Creating an e-portfolio blog

Agenda for Content Area Meetings, Thurs 8/30

Peruse 339 Web blog
Register with blogger
 Register with Gmail account
Conduct a needs assessment via online survey
View Tepper video
Create e-portfolio blog:
 Choose template and create posts

Using Blogs in the Classroom

Technology Growth Register for Teachers

This survey has been developed to assist us with choosing the most appropriate professional development for teachers. It will also enable us to see existing and changing attitudes towards the use of technology in the classroom.

Click Here to take survey

Google Earth

Downloading Google Earth has already been successful in Social Studies classes. It allows students to gain some perspective of geographic direction, proportion, and landmarks. It also enables tracing of explorers' footsteps.

Capturing Images and Video from Desktop

'Jing Project' enables capture of images from whatever is on the desktop. It also is great for recording video and audio (such as in a video conference) that is currently being played on your computer. Jing was used to capture many of the images for this blog. For sharing video, the file (swf) is hosted at a remote site.

Using 'Skype'

Skype is easy to download for both Mac and PC, and best of all it is free. It enables voice and video calling over long distance, and is user friendly. We trialed this video conferencing option a number of times, and found it amazing.

The most obvious problems in commencement are usually due to cameras or microphones not being connected properly. Skype has many other associated applications, enabling recording, large file sharing, desktop sharing, and interactive whiteboards. Not all of these features are available with Mac though, and sometimes the sharing can be very slow or problematic.

Creating the Blog

Setting up the blog was relatively easy (with a gmail account required), but trying to upload a photo was complicated by not having the software to compress a photograph on the Mac. [Vista makes it very easy to compress photos.] I eventually set up a yahoo account and then a Flickr account to upload photos.

Using 'Web Notes'

As an introduction to blogs, wikis and RSS feeds, I demonstrated the use of the site for Web Notes in organizing my own notes and links.

http://aypwip.org/webnote/339Web

The site is easy to join, but has limited functionality when using it alone. For initial brainstorming in groups though, it is useful for collaborating from different locations.
The formatting capabilities differ between Mac and PC though.