Spinscape isn’t so Free after All

NECCunplugged

I didn’t get to go to NECC this year due to finances so I have been attending (and moderating) NECCunplugged sessions virtually. Today at the WoW2 session Cheri Toledo shared that she had attended a session on Spinscape and was impressed with its features so I decided to check it out.

I hadn’t heard of Spinscape and was pleasantly surprised to find that Spinscape is a collaborative suite of online products. According to the website,

What is Spinscape™ ?

Spinscape™ is a tool users (people like you and me) can fire up to brainstorm, collaborate, annotate, and autodiscover new bits of digital information.

Research

Spinscape’s Autodiscovery Plug-In feature gives you the capability to research information from resources such as Google, Wikipedia, Delicious including IMAGES, VIDEOS, TEXT

Once you’ve found the information you were looking for you can easily drop it into a node within a map

Even create your own plugins or have a 3^rd party write the plugins to accomplish your business goals.

Currently, Spinscape allows teams or groups to collaborate on a project in real time anywhere in

Spinscape.com

the world. New features are added each month. One of the more recent features includes the ability to add music (.mid) files to the mind mapping document created when collaborating with colleagues or team members.

Registration at Spinscape.com is quick and simple. When you first sign up, you receive access to a premium account for the first 30 days. You can continue with the premium account for $9.99 a month or $100 a year. Premimum account features include,

Premium users enjoy all of the features included with a free account–and MORE. You can add attachments, access additional plugins and utilize enhanced collaboration features such as shared editing and real-time chat! See the chart below for more details. Then get the full functionality of Premium for a low monthly price or an even lower annual price!

I thought Spinscape was going to be an exciting new tool but the collaborative piece and chat features are only available as part of the premium subscription and not accessible with the free account. With Google documents and the upcoming Google Wave chat feature available soon within Google docs, I can’t see paying for services when there are quality alternatives available for free. Spinscape isn’t so free after all – bummer.

My PLN is the BEST!

WeAreTeachers.com

I can honestly say that my PLN is absolutely the best! With everyone’s help I was recently awarded a microgrant entitled “Pump up your Summer Learning!” from WeAreTeachers.com. I am so honored and thankful for all of the help, support, sharing, voting and encouragement I received from my PLN. I know without my PLN I would not have been in the top 10 and won the grant. The competition was fierce for this contest and I came in ninth place out of ten. Again, I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to everyone who voted and recruited others to vote – without you this wouldn’t have been possible!

I truly am amazed at how wonderful my PLN is. Over time, I have interacted with a large number of people on Twitter and Plurk. Lately, my focus is more at Plurk as I consider myself to be very social and like that connection. Plurk allows me to engage in a multitude of conversations and learn about new tools, trends and issues in ed tech. We also talk about our pets, their children (my pets), family members, tech toys, upcoming conferences or the weather. It is truly amazing the wonderful support I have found from essentially virtual strangers as I only know their online persona. Using the private plurk, we share personal struggles or situations that we are dealing with in life, like the tragic loss of my mother and prayers requests for one another about a job situation, family member’s health, loss of a loved one and many more too numerous to name.

For the past five years, I have contemplated going to grad school. In the past, I wouldn’t even entertain the idea as I didn’t want to become one of ‘them’ and leave the classroom. As my teaching skills refined, I was put in leadership positions and now the career positions that I seek require a master’s degree. My main obstacle was cost, second to wanting an online degree program that is certified and recognized by the Texas Education Agency. I put out my request on Twitter and Plurk and received some awesome suggestions. My criteria was that it had to be economical, self paced online and fully accredited and recognized by the US Department of Education. I chose Western Governors University and am pursuing a Master of Education in Learning and Technology as part of the online university’s Teacher College and currently have been deeply entrenched in trying to complete a needs analysis paper while trying to fulfill my duties as a co-host of Classroom 2.0 LIVE!.

