Patty Papers » Web 2.0

YouTube Alternatives

Patty O'Flynn — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:37:30 +0000

I’m a big fan of the blog FREE TECHNOLOGY FOR TEACHERS because after all, free is the right price. Two of their posts share some interesting YouTube alternatives.

One reason you may want a YouTube alternative is that many districts have blocked access to YouTube. Within my own district, access is blocked to everyone during school hours because of bandwidth issues but it opens to staff before and after school hours. Nice, but doesn’t help me during class although the tech department will download YouTube vids during off hours for use the next day. If you also have access issues, here is a great post that gives 30+ alternatives to YouTube that may work for you.

Another post gives another YouTube alternative called Vidque, a new service that aims to help users curate their own collections of the best videos available on the Internet. Vidque allows users to grab videos fromvarious sources such as YouTube, Blip.tv, TED, and Vimeo and put them into collections that they can share and it even uses the videos you grab to help you locate more videos.

Patty O'Flynn — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:26:31 +0000

I had the opportunity this morning to talk with attendees at the 2009 MUG-NW Summer Bootcamp.

The Moodle User Group Northwest in partnership with NCCE holds a summer Moodle Bootcamp for both system administrators and instructors. This multi-strand event will allows participants to focus on either installing and administrating a Moodle environment or teaching and learning using one of the hottest online content management systems available.

If you’d like to see my course, just click the pic above. If you are interested in any of the activities you see, just let me know.

If a teacher had invented Twitter…

Patty O'Flynn — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 02:15:43 +0000

…it would have looked like Edmodo. Like Twitter, it’s a microblogging site, but it builds in significant additional functionality to support classroom interactions. Edmodo allows teachers to create groups that students join and then send messages, files, links, and assignments to the entire group. AWESOME !!

Check out Chris Dawson’s review of Edmodo for more info.

Minoru webcam

Patty O'Flynn — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:31:16 +0000

This is the cutest little webcam I’ve ever seen, and I want one.

NCCE 2009

Patty O'Flynn — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:58:42 +0000

I’m currently preparing to present at NCCE 2009 in Portland this February. My session is regarding the ways in which my students and I use Moodle in our math classroom. It should be a great conference and I hope to see you there!

February 17-20, 2009
Oregon Convention Center
Portland Oregon

FEARLESS TECH EDUCATION CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Find out how school districts are saving money with Open Source Software and how it can improve teaching and learning in the classroom!

Workshops

Open Source for Schools
Moodle for n00bs (newbies)
Web 2.0 Basics: You mean you can do THAT on the internet?
Create Powerful Learning with Moodle
Free Internet/Online Tools to Increase Student Achievement
Multimedia Moodle Marvels
Managing Moodle for Teaching and Learning
Web 2.0: All you can eat buffet
School 2.0: Living Learning and Leading in a flat world
Making Moodle Matter for Learners and Families

Educators, Administrative Leaders and Technical Staff will experience how Open Source Software increases both access and opportunities for students and teachers.

Concurrent Sessions

MUG-NW (Moodle User’s Group) Gathering
Web 2.0 – Voice, video on the web for free! Skype, UStream, Voice Thread
Moodling in Math <— This is my session
The IT Admins Guide to Managing Web 2.0 in Schools
Open Source Smackdown
Web 2.0 – Collaboration Tools you can’t live without. Delicious and Google docs
Content Management Systems for Schools (Drupal, Joomla and others)
Using Moodle: Supporting Administrators and Professional Development
Opening Doors to Learning with Moodle

SEARCH LEARN and EXPLORE @ www.ncce.org

Qipit

Patty O'Flynn — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 00:27:08 +0000

Qipit is a free online tool that allows you to copy documents, whiteboards and handwritten notes with your camera phone or digital camera to store, fax, email or publish. Just take a picture of a document with your camera phone and send the picture from your phone or via email to copy@qipit.com. You’ll receive a link to the online PDF copy of your document, all for free. I have other ways to share my whiteboard slides and notes, but this would be a great tool for students.

I found out about Qipit from the article 10 Useful Web Applications You Don’t Know About

Moodling away…

Patty O'Flynn — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:52:40 +0000

Despite my long summer absence, I have been very busy preparing new technology for this upcoming school year. My most recent project is developing math courses using Moodle. Four of us (3 teachers and our tech director) attended the MUG NW Summer Moodle Bootcamp in July and two us us are currently participating in an online Moodle course, Create Powerful Online Learning with Moodle. We are also working on developing our Moodle courses for this upcoming school year; you can view my courses (they are works in progress!) at Woodland School District Courses. I would appreciate your feedback!

In the midst of all that, I spent two weeks in Maui which was fantastic – I snorkeled with a shark and a barracuda (not purposely, believe me!) and learned to surf! Click on the pics below if you’d like to see more Hawaii pics on Facebook.

Aloha!

Happy RSS Awareness Day!

Patty O'Flynn — Thu, 01 May 2008 19:39:48 +0000

I had no idea that there was such a day until I saw this Common Craft post in my Google Reader today. In honor of the day, here are some helpful resources:

RSS in Plain English – by Common Craft
RSSday.org/ – the official RSS Day site

Apparently, May 1st is RSS Awareness Day! I had no idea such a day existed, but it has it’s own site at RSSday.org . Thanks to the nice folks at dailyblogtips.com for making our RSS in Plain English video part of the site – and day for that matter.

I agree that RSS is one of those special technologies. It has the potential to positively impact virtually every Internet user at no cost. A big problem is awareness – it’s hard for people to see how it could impact them until they give it a try. Hopefully we’ve been able to turn some people on – but there are still about 94% of Internet users that haven’t seen the light. The challenge continues.

Here’s the improved version of the original video from the Common Craft Store:

In honor of Earth Day… it’s Blackle!

Patty O'Flynn — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:11:27 +0000

Blackle is the energy-saving search engine powered by Google.

How does Blackle save energy? Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. “Image displayed is primarily a function of the user’s color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen.” Roberson et al, 2002

Check it out and consider making Blackle your homepage.

Blackle.com - Saving energy one search at a time

Math & Technology in Today’s Classroom

Patty O'Flynn — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:49:48 +0000

I will be presenting this summer at the Summer Institute in Olympia, WA. During my session, Math & Technology in Today’s Classroom, I’ll show how I use technology such as the electronic whiteboard, student response systems, software, mathcasts and video projects to promote student learning and achievement and for assessment (both formative and summative).