Thing 10-Embedded Video and thoughts

WELCOME TO MY NEW LEARNING IN THING 10-ENJOY: A GREAT MOMENT IN SPEECH THERAPY...............



I wish fluency interventions would be this easy for my students who stutter. I happened upon this video in my browsing through YouTube. I have never heard about this video with John Wayne. I am sort of surprised that it was not mentioned in one of my courses either in undergrad or my Masters program. It was nice to see that the topic of stuttering was being addressed in short movie clips. For so long over history, stuttering was something that people just did not talk about openly. Various public figures have been more vocal about educating the public or been willing to share personal experiences about their dysfluent speech. This helps greatly with individuals who are becoming aware that they stutter. As a school clinician I have tried a variety of approaches to help my dysfluent speaking students. Maybe I will have to work on my John Wayne routine and give it a go......

I found that embedding videos into my posts was one of the easiest ways to share a video with others. KeepVid and PWNYouTube sites required repeated tries to convert a URL to a downloadable version. I was only able to download from KeepVid to my desktop, but then had trouble with the computer recognizing what format it was. I believe that ultimately my problems may stem for my outdated desktop hard drive configurations. I have been using Microsoft's web support to download updates for this class, but I think I may need to upgrade my computer sometime in 2010 to easily run all these new Web 2.0 tools I am learning. Zamzar seems like it may be a good alternative via my email. I am still waiting for delivery to my email. We will see.......

Have a great week, Gregory Jacoby

Thing 9

Hello one and all,

Such an interesting experience today with exploration and learning about the history and endless potential of on-line video sharing/interactions.

It was very fascinating to see all the options in videos available on-line. I was able to find many videos regarding speech and language therapy practices, perspectives and client feedback. I loved the "Free Hugs" video. I was enlighten watching the "In my Language" video by the individual with autism. The "Honda Choir" was very creative and I enjoyed the trip back in time with "Pa and Ma on Math". Such a rich diversity exists in You Tube.

I found Michael Wesch's presentation on "An Anthropological Introduction to You Tube" to be great. His presentation highlights how use of the Internet has really transposed use of media from a passive activity (i.e., watching TV) to an interactive experience. You Tube is not just about creating and viewing videos, but also the interactive process of generating emails, blogs, diggs, and rating on technorati and others. His discussion on cultural inversion and cognition versus recognition was interesting. His video allowed me to see how use of videos and the Internet has really opened up new venues for individuals to interact. I guess my world knowledge has been further expanded. I may even get my own "glass dot".

There seems to be many educational and speech-language appropriate material on You Tube. Teacher Tube and School Tube also will offer options to provide visual referents and interactive experiences for myself and my students. All 3 venues seem to offer many potential supportive learning tools. I will have to see what kind of filters Detroit Public Schools has on access of these three sites.

I am sure you will find this "Thing" as interesting as I did. Have a great week, Gregory Jacoby

Thing 8

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How much fun.........Flickr Mashups were very exciting to experiment with such variety. I could see using Spell with Flickr to assist with supporting students with word knowledge and spelling reinforcement. It could also be used for students and my own creative projects. I have some younger students who are having difficulty with color identification that I could see some potential with utilization of Flickr Color Pickr.





All the types of Mashups options I believe will provide a forum for language rich development. All the pictures that are available can lead to rich shared conversations either in person or via blog entries. I will have to learn how to play Sudoku so that I can use Flickr. I created some wonderful mosaics, in particular one regarding sign language that was beautiful and had such interesting photos. I wanted to save the mosaic, but was concerned about copy right laws. I still am confused about how we use all these options and then have to be careful about what photos are copyright protected from my saving to my computer for my use with students. I enjoyed the Flickr memory games which could be used with my students as rewards for completion of activities as well as reinforcing concepts covered. This is all predicated upon having decent computer options in my therapy spaces in the buildings I service.



