Another Reason To Love Wikipedia

Today as I was researching on Wikipedia, I was preparing to click on the print menu on the side and create a pdf of the page to load on my kindle.  When you click on the little arrow next to print you get a list of tools.  You can create a book, download page as a pdf, or get a printable version. Wait a minute.  Create a book?  Why have I not noticed this before?

When you click create a book you will see this:

Add this page to your book
Adds the currently viewed article (page) to your book.
Show book
Opens a new page which will show a list of all articles (pages) that you added to your book. On that page, you can change the order of the articles in your book and structure them using chapters. Further, you can download the books as a PDF or ODF, or order a printed book.
Suggest pages
This tool analyzes the current set of pages in your book and suggests articles that might be also relevant to the overall topic of your book. This tool allows to create books quickly.
Disable
This will disable the Book creator and delete your book (unless you saved it first).
Adding pages without visiting them
A quick way to add pages is to simply hover on a linked article. If you wait about one second, a small box will pop up with the message “Add linked wiki page to your book”. Click on this link, and the linked article will be added to your book.

Hovering your mouse over links is a convenient way to add pages to your book
Adding whole categories
If you are viewing a category page, you can add all the pages in that category at once. The Add this page to your book link will have changed into Add this category to your book. Click on this new link, and all the articles in that category will be added to your book. Relevant categories may be found at the very bottom of Wikipedia articles. Categories can also be added by hovering category links.

Each successive page will now have this handy link at the top:

When you have completed adding pages to your book, you can download the entire thing as a pdf.  Very nice for my Kindle
Click Show Book and the following page pops up.  You can tweak your title, sort your pages, preview, order a printed copy if you like, or simply download your book. Then if you are me, you convert it for your Kindle and read at your convenience.

Caveat: I do not advocate the use of Wikipedia at school as teachers have very strong feelings about the website.  I suppose the fact that even I can edit the site could be cause for concern but there are people constantly checking and fixing errors and misinformation.  Try looking up Hurricane Katrina in the set of Funk and Wagnalls I bought when my son was born.

Because Wikipedia is a massive live collaboration, it differs from a paper-based reference source in important ways. In particular, older articles tend to be more comprehensive and balanced, while newer articles more frequently contain significant misinformation, unencyclopedic content, or vandalism. Users need to be aware of this to obtain valid information and avoid misinformation that has been recently added and not yet removed (see Researching with Wikipedia for more details). However, unlike a paper reference source, Wikipedia is continually updated, with the creation or updating of articles on historic events within hours, minutes, or even seconds, rather than months or years for printed encyclopedias.

You should always check more than one website when you are doing research, but Wikipedia is a great place to start.

Blog Re-decorating

Please excuse the oddities – this did not go as planned and so it is temporary.  I will be making some changes but for now this is what it is.

I think I will live with this for awhile.  Hope it hasn’t been too disuptive

iGoogle Fuss

I am working on part 4 of my Stealing Time story and it’s coming slooowly this time.

In the meantime I have been making some changes in the way I read blogs.  I have been using igoogle homepages for a couple of years because I liked the visuals but beginning last week I started having problems with it.  Suddenly, my pages wouldn’t load.  It wasn’t my computer or my bandwidth because I tried from several computers and several locations.  It just wouldn’t load.  I am assuming at this point that google has made some changes.

I began migrating my feeds to google reader.  It’s something I should have done to begin with.  I seem to enjoy making things difficult for myself by using things for purposes other than what they were intended for.  The process has been slow and I am still not finished but it has also been a good time to clean out.  There were a lot of feeds I didn’t bother reading anymore and as I migrate I have forced myself to pare it down to the things I read consistantly.  I have organized as I moved and marked everything read so that I can start fresh.

I am alternating on working on my story and googling so be patient.

Writing this story has been kind of like having a baby.  Repeatedly.  Doesn’t sound like fun does it?  I remember thinking in my ninth month that this was going on far too long and couldn’t this baby just GET HERE ALREADY?  Then I would go into labor and things would happen so fast that the pain seemed secondary just do the work breath through the pain oh here it comes don’t ask me anything, there – it’s a boy/girl/story. I was blessed with short labors for those of you that are reading this and going “what??”.  Writing the story seems like that for me.  Wait, wait, wait – boom!

I’m no good at the waiting part.  Never have been.  Never will be.

What Do We Carry

I found a prompt at Scribble soup For Writers.

#58: At the movies
Write a piece, using only quotes from movies, book titles, song verses or titles.

