I'd like remember and mention Pearl Harbor Day, which is today, and how very grateful we are to anyone among your family and friends who served or is currently serving Our Country. As a young person, I remember that day as our 9/11. It's not so much in our collective minds any more, but that in no way diminishes the sacrifices many of our parents and grandparents made.
Well I've been watching the Weather Channel the past few days, hoping that any snow forecast for the northeast would not affect us. As of now, they're saying (Weather Channel) that we may get a storm this weekend, but on Sunday; not Saturday. Good!
If anything changes, I'll email you or call you. You have my cell if you need to call me. BTW As usual I'll be in the lab as close to 7:00 am on Saturday as I can, but I won't be looking for you till 8:30 am. However you're welcome to come in early if you need to get something done.
Saturday's class will be a work session, followed by a couple of demos as required (i.e. FTP-uploading, etc.), and presentations and evaluations.
Tonight, I'll be showing you some teacher resources and then some portable apps that may help you as you work on your project or in the future. I'll try to do this so you'll be able to access any of the links at your leisure, as usual. I chose to do it this way since the group is small and some of you will not be interested in refraining from your project preparation to view something that wouldn't apply to your particular work. Having a small group and the time to spend with you in that way, is great.
Oh yes, I almost forgot. If you use the blog to track the class tonight, you'll have to remember to refresh your screen after every posting since I'll be adding pieces just as I do in TI.
Let's take a brief look at wikis. Here is Wikipedia's own definition of the term, wiki:
A wiki is a website that allows the easy[1] creation and editing of any number of interlinked Web pages, using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor, within the browser.[2][3] Wikis are typically powered by wiki software. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites, to power community websites, for personal note taking, in corporate intranets, and in knowledge management systems.
Most wikis serve a specific purpose, and off topic material is promptly removed by the user community. Such is the case of the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia.[3] In contrast, open purpose wikis accept all sorts of content without rigid rules as to how the content should be organized.
Ward Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as "the simplest online database that could possibly work."[4] "Wiki" (pronounced [ˈwiki] or [ˈviki]) is a Hawaiian word for "fast".[5] "Wiki" has been backronymed by some to "What I Know Is".[6]
and another definition:
from Using Wikis in Education
What is a wiki?
A Wiki can be thought of as a combination of a Web site and a Word document. At its simplest, it can be read just like any other web site, with no access privileges necessary, but its real power lies in the fact that groups can collaboratively work on the content of the site using nothing but a standard web browser. Beyond this ease of editing, the second powerful element of a wiki is its ability to keep track of the history of a document as it is revised. Since users come to one place to edit, the need to keep track of Word files and compile edits is eliminated. Each time a person makes changes to a wiki page, that revision of the content becomes the current version, and an older version is stored. Versions of the document can be compared side-by-side, and edits can be "rolled back" if necessary.
The Wiki is gaining traction in education, as an ideal tool for the increasing amount of collaborative work done by both students and teachers. Students might use a wiki to collaborate on a group report, compile data or share the results of their research, while faculty might use the wiki to collaboratively author the structure and curriculum of a course, and the wiki can then serve as part of each person's course web site (excerpt from my contribution to a Business 2.0 article --Stewart.mader 11:35, 14 Dec 2005 (PST))
Q. How many Wiki people does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. One, but anyone can change it back. -langreiter.com
"The New Writing is online writing: designing web sites, writing weblogs, and creating and managing wikis. New writers are redefining writing online, creating new forms and approaches for new audiences." - English Dept., Bemidji State University
Wikis in Education: Wiki Wiki Teaching-the art of using wikis to teach
http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2005/12/wiki-wiki-teaching-art-of-using-wiki.html
Wiki classroom resources from http://educationalwikis.wikispaces.com/Classroom+Wikis
Here is a list of ideas for what you might like to include on a wiki.
- Course Syllabus
- Graduation Exam and SAT objectives
- Pictures of your classroom - both with and without students (let me show off their learning environment!)
- Handouts - especially for absent students or ones students lose a lot
- Class Notes (use the class scribe system and have them do this, not you!)
- Links and Resource page
- Calendar - classroom calendar, school calendar, etc.
- Parent's Page - notes, letters, pictures, announcements, etc.
- Extended Lessons - webquests, further research
- Import a Blog (go to Help at top of page to learn how)
- Real World ___ (name of your subject) - I'm starting this on mine - have them answer how what they are learning can be used in the real world
- Link to your blog
- A page about you - introduce yourself
- A page of your writing or your own work --pictures, short story, drawing (scan it ), or something you've created
Other Wiki Info:
For teachers new to wikis: http://educationalwikis.wikispaces.com/Classroom+Wikis
This school oriented wiki site uses wikis in various ways. When you look it over, please be patient and remember to view the sidebar. http://leecountyschools.wikispaces.com/Teacher+Wikis
Teacher Librarian http://teacherlibrarianwiki.pbworks.com/
Finally-I created a hypothetical wiki for you guys to look over and get the feel of. I named it The Sawdust Bin and it's aimed at technology students and woodworkers. Its initial pages concern tree species and the lumber produced from them. When you go there to visit the site, you should see three species of trees listed; poplar, sourwood, and oak. Only the oak wiki contains no information .
This is an experiment, so be patient!
Since I gave the world all rights imaginable to my wiki, you should be able to enter and modify entries. I'd like you to locate one piece of information about oak; the tree, its lumber, or products made from it. Please try to locate information that the average person would not be aware of-something not commonly known.
If you look at the entries for poplar and sourwood, you'll see information regarding their range of growth, size, preferable soil type, and leaf or flower characteristics. Please look for something along those lines and enter it into the wiki about oak trees. Please type your full name at the end of the entry.
My Wiki Demo
http://sawdust-bin.wikispaces.com/
This is where I went to construct the above wiki should you wish to construct one yoursellf for your classes: Wiki Space for Educators http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers
For future reference only:
A couple of you are exploring programs not of general interest to the group and we'll deal with those, but most of you will be using a Web authoring program called Nvu, a free portable and surprisingly robust application that will allow you to prepare your project for the Web. The second program some of you might use is Gimp, which is a graphics editing program. It's comparable to Paint Shop Pro and I could call it PhotoShop lite.
Nvu can be downloaded at http://www.thesitewizard.com/gettingstarted/kompozer-tutorial-1.shtml
The newest version is called Kompozer, although for our needs it won't matter how it's been merged with Nvu. This tutorial site looks good and covers some of the basic Web protocols that we spoke of last week.
Gimp as a portable application can be downloaded at http://sourceforge.net/projects/portableapps/files/GIMP%20Portable/GIMP%20Portable%202.6.8/GIMPPortable_2.6.8.paf.exe/download
There is a very elementary tutorial at http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Lite_Quickies/ which happens to address some of the basic ways we need to use Gimp-image modification.
