How to Develop Self Esteem--wikiHow

I searched for a wiki on self-esteem. I found this "How To" manual that you can edit during my search. After reading the article, which provided an interesting example for developing self-esteem (buying a pair of jeans), I was relieved to see the comments included on the discussion link. I was happy to read that others were slightly confused, too. Additionally, it was nice to be able to read the authors' comments to the readers. They defended or added clarification for what they included. Their example was odd to me, but they did include positive self-talk and taking care of yourself before you can help others, which would be two for the most meaningful tips for someone looking to improve their self-esteem.

WikiTeach edited lesson

Here is the lesson I edited:

http://www.wikiteach.org/index.php/Wikiteach/WikiteachWriteMgr/action/edit/iVar/204

It's a basic reading comprehension lesson that would be on an appropriate grade level for my MoID students. I spent quite a bit of time looking for something that would also benefit them. Most of the lessons I looked at were beyond the academic abilities of my class.

John

(JoHoNew on WikiTeach)

Edmark Sight Word Unit (Using flickr)

Here is my unit for teaching some functional academics to my students with Moderate Intellectual Disabilities (MoID):

http://www.wikiteach.org/index.php/Wikiteach/WikiteachWriteMgr/action/edit/iVar/245

Any suggestions or edits will be appreciated!

John

(I am 'JoHoNew' on WikiTeach.)

Topic3

My lesson plan link…
http://www.wikiteach.org/index.php/wikiteach/action/lessonplan/iVar/242

I wanted to explore an area where I could create a private wiki. Out school District has blocked all wiki’s due to the social nature of these sites. J Although, everything is wonderful and worthy of educational merits, school boards in Ontario are potentially liable for allowing the freedom of speech on their networks. Currently, we are investigating private social networking products offered by epals.

If my lesson plan I wanted to find an appropriate wiki space and have it ready as part of the lesson; hence, I discovered wiki spaces that allows for private posting abilities, students could be added by a teacher through their current epals email addresses.
http://www.wikispaces.com

Template
http://autobiographylesson.wikispaces.com

Finally I thought you might want to look at a discussion board I found on assessing Web2.0 wikis from a university in Scotland…
http://ewds.strath.ac.uk/ConferenceSessions/Discussionfora/tabid/90/view/topics/forumid/25/Default.aspx

It was interesting to follow their discussions on the difficulty of marking collaborative work on wikis and their solutions.

Edit Wiki on Wikiteach – After visiting the link above I added the idea of a reflective journal as a great way to evaluate student learning and experiences of wiki’s.

http://www.wikiteach.org/index.php/Wikiteach/WikiteachWriteMgr/action/edit/iVar/228

OLPC~~One Laptop Per Child!

During my research on wikis, I ran across the The OLPC Wiki (One Laptop Per Child), which is dedicated to the idea of cheap laptops for children in primarily developing countries. Originally, the idea was to develop and sell laptops for $100, and while the current target price is about $200 per laptop, the hope is that the cost will indeed drop to the $100 level by sometime in 2008. The five core principles that are espoused by OLPC are 1) child ownership; (2) low ages; (3) saturation; (4) connection; and (5) free and open source.

The basic concept is to market the laptops directly to governments. The OLPC was created by faculty members of the MIT Media Lab, and is now led by Nicholas Negroponte. The idea is to engage these students more directly by the use of a machine that has an operating system stripped down to a bare minimum and little mass storage. I was extremely excited to see that the project is still alive and well. The concept is outstanding and I hope to see it come to fruition soon.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Home

In addition to the OLPC wiki, I ran across a great, short (less than four minutes!) video describing what wikis are and how they can work. Check it out…it really clarified wikis for me!




John

Wikibooks

While exploring for wikis related directly to the high school curriculum, I came across wikibooks. This wiki is a free collection of open-content textbooks that any person can edit. If you browse wikibooks by subject you will find a list of just about any subject that can be taught in any school. For example, if you click on mathematics, you get an entire list of textbooks that cover math in one form or another. It may not be a book devoted only to math; it could be a science book that covers some type of math in the area of science. Wikis, like wikibooks, could be an excellent additional resource to all teachers in supplementing their current curriculum.

Educational Technology Wiki

As I was exploring the different wikis available, I came across this wiki dedicated to educational technology or instructional technology. While exploring this wiki, I typed in several topics to search. For example I searched “podcasting”. It gave me a wealth of information on what it is, its history, how it could be used in education, and provided a list of other useful links related to podcasting in education. A wiki like this would be beneficial to me as an instructional technology coordinator in locating information when learning about new educational technology. This wiki could also be used by my teachers to explore ways of using educational technology in their classrooms.

Descriptive Writing

Here is the lesson I added information to. I do a lot of descriptive writing and felt a certain amount of depth had to be added. I was unfamiliar with some of the software being used, but felt by adding elements which are more familiar to educators might enable them to use the lesson regardless of the software being proposed.

Wiki Wiki Where is the Wiki?

If the purpose of a Wiki is to develop and build a breadth of knowledge from various members of the Internet International Jet Set in regards to a given topic, why is it that much of what I visited seemed to have no rhyme or reason in regards to adding facts that develop the body of knowledge? In addition, many of them asserted opinions and a list of ideas or better yet running logs on given topics. No wonder I haven't spent much time on looking at this technological avenue. I will give credit to the person who developed the Wiki for which I am posting a link. It is a nice resource, but there is no body of knowledge that supports the reliability for the suggestions and ideas shared as actually developing the knowledge of a child in regards to the terms and ideas often found or discussed in children's poetry. There is no structure for the development and implementation of how to teach poetry to children although some of the links provide ideas for doing just that.