I am fickle with music.  I have a new favorite song every few weeks and I will listen to it more than anything else until I get tired of it.  The last few weeks the song has been Half An Acre by Hem.  Most of this was taken from that song with just a little bit of addition from me.

I’ve wandered many miles and many years from my beginnings.  I have felt at home in other places but lately I have stopped marching relentlessly forward and rested in the present while I look back.  Not to recapture the past, but because I realize I have been in such a hurry that I may have left some important things.  I have spent time being new in new places and finding my place.

But in my heart, I am holding half an acre torn from the map of Michigan and folded in this scrap of paper is a land I grew up in.  Fair Haven Michigan, Denver Colorado, Fort worth Texas, Interlachen Florida, Minden Louisiana, Barstow California, Buckeye Arizona, Littleton Colorado, Paris Texas. There are smaller moves but that is the litany.  Think of every town you’ve lived in, every room you lay your head and what is it that you remember?

I remember the sense of adventure – I loved exploring.  I also remember some times of incredible loneliness until I started making friends, got started in a new job, made a place for us. Do you carry every sadness with you – every hour your heart was broken, every night the fear and darkness lay down with you? I learned that even though people are different in different places, they are also so very much alike.

A man is walking on the highway. A woman stares out at the sea, and light is only now just breaking.  We see the same moon and same sun no matter where we live.  We fight the same fears, heal from the same pains, and get our hearts broken.  Not our spirits.  Not our spirits.  And that is why no matter what happens with our economy.  No matter what happens politically, no matter how we find ways to divide – we will be okay and we will find our hearts.  We are ALWAYS stronger than we know.

I have come many miles, but I am holding half an acre torn from the map of Michigan. I am carrying this scrap of paper that can crack the darkest sky wide open – every burden taken from me – every night my heart unfolding….my home in my heart.

Lake St. Clair picture from flickr Velorutionary

Now You’re Cooking!

There is an interesting take on tutorials from Guy Kawaski (and a recipe and demonstration for making his world famous Teriyaki sauce)  It is worth the visit just for that! Show how to do something in about two minutes!

His cooking demonstration is an episode at StartCooking.com There are plenty of videos as well as recipes in text form.  I don’t know about you but there are plenty of times I have read a recipe and felt a little nervous about parts of it.  A demonstration would have been great!  Now you can have one and you can even subscribe in your feed reader or through iTunes and for those of you that do not like rss, you can subscribe to the email updates.

There are other resources as well, including reference charts for safe cooking temperatures, conversion and measurement charts, explanations on equipment and how to use it, and general how-tos for anything and everything around the kitchen.  I’ll be sending the link for this to number one son!

This will go great with my new ab lounger

“A Daily Diary of Depression-Era Life, Told On Twitter”

I Twitter.  I admit it.  But I follow more than I actually tweet.  For those of you who have not been exposed to Twitter it is called a microblogging service.  You can post up to 140 characters.  You can follow other people who twitter so whenever they update their status you will see the post on your twitter homepage.  You can also set up your account so that you can update your status from your cell phone and you can also get updates from others you follow on your cell phone.  Useful and kind of fun but it just seems like one more thing to check and update online.  I don’t know about you, but my email/facebook/twitter/rss reader gets out of hand rapidly.

I recently found something to follow that gave me a glimpse of a different way to use Twitter.  Here is a link to the original site and if you twitter you can choose to follow.

The Social Path

Late last year, my family found a line-a-day diary maintained by my great-aunt from 1937 to 1941. She was in her early teens, living on a small farm in rural Illinois with her two brothers, one of which was my grandfather.

It’s a fascinating account of life in a bygone era, a time when my family’s only connections to the world were schoolhouse chatter and a neighbor’s radio.

Looking at the terse journal, my sister quipped, “This is the Twitter of the 1930s.” We glanced at each other and almost immediately began planning the Twitter account that would become Twitter.com/Genny_Spencer.

If you have run across any other diaries of this sort I would love to hear about it.  I can see this being a great creative venue as well.  Could a “diary” be created as a sort of stream of thoughts of a made of character?

If you are not into writing longer blog posts this might be a blogging outlet for you.  Have you run across creative uses for Twitter? Can you come up with some new  Twitter ideas?