So many option exist with image generators. The possibilities are endless. I see possibly incorporating these sites into use with my speech students to utilize in their special classes on the one or two days a week when they have computer time. There seem to be fees or subscription requirements for some of the options in Image Generator, so the Big Huge Lab might work better. Time and usage will tell.......

The one question I have in all of this use of Flickr is copy right infringement. When using some of the mashups it seems very hard to make sure that you are using authorized photos. It seems with image generators, it may be better to create your own photos to utilize. The only downside is all the richness of Flickrs photos that exist.

Using photos to expand world knowledge for students could be difficult when it comes to copyright restrictions. Does anyone have input regarding use of all the Flickr photos in your classroom or for therapy activities. Are you able to use any photos as long as they are for educational use? When I used the filters for photos that had no copyright, the options were very limited. Appreciate any input.

Have a great Thanksgiving, Gregory Jacoby

Thing 7

One more step into the technological age. All these new accounts that I have now for Blogs, Bloglines, and now Flickr. I feel as now that I have a new arsenal of tools to use at school and home. I will probably now have to upgrade not only my camera, but my computer.
Flickr will have possibilities in my therapy activities with my students. I work with students at various building covering preschool to 5th grade classrooms. Most of my work with my students occurs in a pullout basis base with consultations with their teachers. At times I have collaborative session in the classroom with the teacher. Flickr would be useful with some of my expressive expression activities such as picture description and vocabulary expansion. I can also see expanding the verbal lessons to written activities with sentence structure highlights. Having students use Flickr to generalize there learning would also be wonderful. Flickr could be used to expand student's world knowledge and give students concrete visual referents for concepts and vocabulary and locations that are unfamiliar.
Another area that may have application to my student's carry-over from our therapy would be utilization of the social interaction of posting notes and comments on other people pictures. This would enhance there written, expressive, and pragmatic functional communication skills.
I am sure as I start using Flickr more effectively and learn how to better integrate my skills to the the work setting, that I will find more and more possibilities. Have a great day, Gregory Jacoby

Thing 6

I feel I am making progress with my technological maturation. To have transitioned through new learning in blogs, RSS, and now Flickr is opening up new horizens for me and more importantly for use in my career.
I had a great time learning about Flickr and the endless possibilities that exist in the digital photo world. So many wonderful pictures. I was intrigued that not only can you view pictures, but you can also socially network and interface with the actual creaters of their photos. This is definitely going get me to finally, in 2010, get a digital camera and expand my photographic skills.
The only thing that I was curious about was when you search the Flickr site most of the photos I looked at had copyright potections. Does that mean that you can not copy them to your computer for personal use? At what level do you violate copyright with photos?
Through utilization of Compfight and the Library of Congress digital photos, I was able to locate photos that had either no restrictions or limited restrictions. Compfight was the easiest to find photos using creative commons commerial or only as a filter.
The photo above was chosen for this blog because it reminds me of my early days in my career transition when I was completing my teaching certificatation process in speech pathology. In 2000, I spent much time in preschool classrooms conducting circle time and interactive oral reading activites with my wonderful students. Brings back fond memories. Have a great day, Gregory Jacoby

Thing 5

This course is definitely captivating me. But I must say, this segment was the most challenging for me. Setting up an RSS site definitely has huge potential to help organize and keep me current with posts in a timely manner. I can see that the "end-result" of the reader will be very useful. Maybe my computer needs an upgrade to handle all this information/processing.
The tutorial on the 3 methods was clear and made sense. Unfortunately, I had great difficulties with making the "sub to bloglines" work on computer with the video tutorial. The steps to make this tab work and the end result did not match with the "links" to add to favorites. I had to do a fair amount of experimentation to get the end result......But ultimately I was successful.
I had mixed results with the blog engines of Google and Technorati. I had better success with Google--I was able to find blogs of interest and establish links. With Technorati, I had more problems especially with finding results for speech therapy in schools or speech language pathology as a topic. I have not figured out how to navigate searches and then add to my reader and then get back to my search engine results without having to start the search all over again(Sorry about the "run-on" sentence). I tried multiple tabs to operate on my computer but had problems with my computer processing.
I am having some difficulty with setting up the reader. My search sometimes brought up web pages versus blogs--some of the blogs I came to I could not get an address to link to by bloglines. The blog searches came up with individual blogs regarding a topic, but when I tried to link to the source of the main blog, I had some difficulties.
I guess the more I use my reader and add links, I will get more versed and better in setting up links. This segment definitely took a lot of time to navigate and get established. But I feel that I have made some concrete progress in getting more organized and to ultimately use this for future enrichment. Thank you, Gregory Jacoby