Calssroom Blog

This site has a variety of Blogs with different topics.....very creative.....and individualized....

Wild Classroom

I thought this was a very intresting Podcast site....It is for the Science Geeks.....it appear to be very intresting, especially for the generation that we are dealing with now....

Math Blogs

Again, because I am a math teacher I decided to search for math related blogs. It is amazing how many blogs are out there. If there is something you want to talk about, there is blog for it. I found a site that I have used often that had blogs on a variety of subjects. At www.artofproblemsolving.com there are all blogs on all kinds of topics. There even some blog where you can talk about nothing at all.

Podcasts

I am a math teacher, so I chose to look up podcasts related to math. I found this site called mathgrad.com. It has lots of podcasts that are about mathematical topics. I listened to a couple of the podcasts that were about solving certain problems. One of the ones I listened to was called the Famous Monty Hall Problem which discussed the probability of chosing the one of three doors which had the sports car behind it. There were several podcasts that had very intersting topics.

Even if you are not a math nerd, check it out.

Learning French online

A parent wants to give his son on-line lessons in French (their school switched to Spanish this year) and he has asked me for recommendations. I thought that this site http://frenchecole.libsyn.com/ would be appropriate for him. It has a variety of lessons for beginning learners of French language. Vocabulary sheets are also available. The disadvantage of this site is that it does not offer video clips which can be an effective learning tool in learning a foreign language.

French Lessons

The "Rocket French" site, while the courses seem to be mainly centered around a working "traveling/vacation" use of the languages, does have a couple of grammar/pronunciation/translation/common phrases (etc.) sections under the German and Spanish language course pages that your students might find useful. Look under "Free Lessons" and "Other Stuff" from the left menu once you have selected a language from their main page The French course page is VERY lengthy but fairly complete in its description and filled with testimonials. It's interesting if you have 30 min. to kill. Here is a direct link to their main page:
http://www.rocketlanguages.com/

topic 2 "Podcast For Educators" weblog

The blog that I chose is “ Podcasts for Educators” Weblog. It contains news and updates from the podcast directory for educators, schools, and colleges. This blog includes several great podcast channels for teachers and students to explore, website links, previous posts, as well as archives are also available for exploration. The one slight negative comment that I have about this particular blog is its aesthetic appeal. This blog wasn’t very visually inviting. Other than that this is an excellent blog packed with tons of very useful information concerning blogs. Check it out.

http://recap.ltd.uk/podcasting/weblog/blog.html

topic 2 Hurricane Katrina Podcast

The topic of the podcast that I chose was Hurricane Katrina. This podcast was a very educational, informative, and heartfelt memoriam for all the lives lost in the devastating hurricane. The podcast was created by year 4 and 5 students in Appleby Primary School located in Nelson, New Zealand. The students are learning new was to communicate using podcast. I chose this particular podcast for several reasons. New Zealand has some of if not the best school systems in the world. I wanted to see what the best were doing with technology in their classrooms. This podcast was not you average podcast created by elementary students. It was polished, creative, professional, entertaining, and well executed. Another great thing about this podcast is that Bloom’s Taxonomy of higer order thinking skills were incorporated throughout the production. This podcast is an excellent example of how podcast should be done in schools. Way to go students and faculty of Appleby Primary School!!!!!!

http://allanah.podomatic.com/

French Language

From blogs, I can select programs of commentaries, songs, news, and films to enrich students’ vocabulary, to improve their listening and comprehension skills, and to enhance their oral and writing communicative skills. Karaoke songs are fun to learn in French. They tend to be a little simpler and slower, therefore easier to comprehend. This Lion King video for example has both French lyrics with English translation. http://www.thefrenchcorner.net/

topic2 blog Kathy Schrock's Kaffeeklatsch

Kathy Schrock is a well known and trusted voice in the field of educational technology. I wasn't surprised that she would have her own blog where she's discussing the most current and topical issues in the world of technology. She calls her blog a "kaffeeklatsc" which is described as an informal gathering to drink coffee and chat. This chatting takes place across the Internet rather than in a coffee shop, but it's just as relaxed and effective. Congratulations to Ms. Schrock! On September 17, 2007, Ms. Schrock posted that Edutopia just named this blog one of the"10 Edublogs They Love."

Web 2.0

When I watched the podcast of Web 2.0, I surely didn't expect to see Scotland in tiny print, nor hear the voice of a native. Did the idea of Web 2.0 originate in Scotland? Some parts of the podcast were hard to understand; probably due to the difference in culture and accents.
I did get that it is a great communication bridge, and that if we want the kids to "behave," then the use of technology, computers, IPods, pod casts, etc. would be the way to do it.
I tend to believe that statement! We have Smart Technology's interactive touch technology in our school. It's like a huge screen television. When there are images, sounds, or any other kinds of movements going on, I have their undivided attention. It's like they get entranced and they will do anything that I say.
The trick is, though to keep the content active, fresh and alive, or they grow tired of it and lose interest...and they can do that quickly. It is a good thing, I know, but then we wonder where all of the ADHD comes from!!