BP12_2010013_One_Minute_Message-#2

WORDS HAVE POWER!

The Visual Thesaurus is an interactive dictionary and thesaurus which creates word maps that blossom with meanings and branch to related words. Its innovative display encourages exploration and learning. You'll understand language in a powerful new way.

Another Web tool used in the movie is Digital Booktalk.Gunter and Kenny (2008) created Digital Booktalk to help engage media-centric students with reading. Digital Booktalk is a web portal that used video trailers and associated activities in an attempt to effectively match potential readers. Initial pilot studies tested out these assumptions and determined that these types of mediated interventions can be successful in motivating students to read and complete books and increase personal understanding of the relevance of reading and writing in the lives of those who otherwise demonstrate an aversion to text-based media (Gunter and Kenny, 2008). Website: http://digitalbooktalk.com

References

BP11-_2010013_Comments

http://drewmcsherry.blogspot.com/2010/01/bp42010011rss-feeds.html

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http://stacie-tech2teach.blogspot.com/2010/01/bp32010011web-20-t1-storybird.html?

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Malcolm Gladwell, writer and editor, found his place in the world between numbers and statistics and human psychology in advertising with such notable books as the The Tipping Point, Blink, What the Dog Saw, and Outliers. Within his research, he discovered that children watching Sesame Street, enjoyed the fantasy world created by the

puppets (animation) and their personification of humans along with a human presence made the learner

easier to receive. This with a combination of narrative and repetition has given a mixture that quote,

watching Sesame Street regularly as a child was correlated with a GPA increase of a 0.25 in high school- Goldfigure! Early Intervention strategies and Techniques are helpful for learners of all ages.

Go Animate is a great Web 2.0 Tool for the same reason Malcolm Gladwell calls certain epidemics "sticky." The precise and user-friendly capabilities are amazing. It shows you a simple format to create your own avatar and face for your script/animation. I think this is a good tool for educators to use. It can be used as a fun and exciting introductory video for an upcoming lesson plan to help implement discussions. An educator has to keep in mind that animations are fun and exciting; they take us back to a place of youth and fantasy, taking the edge of the information that a student must ingest during schooling.

However, I do believe that with the R- rated and inappropriate content, it may be hard to get an educator's by-in on this type of product. According to a few blogs from educators, they note that in GoAnimate characters can: characters can fight, fart, flirt, drink cocktails, profanity is not allowed but you can get away with it with the usage of symbols and, promotion of consumerism with well -known characters.

Malcolm Gladwell's Blog

http://www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/index.html

Tipping Point Blog by Nehrlich

http://www.nehrlich.com/book/tippingpoint.html

Sesame Street Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSYadh2xmcI&NR=1&feature=fvwp

Go Animate

http://teachweb2.wikispaces.com/GoAnimate

BP5_2010012_VisualThesaurus

The Visual Thesaurus is an interactive dictionary and thesaurus which creates word maps that blossom with meanings and branch to related words. Its innovative display encourages exploration and learning. You'll understand language in a powerful new way.

This is especially beneficial because in a Full Sail online program, the professors are wanting master level writing. This wonderful Web 2.0 gives you a great and visual perspective of word maps and word streams that further the meaning, syntax, semantics and context to your writing in your papers. You know the kind of situation where your looking for the right word and not even a dictionary tool can truly help you. Well the VT is like looking into the connections to that word that make it relevant to you paper or a sentence's meaning. Sometimes you may believe that word is the best choice but this gives you more options than a regular dictionary can ever do. This site would be awesome for SAT Prep or GRE Prep. Now that's an even better version of the dictionary to me.

WEBSITES BREAKDOWN:

Say you have a meaning in mind, like "happy." The VT helps you find related words, from "cheerful" to "euphoric." The best part is the VT works like your brain, not a paper-bound book. You'll want to explore just to see what might happen. You'll discover -- and learn -- naturally and intuitively. You'll find the right word, write more descriptively, free associate -- and gain a more precise understanding of the English language.