Using Google Earth to Drive Your Lessons to Victory Lane TCEA09 Notes

Susan Anderson and Jim Holland Arlington isd

http://googleearthlessons.wetpaint.com

www.curriculummagic.com

the students would have two kmz files and a powerpoint
there would already be some basic prerequisite skills
lesson called Lost
geographic labeling of the earth
based on reinforcing that skill
a little on time zones

an alien has landed on earth and really doesn’t know where they are but will give you as the students, clues to help discover their location

this lesson probably targets 4th or 5th grade

TEKS come from grades 2,3 and 5

technical difficulties – they are trying to get to google earth

they have folded cards with abcd and yes, no, false, true for the “student” participants to hold up to answer questions (this would be great with writeon wipe off boards too

Asking geography questions as students hold up answer cards about hemisphere and latitude, longitude

Showing Australia – this country is not A continent, B Country, C island, D isthmus
Teacher asks why this place is not

What line of longitude is opposite of the international dateline a equator, b rime meridian, c tropic of cancer, and d tropic of capricorn

when it is summer in the western hemisphere, it is winter in the eastern hemisphere true/false

In order to navigate around the earth I can grab it with the hand or double click on the earth and it will turn. zoom in, push it around with the hand, use the rotaion
can turn off automatic tilt while zooming if you like

version 5 released Sunday

to add a placemark
click on pushpin choose add placemark
give it a name and type info into description
now if you click on the placemark the info in the description will be displayed
you can change the icon from the yellow placemark
right click on placemark to edit it choose properties
add custom icons – any jpg pr gif
right click and save place as
native extension is kmz so it will be whatever name you gave it.kmz
kmz files are very small so easy to share

all about me in the handout is a great way to intro google earth

a teaching tip with google earth – have students turn their mouse upside down (it’s hard to sneak quietly

around the world are placemarks – many with question marks

eliminate placemarks that do not have alien clues
rightclick and turn off
so now only placemarks you need to see will be displayed

Lost has a list of cities in one column and the other column is for students to write why that city was eliminated

eg if a clue said it’s a place where penguins live then you might want to eliminate Mexico city

first one done together for guided practice

first slide
students will double click on the Lost kmz file which will automatically launch google earth for you

Hi my name is Nan I’m from the planet ning I think I’m lost can you help. I’ve got a few clues to help – I am not on an island

you can password protect a ppt file
save, choose where and under tools on 07 and 03 – choose general options on 07 security options makes you enter a password
his would be useful for a ppt you want students to use so they couldn’t modify it
password can be needed to open or just to modify

can go to view menu and choose grid to see the gridlines

online tools available on their wiki
online stopwatch – you can give students specific amount of time for an activity
www.online-stopwatch.com
can be embedded into a blog or wiki

ctrl mouse properties
pointer options
show location of mouse pointer when I press the control key

also on the wiki is the random name picker (or random vocab word
classtools
random name/word picker

kml files – things like timezones can be contained in kml files
you can turn on and turn off some of these overlays if you only want it on long enough to do a task
some of the overlays make it hard to see anything else.

At this point I had to move on to the next session but most of what you would need is on their wiki

Web 2.0 Panel – What’s Next TCEA09 Notes

So far this has been disappointing.  I even verbalized the question (that is actually the TITLE of the session) and no one is going there.  My question was, if it takes us a certain amount of time in education to move from the point of learning the mechanics of something new in technology primarily because we are being required to, to the point of it being second nature and totally infused in teaching – and if we are in transition with this Web 2.0 stuff; by the time it has actually become a total buy in, the technology will have moved on.  It’s fluid.  What will the technology look like at that point?  I was hoping the panel had some idea of where is was going.

So far it has mainly been explaining what it IS repeatedly, in more than one way, but still – a definition.

Some people have done the expected griping because they have so much blocked in their district.  One panel member is Bradley Kessler – Whyville.  He is knowledeable but also he is selling the concept of whyville (not in terms of money because it is free – though maybe he is angling for it to be officially adopted by school systems) which is not objectionable in itself.  It just isn’t what the title of the session makes you think it will be.

Patricia Schnee, Lead Trainer and Curriculum Coordinator, University of Texas Professional Development Center is also very knowledgeable and seems to be very forward thinking but is mainly concerned with how all this relates to business and employment.

How do we teach kids to be prepared for a world that doesn’t yet exist is my question.

Here are my notes – sorry for the editorial.