Flickr CC: Kandyjaxx’s Photostream

In addition, to school and Classroom 2.0 LIVE!, every Monday evening I babysit my nieces so my sister can go to school to become a teacher via an alternative certification program that I helped her enroll, give her job resources and help her find job leads with a compassionate principal at an elementary campus (please have mercy and help us if you are an elementary principal in San Antonio. I will help my sister so hiring her indirectly gets me (a national board certified teacher) at no charge to your campus! ) Now is that a deal that you just can’t pass up or what?

Calling all Fifth – Eighth Grade Math Teachers!

As many of you know, this past April 1, 2009, I decided to start a master’s program and enroll at Western Governors University. I am currently working towards a Master’s of Education in Learning and Technology. Previously, I solicited respondents for two survey tools for a different instructional process. I am now in the process of revising things and working with the following instructional problem:

Teachers struggle to effectively teach the skills necessary for students to solve word problems in mathematics. To be successful in the 21st century, students need experience collaborating and opportunities to share multiple ways to solve word problems in mathematics. Teachers lack teaching strategies to help students acquire the skills necessary when solving word problems. Students need to experience real world problems and share their approaches to solving problems. Technology can help teachers deliver instruction that models problem solving strategies, guides students in the thinking process and  allows students to share strategic approaches to solving problems in mathematics.

As part of the needs analysis process, I would appreciate your thoughts on each of the following questions. The targeted audience for this survey and project is any teachers in a public or private institution that teachers math to fifth through eighth graders.

Survey link: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=ck83WDh0YUx3eHlsSFp0SFQyUi1UR3c6MA..

Questionnaire link:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cmhvekxZR3FIMDk3cDh3alVTR3VoNkE6MA..

Please tweet, plurk, blog, or email the links above to your colleagues that teach math to fifth – eighth grades. Thank you so much for assisting me with my capstone project!

Nominate an Outstanding Teen to become an Olypmic Torch Bearer

Although I am a huge Pepsi drinker and fan over Coke, I wanted to share this comment that I received on my blog about nominating a well-deserving teen to become an Olympic torch bearer.

Hi Kim,

My name is Kimberly and I work for a digital marketing agency. Our client Coca-Cola wasawarded spots on the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Torch Relay. 10 of these spots will be filled by teens from across the country who are champions of positive living, and make impactful contributions to their school and neighborhood.

Coca-Cola is looking for teens who have created recycling projects, physical activity programs, or any community initiatives that have resulted in positive outcomes for others. If you know a teen who displays these qualities and deserves to be an Olympic Torchbearer, visit http://www.livepositively.com/olympic_torch_relay and tell us about them!

Help Coca-Cola reward inspirational teens with a once in a lifetime opportunity to carry the Olympic Flame! Hurry, nominations must be received by  5/31.

Thanks,
Kimberly

I nominated a great teen and hope you do the same. This would be a fantastic honor for all the wonderful great teen role models out there. Be sure to check out this opportunity!

Pump up your Summer Learning

WeAreTeachers Microgrant

WeAreTeachers is sponsoring another MicroGrant contest that officially kicked off today and runs until June 1, 2009. The theme for this promotion is ‘A Summer of Learning!’. I submitted a proposal entitled, “Pump up your Summer Learning!” My proposal can be found on the first page., sixth one down.  would appreciate your vote and efforts to spread the word to your colleagues about voting as well as I attempt to find ways to fund my passions of learning, technology and summer fun!

The grants that receive the top 10 most number of votes will win a Flip Video Camera and $200! Please vote by clicking here: http://www.weareteachers.com/web/weareteachers/solvote.  Thanks to everyone who helped in the past and I sincerely appreciate your assistance again!

EduBloggerCon DC/2009 and NECC 2009 – In Person or Virtually

After a recent broadcast of Classroom 2.0 LIVE! about tips for attending NECC 2009, Steve Hargadon, founder of Classroom 2.0 wrote this blog post. A central location for finding out information about streaming, live, remote, meet-ups and anything related to events surrounding NECC 2009 has been created at http://www.neccunplugged.com/. Be sure to check out the wiki and sign up for a session, whether in person at NECC 2009 or virtually via a remote session in Elluminate.

