TokBox Presentation

TokBox Presentation Copying Comments

I tried two ways to embed or copy our Presentation to my blog.  The first attempt created a nice picture of the first page of our Presentation but, it also included GoogleDocs which if clicked, lead a path to my email.  I tried to get rid of it and failed.  So, I made this ugly post. What I do like about this ugly post is that when you click on the link, it puts up a large version of our Presentation.  I'm looking forward to hearing about some other ways that I can post on my blog or web page.  I feel posting on the blog and web site from other sites should be a discussion for those of us who have little experience in this area. 

Okay, Okay, I've got it.  I deleted my second ugly post because after some testing, I discovered that the copy/paste procedure did not leave a path open to my gmail.  Michelle checked out the post on my blog from her account and hit Google Docs and it opened up to her gmail.  I tried it from willamette.mat"s account and it opened up to willamette.mat's gmail.  So, through experimenting around with Michelle we discovered that it will open up the web page of whoever is signed in.  Ahh Haaa.   

Learning Curve for TokBox

Well, I've had a lot  of fun learning about tokbox.com.  It is very easy to sign up and mail those video mails.  I invited my parents to tokbox.com and I was able to talk to them while viewing their amazing faces.  It was a blast.  We did have a problem with an echo while we were talking, so you need to wear headphones during the transmission.  My parents and I talked for at least 30 minutes  and we didn't have any trouble during the interaction.  You can create a list of friends that you can dial-up to talk to and you can add as many as 20 people in that conference call. 

I created a video that I wanted to send to my blog and I made an amazing learning mistake.

Instead of sending my pre-made video to my blog, I sent what is called Widget to my blog.  I discovered that people could make a video mail from Widget and send the video mail to whoever they wanted.  This would actually be cool when introducing tokbox to students in the classroom. You could just have them go to the Class Blog and ask them to try out the video mail.  Students wouldn't have register or create their own tokbox account.  This could also be used to have students practice speeches.

     

The other problem I had was sending video mail to my blog.  Barry was very kind and showed me via TeamViewers, how to send my video mail to my blog.  I was trying to embed from the list of items on the left of tokbox screen.  What Barry showed me was that it is done after you press send .  There will be a list of choices on the right of your picture and you press link/embed.

Then you will be given a choice of two lines to copy-copy the last choice and then click to your blog and create a new post.  Click the Edit Html tab and then put your cursor in the blank space and paste.  Then click compose and your video will transfer.  It doesn't necessarily show up until you click View Blog. 

Tokbox.com is fun and easy, even for an old timer like me.  

TokBox Presentation Demo

Here is a brief discussion of the learning curve of Tokbox.

Heres my link

Here is some more stuff

Checking for Understanding-ReQuest

ReQuest is a strategy designed to teach students to ask questions and think of the answers while they are reading. In the book, Checking for Understanding, studies have shown that students who engage in questioning while reading improve their comprehension. I tried this strategy out with my son's Battle of the Book team. Since we are a book club and not a class, we had to alter the strategy. The team had to read 16 books to prepare for the Jeorpordy type question and answer competition. Intially, parents meet with the students and had them answer questions from the Accelerated Reader program on the school computer. Once the students got into the routine of answering questions about their readings we (the parents) asked the students questions. We did this for several meetings and then once we were sure that all the books had been read by the students, we asked the students to come up with questions to ask each other. They did a terrific job. They started out asking knowledge questions and then comprehension content type questions. It worked out great.

I did not ask these students to ask questions of each other until they had read the whole book. I tried to get the kids to write down questions while they were reading but they really had trouble stopping their readings to write down a question. I did finally tell them to just think of questions while they were reading and that at the end of the book they could write down the questions. Most of the students didn't write down the questions but they did have the questions in their minds when it was time to ask their team mates questions. These students will be Battling through April, so they will continue to review their books and ask each other questions.

P.S. They won their first Battle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Specific Applications for Blogs

I can think of many ways that Blogs can be a part of classroom instruction. When I am teaching I will have a classroom Blog. The Blog will be used to solicit comments and questions from students as well as a place to share pictures of classroom activities. Some specific ideas I have are:

• Taking pictures of field trips and putting them on the Blog with descriptions and then asking students to comment. Rather than simple asking for comments, I could also ask students to answer a reflective question. It would be fun to have the students take turns being the photographer so that it was their pictures that were on the Blog.
• Asking students to comment or answer reflective questions concerning a story that we might be reading.
• Asking students to do some research and have them briefly describe their findings on the Blog.
• Ask students to comment on the Posts of other students.

As I write these ideas, more ideas continue to pop into my mind. I think once you start a class out on the path of participating on Blogs, they will become more and more involved in its use. Students could even take turns coming up with ideas for Post assignments. I think Blogs have a lot of potential for improving student involvement on assignments. In a Public School setting it will be important to provide access to the Blogs for all students.

Web 2.0-Rethinking our Schools

After watching Shift Happens and Pay Attention I felt conflicting feelings. I can definitely see the need for new teachers to not only learn technology but to also- Teach Technology. Wow, 10 -14 jobs by the time they are 38 years old. Call me old fashioned but going through that many jobs in such a short period of time meant you were a lousy worker. The videos do an amazing job of providing a glimpse into the fast pace world that our children will be living and working in. My first reaction to the videos were -what can I do to prepare children for the type of world that they will be experiencing.

• Teach children the ability to learn.
• Teach children how to critically think.
• Expose children to many ideas to develop personal flexibility.
• Help children learn about themselves.
• Teach children about nature.

The videos drove home to me the responsibility that I have as a teacher to teach children technology so that they can be prepared to function successfully in society. The videos also made me concerned for the pace in which our society seems to be heading. Children need time to discover themselves and their connection to nature. When I think of teaching a child- I think all these factors are important.