Web20panelwheredowegofromhere
patricai schnee
research – looking at web 2.0 in terms of what it means in the corporate world
bradleykessler
whyville put it in the classroom?
kids want a place – they want to create the structure
avatar based virtual world
using a pick your nose faciltiy in whyville make your own face
a week after launch they had a message from a kid that said their face parts were dumb
now there is a place where kids make the face parts and sell them
they run companies where they have employees who do marketing, graphic design – all around creating faceparts

Bill Jule? Jason Project
marco polo

patricia stats
confucious center
367 million are under the age of 18 – larger than pop of us
200 million student s between the age of 14 and 25
our tech and engineering superiority is in jeopardy
define web 2.0?
definition kessler
web 1 was largely a push operation = taking media and putting it on the web and pushing it to the users
web 2.0 is pull – rather that standing up in front of a classroom and pushing info – actually understanding classroom management and engaging students in such a way that they are pulling the info to them – teacheres now also managers, directors
learning styles change on evolution scale not generation scale
we finally have a tech device that will let us better match our learning process that we run as humans, because we can handle 2 prob – scalabiltiy – small group can influence large group
engagement
social piece – they can socialize, interact, create their own structures and media

audience – trying to get Spore integrated into curriculum – what is panel opinion of this progression

What about web 3.0 – by the time school adopt new technology the technolgy has usually moved on – where do you see us moving on to?

merck had some chemical probs and put it online 7% of the solutions came from people who didn’t have degrees – some from out of the country
now merck is disguising the problems so that they will be intriguing but not know what the whole problem is (gave too much info to competitors)

to teach science you need to be a process expert, not content expert

web 1.0 content – web 2.0 process
companies (media and textbook) have a problem with this because they are content pushers

printing press and university structure last major changes
that’s all that has been available

Gatekeeper, Tear Down Those Walls! TCEA09 Notes

Mr. Gatekeeper, Tear Down Those Walls!
Mary Bell
Sam Houston State University

http://forwhomthebelltold.pbwiki.com/

filtering
librarians and tech specialists need to be working together
Introduced Nancy Pearl librarian action filter
the original person one book one city
has amazing shush ability
cipa
children should be protected from pornography
does not say we should have any reflection of political views
or that students should be denied the right to search independently
high interest like games and sports – cipa does not say block or shopping
does not say teachers should be blocked from things administrators might not want them to do
passing the law was contingent upon ready and simple override capability

Survey using listserves and twitter
over 400 participates broken down by states
79 % understand web 2.0
aware of web 2.0 resources being used 59%
satisfied with access to internet and web 2.0 39%
some of the problems people comments about were bandwidth issues

Block using specific word lists
true 73%

reasons for blocking and filtering
student safety 81%
ebsco and other databases somethings blocked true 28%
filters apply equally to all levels true (and teachers
Who can override – IT most common answer
Reading blogs at school – 52% but the people who don’t know number has grown
create and particpate in blogs 38%
students and faculty having access to wikis
encouraged to use wikis 39%
access to social bookmarking 31%
access to wikipedia 97%
students are often discouraged even though they have access
google docs 63%  don’t know 36%
Blocked search tools – images
youtube not blocked 52%
Course management systems 38% used
students have access to email
access to second life at school
access to educational game sites allowed
acceptable use policy up to date and addresses web 2.0
true 27% false 49% no idea 24%
district admin are tech savvy and encourage tech and web 2.0
trues 31%

http://hweimar.wikispaces.com

http://forwhomthebelltold.pbwiki.com/

Addendum

Mary Bell was king enough to send me a link to information about CIPA so if you are interested in finding out more about what this law says you will find what you need here:

http://www.ala.org/aaslTemplate.cfm?Section=cipaandschoollib

Race Into Production TCEA09 Notes

Race Into Production
Jodi Andoe and Abby Rogers PISD

http://t4.jordandistirct.org/payattention

www whatever whenever wherever
teachers moving from dog and pony show to full fledged three ring circus with the teacher – not as the main act, but as the ringmaster
kids love to be center stage
ipods cameras phones
friend or foe?
combining what students have and what teachers have and making it work in the classroom
combine student interests and content for curriculum
provide students with info on available tools for multimedia
student engagement
reflection for deep learning
project based learning
effective integration of technology into instruction
differentiated instruction
centers, tiered lesson plans
advances photography and multimedia all the way down to basic ppt
works with all levels
critical thinking skills
technology TEKS
engages students
their minds wrapped around out content in a way they want to think about it
improved test scores
letting the students touch the learning
gather ideas – don’t re-invent the wheel
take tried and true projects and add a multimedia option to it
determine student needs and find their resources and skills
set timetable for completion
gather resources and hardware
what do you get when you mix CSCOPE Performance indicator’
students had a psp player, iPod, science closet, audacity, photostory movie maker and wax – made a rap video on global warming