• Find the right word. The VT has over 145,000 English words and 115,000 meanings. Find the word you need and discover related meanings.
• Develop a better vocabulary. See how words are used in different parts of speech.
• Use words precisely. The intuitive interface helps you find words through their semantic relationship with other words and meanings.
• Master word usage. Roll over a meaning to see its definition and example sentences that express that meaning.
• Improve your grammar. Meanings are color-coded to indicate parts of speech.
• Explore 39,000 proper nouns. Historical figures, phrases and trademarks are included. Look up Mozart, Manda or simply, "M."
• Check your spelling. The VT suggests a word if you spell it wrong.
• Hear words pronounced correctly. The VT offers both American and British pronunciations (Internet connection necessary)
• Personalize your experience. Use the Settings Panel to control font size, filter content, display up to 17 semantic relationships and more.
• Browse language in 2D or 3D. Rotate word maps in three dimensions to reveal complex relationships.
• Connect to the Internet. Right-click on any word to launch an Internet search for images or information.

BP8_2010012_OneMinuteMesg-#1

The Lumosity website featured online games for building your brain. I found this site interesting while learning about brain training concerning logical- mathematical, verbal-linguistic, spatial-and visual learning styles. More specifically they had games that increase your brains neurotransmission of information such as games for memory strengthening, brain processing, task switching, spatial orientation and quantitative reasoning. It was like an online exercising program for your brain.

Two of the 30+ games that I feature in the video are called Speed Match- a game that can help to fortify memory and Raindrops- a game where you did math computations at a slow rate and it accelerated with more computation to increase fast math computation and quantitative reasoning.

WATCH THE VIDEO

BP6_2010012_Comments

http://coach2win.blogspot.com/2010/01/bp42010011rss-feeds.html#comments

http://sarahmhodge.blogspot.com/2010/01/bp42010011rss-feeds.html?showComment

BP4_2010011_RSS

Though RSS feeds are a simple concept , when you have to create one from your own voice or content it becomes complicated. There are so many different types of RSS- Real Simple Syndication devices. This going back and forth between my desktop and the computer, to my favorite websites and videoblogs has been a little tiring. I made the mistake when I initially saw the Feedly RSS, I loved the "look" of it but found myself not only needing a website to drop the information into in order to create this splash page. Then I noticed something. This site was more connected and formatted to twitter, google reader and firefox. They now have a Safari plugin of sorts. As i felt the stress headache coming on I realized that the whole point of this was for this process to be easy but I kept on trying to understand its ordinances- I wanted my magazine like page. I even tried to place it into an html snippet/ on iweb. Needless to say, I found bloglines set up to be the most efficient and user friendly.

After going to Bloglines I realized that their search engine only allows for certain types of blogs. I didn't realize, (once again this years motto, simple dumb stupendous)that you can do a feeds search right onto google without ever going anywhere else. You can go right to the top of the page and click Reader and add subscriptions there. Also you can add the directly to your blogs home page. But I would first suggest you go to the site and click on "community" or "blog" to get the correct URL address. If you go to the Reader page in google it shows that these are quick simple steps. Simply click ADD and type in the URL. You can also import directly from your reader only problem I encountered was that the small window only shows 4-5 options and has no scrolling capabilities.

Wimba : People Teach People

Well today I traveled across blogs with the speed of light. I realized I did the assignment incorrectly. Well, I have subscribed to Wimba because it has forums and blogs and news the show me the latest in technology. Wimba is a course management system that even Michelle Obama has used.

eLearningLearning (best of)

I keep up to date with the latest in eLearning. This site is a community that collects and organizes the best information on the web about elearning.

Blogs for Blackboard

The blackBoard blog interests me because of it being associated with K-12 education. Anytime I'm in need for information I start there for a raw opinion about detailing the inner workings of conferences, expanded learning opportunities, and its simple outline. This online source has grown to the point of proficiency.

Edutopia

Edutopia is a great site for gathering anything from videos to factual informative information about what changes should be made apparent within education.

Education Week
This site is great for its blogs on the latest information with schools; they have info on test scores and how to improve literacy, digital education and research on any topic, for instance; No child left Behind and students turning towards the web for homework. Woohoo! Waht does that sound like?

