Block 5 Web 2.0 Tools

Howdy one and all. I have to say that this has been the most challanging of all the block for me. Experiementing with web 2.0 tools is what I find most intimidating because I'm often just winning it and am very unsure of what to do. I'm kind of a structure person and this goes way outside of my comfort zone, but I guess that's learning hey?

Well, to begin with, the easiest of tools for me are blogs and wikis because I have used these in the past and am now somewhat familiar with them, but boy do I still remember the frustration and fear they involked initially. Thanks Sherron, JoAnne and Leanne for your patience.

I have also used a chat room but found the process kind of slow and somewhat frustrating becuase it didn't really meet up to my expectations. Skype turned out to be a much better format for what I was expecting. It was a little harder to initiate ( I had to down load the program) but even without voice, I acutally do like it. My little neices use skype, so we have now began to chat.

I also just joined facebook which is also something that I have resisted doing for quite sometime. My neices and sister have facebook pages and I just wasn't really interested. Now that I have acutally joined, what what a difference. While this isn't education related, I'm looking forward to getting pictures from my neice who is in Africa at present. Thanks for the courage to do this as well.

Finally, for my project, I created a ninehub site for my pharmacy technician class. I made up power point presentations in each class along with video and slide shows. Powerpoint is also something that I resisted doing because I couldn't see the point of doing more work for something that didn't need it (or so I thought). I once again have to say that after MANY frustrating moments, I actually see how the site is not only going to improve my instruction, but it will acutally save me time and work. THANKS!!!!
Just as a little update, I just found out how to use the share button on google documents. Boy is it ever a time saver. You just click on the share button on the top right hand side and then type in the addresses that you want it sent to. Gotta really like that one. Just as an fyi Also, just because I didn't specifically mention this, I used google documents to access the powerpoint presentation on the nine hub site. It was not too bad to use and I really liked this becuase going back in an updating information will be much less work in the future. All the google documents that I created are listed on the first page. Nice and organized. Gotta like that too. darcy

FYI the Link for the ninehub site is:
http://pharmtech.ninehub.com/login/index.php

A second tool that I found is teacher tube. I had heard about youtube ( we had looked at it during this fall and summer class. I found it to be pretty funny, but that it actually got you thinking about some things. I kind of liked the idea of teacher tube being more education specific then youtube. I should have known that someone would come up with the idea. I just googled teacher tube and their opening page started with a tutorial on how to use google documents. I had created an account inorder to put powerpoint presentations into my project's ninehub site and found it to be pretty good. It took me a few tries to actually get it right, but it wasn't too bad. When I saw this video on teacher tube, I clicked on it and boy it has even more stuff then I knew about. I found the video to be really simple and straight forward (Ya Hoo..). It has spread sheets also which I can really see being helpful with marks. Right now, I just keep hand written sheets of the marks and then just add them up at the end of the year. It works ok, but a spreadsheet would be way more organized. Google Documents also lets you upload other documents from your computer. I really like this idea too becuase all of my classs content is saved in emails and documents. This would really help save me alot of time . You can also connect links to your document which I think I'm gonna try too, becuase there are quite a few pharmacy sites that the students must be able to use. It would be nice to have them all organized and accessable.

I then went to the most viewed tabs and found the video by Karl Fisch that I talked about in another part of my blog. here's the link again. It's really kind of mind blowing, but I think that i might load it to present to the students when we start to talk about technology the student's future jobs as pharmacy technicians in how the work place looks today. It's good like I said becuase it ties into 21st century skills that I kind of focus on.

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=799aaa845e1c2e8a762b&page=1&viewtype=&category
** Please note that I can't get this site to be active from here. maybe becuase it's 2 lines?? If you want to see, and do if you have time, google it.
Finally, if you need a bit of a chuckle, look at the "Top Ten Things You Do Not Learn About Teaching in College". It's a Letterman spoof, but it's funny.

Next, I went to the Rock our World site. I didn't really know what it was, but it was the first one listed so thought that I'd give it a go. For those of you that don't know ( if there are any...) it's a site that connects k - 12 students around the world to share and meet each other in video chats. Doesn't really apply to me, but then I thought again, could I use it to connect pharmacy technician students and/or practicing grads as kind of a support/discussion site?? Pharmacy techcnians have new competencies that are coming on line really soon and the whole point is standardization. If I could use this site to connect the students with others in different programs, it could really help to alleviate some of their fears. I have found that most students are kind of leary about these new competencies ( I guess change is hard for students too??) and like I said, I could see this connection helping. Tech's have both national and provincial regulations that must be followed and student's often have a hard time with other province's regulations ( becuase they don't acutally pracitice within them) and it's usually the practicing that makes the regulations more understandable . even if I could just start small, I think it's worthwhile to look into with the help of the IT guy at the college. He has been really helpful in the past, so I think that I'll hit him up again???

Finally, I then clicked on the Digital Citizenship in Education site. I really liked this site because it connects to the previous block about evauluating the net as an information source, responsibiliites, etc. I'm not sure if it's for the students ( is it too basic for them??) but as I mentioned it sure was a really good review for me. I actually found it kind of mind boggling. I liked the digital health and wellness link. We do a addiction section in class when we cover narcotic analgesics and I could probably throw this connect into my nine hub site?? the digital literacy section was particulary good for me and it mirrors alot of the evaluation of the web as an information soure that we took in the last block. I think that when I talk about his to the students, if they have questions, then this would be a good additional source to the papers that I printed off from the block that we went through. the Shift Happens video is really mind blowing. Take a look at it if you have time. I'm guessing that most of you have already seen it, but it hit me kind of...

I also created a delicious account and boy is it mind boggling. there's just so much information, but I can see it's really going to help with organization. I think that maybe the students ( and me, but really them) could create accounts for the reference sites that they need to use in class. there are quite a few of them that the need to access in several of their classes and a delicious account could be an option. At the very least, it's been a really good organizational tool for me with my final project and for the students, we would kind of walk through the process so that they could do it for themselves in the workplace. We'd not only have the tool, but they'd know how to use the tool at work and the practicum. I think that new grands and students in the practicum are often overwhelmed with the amount of information that they need to memorize and the delicious account would help to organize their resources so they don't have to memorize, just access the correct sites.