom needs and donors can choose what they would like to directly support. I wonder if we can encourage our teachers and schools to use this tool for raising funds for them to participate in our programs?

RSS or TMI?

I am determined to stay on track with these 12 things here....and I have never checked out the RSS feeds before so this was a new experience for me. (BTW, I am really enjoying the introduction of all of these neat techy tools a la self-paced discovery--I think it's a great way to learn.)

The RSS feeds do seem very useful for certain things, but to be honest, I think I work better when I seek out what I want to know in a more focused way, rather than just letting it all come it me in a constant wave of information. I think the Google Reader will now intimidate me with all the constant updates! I feel almost ashamed---I'd like to consider myself a person who stays informed, but how can I even begin to process all of that information, while still maintaining a productive professional and personal life? Just seems like it will distract me from other things that are more important. Simply not enough hours in the day to keep up with it all.

However, I think if the feeds were much more specific, then it could be very useful. RSS feeds I've subscribed to: The Boston Globe, NPR, PS 12 Things, and one of my friends' blogs. I am holding out on the 5th subscription until I find one that I will find really useful and not too overwhelming--I'll let you know what I find.