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FOR EDUCATORS
Blogs are a very popular type of Web. 2.0 tool. A blog is a communicative device that allows educators to teach their students by a learn by doing, writing and reflecting method which is a part of the R2D2 Model for multi-media assets. This practice is an improvement from the isolated education cycles of the past where students are given the work and have to regurgitate its comprehension not always through collaborative efforts and peer to peer reflection. Blogs change how information is formulated and then shared amongst peers and scholars alike. Observations in problem-based assessments have governed industries outside of education, namely engineering, medical and scientific. Blogs can be introduced into middle school aged students. While they are building a repertoire of online interaction, they will likely assimulate into further developments that involve education. Teachers can continue to use blogs to promote topics relevant to classwork, enhanced comprehension and teachers feel they promote literacy in the classroom (Hufaker, 2004)* By teachers exercising these simple task involved with blogging, students will develop professionalism in there writings knowing that there comments may hang on the world wide web for another millennium.

TECHNICAL

Blogs have become a conventional and affordable means to communicate information from any computer and all around the world. The enduser needs only basic comprehension of website design and development to implement it. A blogger needs to know very little about authoring tools and web design. Published material becomes immediately accessible to anyone with an internet connection. This added accessibility has been called the democratization of web publishing (Oatman, 2005)*. Can you imagine your ideas being filtered onto a website in Hong Kong? Blogs are world wide as the Web.

FOR THE NEWS AND FREELANCE WRITERS

Blogging has become one of the world's greatest resources. In fact, countless web based news organizations are starting to see the blogs draw to their site. Bloggers are there to be the people reporting events of tomorrow. The social activities connecting us all has defined how we see the world, take in information and react to it. The videos helped me to observe what has been happening right underneath my chin- a whole new possibility of advertising yourself, creating pertinent connections with affluent industries and people connections is what the Internet's about in the 21 century. The video by Commoncraft airing on Youtube, efficiently describes the precision of Blogs and RSS feeds. The movement created with the tiny pieces of pictures on paper was quite an effective tool to show the usage and advances of bloggers. The real face of bloggers are the self determined freelance writers that they are; reporting the news as we see it. Bloggers are the transporting mechanisms of the people's take on a product, viewpoint, experience and related media polls. Theoretically its sufficient to say that the policy of writers gone blogging is in the higher percentiles. Blogging is like how syndicated TV was for Oprah back in the eighties, she had no idea of how much money she could make in syndication.

MOVIES AND BLOGGING

There was a movie most recently about Julia Child's famous French cooking that took a world -wind plunge into a bloggers unique world. Who would of known if you remotely paid attention in english that you would be able to advance into the wonderful of writing in such a way that could create popularity with specific topics that uniquely define the world we live in today. When I spent my funds on that movie rental entitled Julie and Julia, I was surprised to see how low budget the film was; especially with Meryl Streep. I mean there was absolutely nothing to this movie's background- a NY apartment- Julia's so-called French apartment (Canadian shoots). It was simply the wonder-lust of NY city's working class developed into a mixture with french cooking, and writer's block. The Headline reads: a writer decides to add splendor to her half-boring, overworked life with becoming obsessed over Julia Childs, Master French Cooking book with Julia Childs; she makes a vow to blog and to tirelessly cook her 524 recipes within a 365 day year. Woohoo!

Now don't get me wrong, I love Meryl Streep, there isn't a movie that she's done that I haven't seen. Its just that the movie's simplicity makes me want to get my own movie done. Its mostly done in a studio where you can recreate the ambience of Frances outside tea gardens and such. The best parts of this movie were governed by the effects of her blogging; how it shaped her relationships, including almost getting fired at work for bringing her boss into the conversation in one blog. Her boyfriend left her in frustration at her anxiety to complete the task, extended to the more palatable benefits of her blog, which was a couple of book offers from some major book publishing companies and her cooking took it a few notches up.

Equally compelling component was that Julia Child's was madly in love with her first boyfriend/ husband. That was quite interesting when i found out Julia Child's was in her forties when she decided to dedicate her life to cooking and embarked on writing her first book, which took almost three years and 3 different companies to get to the right one- Goldfigure! For an explanation on how this movie got done; they say walk with a giant and you will have the same power as the giant.

References:

West, R., Wright, G., Gabbitas, B., & Graham, C. (2006). Reflections from the Introduction of Blogs and RSS Feeds into a Preservice Instructional Technology Course. TechTrends:

Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 50(4), 54-60. doi:10.1007/s11528-006- 0054-9.

Julie & Julia (2009) Nora Ephron (Screenplay) and Julie Powell (book). Julia Child's story of her start in the cooking profession is intertwined with blogger Julie Powell's 2002 challenge to cook all the recipes in Child's first book.

