CEP 810 EDTech

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Social Networking

The three tutorials I chose to watch were:

Access 2000 Intro and Access 2007

Intro/

Comparison of the differences in how each works.

1. Access 2000: To create a table in Design View, Field Name has no spaces, no symbols/ Description may have spaces.

2. Access2007: Starts with creating a desktop shortcut/ Go to:

Start, all pro, MS Office, MS Access 07, Rt. Click, send to desktop, create desktop.

Getting Started has content securities and it is temporarily disabled.

3. Social Bookmarking- To create a Delicious social bookmark:

Go to: http://delicious.com

Click create

Use existing Yahoo account, or create one to get started.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Blog-GTD

Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen, “Mastering Workflow”

The 5 stages are:

1. Collect

2. Process

3. Organize

4. Review

5. Do

These five stages represent a process from start to finish, to accomplish a task, and or a series of tasks, in the most effective time saving manner. Being a busy person, I want to learn everything I can about time management and getting things done are a priority on a daily basis. People say if you want to get something done, find the busiest person you know, and they will accomplish it. It isn’t because they are so busy that they accomplish things, it is because they have learned how to accomplish things by prioritizing and actually doing it. There is more to it than that, but if you look around, you see many instances that people just don’t get things done. I have read many books on this because I really don’t like to waste my time and I want things done. One of my favorite authors is Stephen R. Covey, for writing The 7 Habits for Highly Effective People, and The 7 Habits for Highly Effective Teens. These two books are about getting things done and about how our relationships are a part of it as well. Prioritizing is the main thing to consider when looking at what outcomes will be, with consideration for relationships in the process. With the 5 stages, relationships are bound to cloud up whatever task there is to be performed. It is similar to a dance. A great dance will flow.

Blog Comment

Hotels, Facebook, sex, and Justin Bieber: You are searching this headline

Doug Thomas

22 Feb 2011 8:29 AM

Comments 1

Most used words at Office Blog via Wordle

A recent article in the New York Times spotlights how The Huffington Post (THP) is so successful on the web. If you write for the web, you need to take notice.
One of the main reasons is the editors at Huff Post know how people and search engines work. There are top search terms (like the ones in my headline), and the editors fixate on those in their headlines and the first few words of their posts. Such techniques brought the Huff Post 35 percent of its January visits from search engines. By comparison, visits to CNN.com from search engines accounted for 20 percent of January visits, according to the New York Times article.
Some of the most popular posts on the Huff Post have fewer than 100 words, relying instead on slide shows. Yet, it doesn't matter if you have 20, 200, or 2,000 words in your post: You have to concentrate on the first two dozen, because that is how readers who usually don’t follow you may find you.
The article’s example of how successful THP has become was its coverage of Christina Aguilera forgetting one line of the national anthem before the Super Bowl. As folks searched for information about this, THP isolated key words that folks were searching for and put them into this headline:

Watch: Christina Aguilera Totally Messes Up National Anthem

What I think THP is so brilliant at is their verb and adjective choices in headlines. Aguilera didn’t “goof” or “oops” or “make a mistake” or “forget a line.” She “totally messes up.” That’s not a search term, that’s an excellent, active adjective/verb combination that makes the headline come alive (also, the word “watch” means there is a video attached, which is probably what you are searching for anyway).
Search engines concentrate on headlines and the first few words of your article. In many ways, the headline may be the most important part of the text you write. Now, this doesn’t mean that you turn into an SEO (search engine optimization) machine, spitting out words like the ones in my headline with no rhyme (just reason). But it does mean your headline should not be an afterthought.
For example, I was writing a post on email when I checked the popularity of the term with Google's Adwords. I spotted that the term “hotmail” was searched 10 times more often than “email” globally, two times more often in the U.S. alone. So I made sure that both words showed up in the headline or the first bit of text.
So, dig in and start knowing these things. Just don’t mention Mr. Bieber in your headline without writing about him.
--Doug Thomas

learning, search, search engine optimization, SEO

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RSS Reader

RSS Page Reflection

By: Rhonda Noren

February 22, 2011

I have been tracking many RSS feeds to get used to the vast amount of information attached to them. I have come to the conclusion that my students must be taught how to decipher information and to learn how to decide if the information is not only true, but relevant to the activity associated with it. This can be a great avenue to explore with my students while they access information for projects and research papers. Having a RSS reader page available to track makes it an easy way to get information and read it.

Things I have learned from the feeds I have been following include learning what educators are doing and what the government expects or wants to implement into our schools. In tracking the postings and news articles, I have come to the conclusion that technology is a necessary thing to implement into our schools. There are government officials that support technology, but we don’t have the funding to get the necessary tools for our students depending what district is addressed. Even President Obama met with facebook Zuckerberg to discuss technology. Our students have facebook, but I feel they have limited professional and educational skills to go with it. People only want to read what they have to get the information they need. I am seeing this new wave of technology as a necessary path for my students to pursue. In my classroom I am going to require student s to do a project using RSS feeds, blogs, and advanced features of MS Office that are not using already.

As I tracked changes in the RSS feeds of NPR, I noticed that there was a trend in the way the news has been reflecting so much talk and discussion about technology in this country. The reality is that we do not have enough funding to support what officials and educators are asking for in regards to better and more available technology for our students across America as one of the solutions to competing with our own companies as well as companies globally.

In conclusion, I will be doing extensive research, following blogs, exploring, and asking many questions so I can learn more to share with my students. I need to use these new skills more extensively to competently teach others to use them in the classroom. I will be implementing at least the use of RSS feeders to their skills and share this with the class in the form of a blog from the internet, and or the use of Moodle, of which my district has already purchased.

Blog posted in Ed Tech Today Newsletter

Responses to “Message from the Director”

Dionna Harvell Says: October 9th, 2010 at 7:42 pm

I think this is a very informative site and I am so excited to be in this class. I look forward to learning all the various technology out there to be applied in a classroom setting.

Rhonda Noren Says: February 16th, 2011 at 5:25 pm

I support teacher education in the field of technology. I already have a Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction, and I feel it is imperative to learn the newest skills in technology so I can facilitate my students’ learning in the direction of the future. Careers that are available today will look differently and many will be obsolete in the future. The present time seems to mimic the beginnings of the start of the Industrial Revolution, but with technology in its place. This is an exciting time to be in, as new required reading classes have been mandated for teachers, I support technology classes to be next in line.

Blog Posted in Microsoft Office

Comments

· Rhonda Noren

22 Feb 2011 10:44 AM

Word choices are the key to people paying attention to written words and listening to conversations. Written and verbal word choices may vary, but in the end, a particular goal is met by using just the right words to get someone's attention.

Page 1 of 1 (1 items) Well, this photo released by the White House doesn't tell the world a lot about how Jobs is doing, but at least we can all see he was among those joining in a toast. That's Jobs to the president's left. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is to the president's right:

Works Cited

http://newsletter.edutech.msu.edu/

http://www.techlearning.com/

http://www.tipsfortechfortodaysuse.blogspot.com

http://blogspot.office/b/office

http://blogs.office-blog/archive/2011/02/22/hotels-facebook-sex-and-justinbieber-you-are-searching-this-headline.aspx

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/02/18/133869052/photo-apples-jobs-facebooks-zuckerbrg-flank-obama-at-dinner?=1&f=1001