The wiki pages for EduBloggerCon 2009/DC and NECC “Unplugged” are both “live” as of this week, and have–I think–turned out great. Please visit them and consider being a part of these fun (and free) events.

EDUBLOGGERCON / CLASSROOM 2.0 “Meet-up”: This is an international all-day “meetup” of educational bloggers and those using social media and collaborative technologies in education, held on the Saturday (June 27th) before the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in the same venue (thanks, ISTE!). All are welcome–whether you yourself blog, are just an educational blog reader, or even just want to hang out with an interesting group of people. This event is based on the idea of an “unconference”, and is being organized by the participants in real time on the wiki and later on-site. There are no formal presentations, just “conversations” that you want to facilitate. Get different-sized “I’m Attending” web badges on the site.

Big Announcement: You’ll notice that we now have “virtual tracks” for those who cannot attend EduBloggerCon physically but want to participate remotely (thanks to Elluminate). You can even organize your own small or large EduBloggerCon physical “meet-up” in another city! More online…

Links: Main Page – http://www.edubloggercon.com/EduBloggerCon+2009

Who’s Attending – http://www.classroom20.com/events/edubloggercon-2009-classroom

NECC UNPLUGGED: Held during and as a part of NECC on June 28th – July 1, NECC “Unplugged” is three days of 30-minute presentations where anyone can sign up to present, either on-site or virtually–held on-site in it’s own “lounge” area and hosted virtually in Elluminate . Always wanted to present at NECC but weren’t selected? Or have a topic to present or discuss that wasn’t timely when formal presentation applications were due last year but is so now? Sign yourself up! (And then put the web badge somewhere for folks to see it).

NECC Unplugged will stream all its sessions (on-site and virtual) live through Elluminate. We’ll also be absorbing the functions that the NECCLive.com wiki performed last year: anyone streaming, liveblogging, back-channel chatting, Tweeting, or otherwise generating content for remote users can list those resources here in right-most column.

Link:  NECC Unplugged – http://www.neccunplugged.com/

Here’s to an ever-expanding and great NECC experience this year!

Check out Steve’s post and be sure to join in the conversations and events surrounding NECC 2009!

Calling all Educators!

This past April 1, 2009, I decided to take the plunge and start a master’s program. I enrolled at Western Governors University and am working towards a Master of Education in Learning and Technology. As a culminating project, I will be writing a capstone project about the following instructional problem:

Teachers frequently express frustration with the quality of professional development they receive about effective ways to integrate technology technology into their teaching.

I have posed a possible solution to the above instructional problem:

“A learning management system will be created featuring an online Moodle community with modules that will train teachers on basic technology skills and ways to integrate technology into teachers’ content area(s) to enrich student learning. This will result in teachers taking ownership of their learning, changing negative perceptions of online professional development and creating similar online  activities for their students to participate.

Moodle will be the tool used to deliver the online training sessions. The goal is to deliver quality professional development online that is accessible 24/7, that is meaningful and relative delivered online to the participating teachers.  I haven’t worked out all of the details as I am just in the needs analysis phase and am just starting to gather data.

I have created two different instruments to gather data. One is a Google form at:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=cEROTTBDOTItTFN1QkdWbVlEV0VKRHc6MA

If you could take a moment and share the link with your colleagues I would great appreciate it. Feel free to tweet, plurk, post on your blog, Facebook, or anywhere that you think would help drive educators to complete the survey. Educators from Superintendent to the beginning teacher are invited to complete the two instruments to get a wide range of responses. The audience is all educators; more specifically educators new to using technology.

The second is a short questionnaire embedded at one of my wikis:

http://caisefiles.wikispaces.com/capstone_project_questions

The questions are completely open ended and your answers can be very brief or extensive – whatever you have time to write. I know time is a valuable commodity for everyone so I understand if you are not able to complete either one of the intruments. If you aren’t able to complete the instruments but can share with colleagues the links to the instruments I greatly appreciate it.