Commoncraft Website Blogs http://www.commoncraft.com/ viewed on You Tube January 09, 2010.

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BP3_2010011_Lumosity

Another interesting web 2.0 device for cognitive learning processes was explored on http://www.lumosity.com/.

The Lumosity website featured online games for building your brain. I found this site interesting while learning about brain training concerning logical- mathematical, verbal-linguistic, spatial-and visual learning styles. More specifically they had games that increase your brains neurotransmission of information such as games for memory strengthening, brain processing, task switching, spatial orientation and quantitative reasoning. It was like an online exercising program for your brain.

The brain-based learning initiatives for online are called Speed Match- a game that can help to fortify memory, Route to sprout- a game that can help a person to think before acting, and strategic planning; Raindrops- a game where you did math computations at a slow rate and it accelerated with more computation to increase fast psychomotor skills thourn (I meant to win);and Word Bubbles a game that can help to boost language and vocabulary.

If you travel virtually to Lumosity's site, you have the option to play the same five games or increase your membership with a subscription to 30+ games for strengthening your mind.

I believe students, young and old will appreciate this site not only for the sites intent, but for the other healthy brain tips they have within their knowledge center pages. They have online courses for those interested in perfecting a weakened brain-based skill. Their site has a user centered design made for information sharing and interoperability.* Lumosity also hopes to increase mental acuity, adaptation, and reduce symptoms associated with mental disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, attentional blink (a deficit in visual attention), aphasia ( inability to speak or understand language). These guys are serious; our mission is to create innovative neuroscience-based tools that empower people to lead better lives through better brain health and performance (Lumosity, 2010).

Research in the cognitive science industry is bursting through the seams. The researchers for Lumosity's site even have articles within the site where you can increase your awareness of the industry related findings. They have blogs and of course feedback from satisfied clients. Specifically, in the article Brain Benefits of Being Social, they talked about subtle speech queues of intonation, facial expressions, conversational comprehension and manipulating thinking for reaction concerning man's social skill directives. This article goes on to state that social support initiatives have a positive effect on patients who have dementia. It reduces the symptoms for dementia.

*( Web 2.0, Retrieved this day, January 10th 2010 from Wikipedia)

BP3_2010011_LearningGamesForKids

At first I became a little frustrated at all the tools that are available online; and not all of them are educationally efficient tools.

My search was specifically for web tools to obtain information on Web 2.0 tools involving interactive gaming for students in an Art class. I looked on sites that would help support learning with student to content initiatives. In my research process, I came upon this website through Howcast website at: http://www.howcast.com/videos/307224-Learning-Games-For-Kids Here I watched a video that exposed me to some of the uses on this site. When I came to the page for art educational components, I was disappointed. The games are too short.

From there I was able to go to this site directly and find the main type of site I was looking for that had a cognitive learning curve with additional psychomotor skill development for middle school and elementary students learning art technology. My goal, as an art teacher integrating technology in education, is to present an environment where kids can become integrated into different web environments and explore interactive technology online without creating a stressful environment. The formative assessments will help the teacher and student to become acclimated to the newer assignments given in the classroom. Sites like this have the student explore spatial contiguity (Richard Mayer, 1988), which in a nutshell is the process in which the student sees words and pictures close together to help imbed knowledge streams quicker into the brain.

At the Learning Games for Kids website, you will find an array of helpful interactive games that are colorful, simple and innovative for children. You can find anything from health games, crossword puzzles, math games, science and geographic games to enhance the learning environment. I love the new typing tools. This is great for students/adults who use texting in code and have to remind themselves of context during writing.

This site also offers other sited resources and references to other sites for teachers.

The real game or interactive site that was the most appealing for art was http://www.kids.albrightknox.org/index_launched.html It has a wonderful and colorful introduction. It was a project created for the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo NY. This site brings up a room of choices for the student to research and understand some basic artistic concepts like: still-life, lines and curves found in a paintings by other artist. Juan Gris, for example was an artist featured. He created a still life painting done in a Picasso-like manner. The beauty of this interactive tool was the comparison between modern and classical art forms. You even find out that volleyball is a unique combination of tennis, baseball and basketball- great, concrete information!