used rubric that was in cscope and applied to multimedia project
what is the concept you want them to learn
rubric attributes
point of view
content
resources
curriculum alignment
organization
student cooperation
camera and images
titles and credits
sound
language
pacing and narrative
transitions and effects

make sure criteria is set beforehand and use the ribric
should be expressed in terms of observable product characteristics
scoring rubrics should be written in specific and clear language
statement of criteria must be fair and free from bias

green screen – green sheet from walmart taped to classroom wall
let kids teach you

audacity, wax 2.0 blender freeplaymusic photostory animoto
wax works with moviemaker and others
freeplaymusic – if burned to dvd becomes a copyright issue
animoto free 30 second video creation – can subscribe 19.00 year and get longer time and more options
handout includes cheatsheet of useful web 2.0 sites and free or opensource software

handouts will be available later on the TCEA site – I will post the link when it becomes available

Surfing and Reading Shares

There are blogs that I read on a regular basis and then there are articles I read just because the title catches my attention and I just have to click to see what it’s about.  Here are some that caught my interest tonight:

“Screw Flowers–You Need Cheesecake!”

What a great idea.  When friends are going through something rough, why not send cheesecake intead of flowers.  I love it!
Silver-lined Excrement
I wasn’t sure I wanted to look.  Turns out she has an elderly dog who is losing control of his er…bodily functions.  Her dad reflects on the silver lining (it wasn’t HIS poop).  Guess you’ll just have to read it.

10 Sure-Fire Ways to Be a Complete Failure At Everything
Ya, like I need directions for THAT???  What a surprise – I have 7 through 10 down pat!
Please Speak Clearly, Lord, I Have Children.
Self-explanatory
We Live in Public (and the end of empathy)

This one is thought provoking.  I have been thinking about it since I read it and while I think that we do tend to depersonalize on the internet, I have to wonder how much of that is caused by being online and how much is just an online reflection of our society.  I see some mean-ness but I tend to associate (online and off) with people that I have things in common with and for the most part they are NOT mean.  So which way does the mirror point?  I think personally I am more careful about what I say online than I am in face-to-face conversations instead of the other way around.

While I was wandering I ran across these two sites that I thought were cool ">We Live in Public (and the end of empathy)

This one is thought provoking.  I have been thinking about it since I read it and while I think that we do tend to depersonalize on the internet, I have to wonder how much of that is caused by being online and how much is just an online reflection of our society.  I see some mean-ness but I tend to associate (online and off) with people that I have things in common with and for the most part they are NOT mean.  So which way does the mirror point?  I think personally I am more careful about what I say online than I am in face-to-face conversations instead of the other way around.

While I was wandering I ran across these two sites that I thought were cool " />#8211; for kids a new search engine that utilizes Google’s safe search to “eliminate inappropriate material” : http://www.kidrex.org/

The next one is one I will use a lot – http://fatburgr.com/

When you go to a restaurant, do you know the nutritional content of what you’re ordering? We didn’t either. Fatburgr gives you nutritional information from your favorite restaurants.

I’ll have to walk a lot to undo the damage my supper did – 740 calories and 72 carbs and it was small!! Yikes!

What’s a Whuffie?

I checked out my Twitter feed this morning and David Warlick was live blogging from TechForum in Austin.

“Social and intellectual capital are the new economic values of the world economy.”

discussed by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

The quote reminded me of this:
In Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003) by Cory Doctorow

The usual economic incentives have disappeared from the book’s world. Whuffie has replaced money, providing a motivation for people to do useful and creative things. A person’s Whuffie is a general measurement of his or her overall reputation, and Whuffie is lost and gained according to a person’s favorable or unfavorable actions. The question is, who determines which actions are favorable or unfavorable? In Down and Out, the answer is public opinion. Rudely pushing past someone on the sidewalk will definitely lose you points from them (and possibly bystanders who saw you), while composing a much-loved symphony will earn you Whuffie from everyone who enjoyed it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie

As often happens in science fiction, there will be bits and pieces that make the story believable because they will mirror parts of life that are close to present reality. Mr. Doctorow didn’t have the economic incentives part right, but social and intellectual capital sure sounds like Whuffie to me.Another thing mentioned in Mr. Warlick‘s post was that people don’t subscribe to magazines, they subscribe to people.

We all have “our people”; those we listen to, go to, read, learn from, trust, and respect. Where are yours? Are they at your workplace? In your feed reader?