Scriblink

Those who know me well know that I am interested and fascinated by the advancements in webconferencing websites and tools. I have seen first hand how using this type of technology in the classroom is very cost effective when using only a laptop/computer, project, webcam, microphone and external speakers. Most classrooms have at least one computer setup in the room or have access  to the equipment just referenced. I have a wiki featuring tools, software, tips and strategies to use this medium to enrich instruction at http://caisefiles.wikispaces.com. As a result, I am always on the lookout for any type of tool or website that can assist people wanting to use webconferencing to bring in subject matter experts, extend the flat classroom or have students study and interact with different cultures around the world.

I recently came across a site called “Scriblink – Your Online Whiteboard“. This site allows you to invite people to participate via a long distance phone call, VOIP, or via a URL. I created a test session at http://www.scriblink.com/index.jsp?act=phome&roomid=5218&KEY=06F31C8729790 DD1CF8D347D14450E7E that you are welcome to click on to see the setup.

If you click on the ∏ (Pi) symbol you can access special math, symbols and characters. I tried to do this but could not get the special characters or symbols to embed in the whiteboard. You can upload images and have those embedded in the whiteboard as well.

The colors of the writing pen and pencil can be changed along with the thickness of each instrument. The background can also be changed and they have great choices to choose from. I couldn’t find a way to find a softer color as most of the colors for the background are very bright and wouldn’t be conducive in many collaboration sessions.

This has potential for classrooms that don’t have a whiteboard or if you wanted students to collaborate on one document/whiteboard area. You could also collaborate with colleagues online and use the URL for everyone to get together for a meeting. There are some exciting possibilities here despite the one bug that I encoutered. Overall, it is definitely worth checking out and giving it a trial run.

We Are Teachers Microgrants

As part of the We Are Teachers community, I applied for one of their $200 microgrants.  The ten applicants who receive the most votes will win the money to fund the project described in the microgrant application.

My grant is about integrating fine arts in digital storytelling activities to increase student achievement, self-esteem and learning. Please take a few moments to visit the We Are Teachers site and vote for my microgrant entitled, “Whose Line is It?”. My application is listed as the last one of the first page of applicants at http://www.weareteachers.com/web/weareteachers/vote. At the time of this post I am in third place – please vote so that I stay in the top 10 and am award the microgrant funding! Thank you!

“Who you Gonna Call? Bug Shooter!”

http://www.bugshooting.com

I finally found a Windows version of a screenshot application that is free and allows you to annotate the images from directly within the screenshot application. The application is called “Bug Shooting” and can be downloaded at the bugshooting.com website. While there are a variety of screenshot applications out there, I couldn’t find one that had similar features as that of “Skitch” which is only for Macs, until Bug Shooting.

With Bug Shooting, you can take a screenshot of a portion of a window or the entire area. You can assign shortcuts to the features of Bug Shooting and edit the screenshot from within the application. As you can see from the image on the right, you can zoom in on a specific part of the screen. You can also upload the screenshots directly to a variety of servers and applications. Besides annotating from within the screenshot program, being able to send directly to my email client or Skype will be a great timesaver!

The only thing I couldn’t do with Bug Shooting is to take a screenshot within Bug Shooting. Bug Shooting is only for PC’s running Windows XP or Vista. Although the Bug Shooting support page indicates that the program can be downloaded for Windows  32-bit operating system, it can be downloaded and used in the 64-bit version of Vista. The text below shows Bug Shooting’s response to a question posed by someone asking about Vista:

The windows x64 is not supported because of the Mail-Server which is implemented by using the MSMAPI. MSMAPI is not available for windows x64. This should be the only issue which not work on x64.

I asked my resident tech guru (my dear hubby) what MSMAPI was or meant and he said that MSMAPI is an acronym for Microsoft MAPI, an mail server like for hotmail or POP email accounts. Since I won’t be using Bug Shooting to take screenshots and have them sent directly to email that won’t be a problem for me. Other than not being able to send screenshots directly to my email client, Bug Shooting works fine on Vista x64 as you can see from the screenshots I took above. I think this is a keeper for me and I will not be needing an exterminator!