Thing 4

Hello everyone,
I should have known that there would be a way to better facilitate the overwhelming amount of information out in the Internet "world". As I looked at other blogs in thing 2 and 3, I was concerned how I would be able to keep up with all the sites and posts. It is wonderful to see that there are systems to help us be more productive and organized as we attempt to utilize the latest information and Internet options. Using the reader will help to entice and enrich the educational experiences for our students.
Time management has always been a difficult area for me as I try and balance daily living. RSS will definitely help prioritize the information that I receive and allow me to better keep myself current with my posts and other's comments. Up until today, I have used the "old slow way" to interact with the Web. I look forward to seeing how I can use RSS to allow me to better utilize the Web. I will be curious to see if I can use reader not only for managing my blogs, but possibly other things like emails, new additions to topics of interest within favorite web sites, etc.
I enjoyed looking at the 3 sample readers used in this lesson, although I found that I easily got lost looking all the various links. It is exciting to see the possibilities in establishing a well organized reader.
I am enjoying this class. I wasn't sure I would like taking an on-line class rather than participating in a classroom setting. I guess this is all part of new horizons in my development. Have a nice evening. Gregory Jacoby

Thing 3

Good Evening. I am enjoying expanding my knowledge regarding blogs. Up until last week, blogs were an abstract concept to me. I was aware that they existed and many people who I considered very technology savvy were utilizing them. Over the course of completing "Thing 3", I am now entering the "blogosphere" myself.
In reviewing the sample blogs, I was enlightened by the range of topics and purposes that they can serve along with the number of potential participants that can be involved. As I spent time navigating these sites, I was a little overwhelmed with the amount and variety of information that they contain. I could get lost in my "browsing" in some blogs. I did find some interesting sites including: "Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs" and "The 100 Most Inspiring Blogs". I also googled a search for blogs that relate to speech pathology and found many speech language pathology blog sharing sites in which I can investigate further later this week.
Commenting on other blogs "feels" uncomfortable to me at this time. It reminds me of making a "cold call" when I was in sales in my younger days prior to entering the educational setting. I posted a comment on an individual's review of utilizing an age appropriate book with an augmentative communication device and one to a fellow classmate. Neither posting that I responded to had a name attached to it and I felt that I was making more of a editorial comment rather than engaging in a communicative exchange. I suppose, if I get a posting back, possibly I will have a name in the reply and potentially start a more personal interaction.
I appreciate the explanation regarding what a "Dashboard" is all about. I was confused after I set up my blog last week. I have adjusted my settings so I think I will be able to receive posting and ease of communication. I look forward to continuing to navigate other blogs to support my engagement with other colleagues for suggestions in utilizing these sites to further engage my students. Gregory Jacoby

Thing 1 and Thing 2

Good Evening one and all. I have an unusual feeling as I start my first blog ever. I have heard about this class in sketchy details from other teachers in Detroit Public Schools and was fortunate enough to register for this class now. I always have wanted to expand my computer expertise and consider myself versed in computer applications from Microsoft (i.e., Word, Excel, Power Point, etc.), but I have had not had any experience with really expanding my use and involvement with the Internet other than for email and searching for information. Participating in "The 23 Things" on-line course will finally facilitate my "getting with the 21st century program".
I have been a teacher of the speech and language impaired (TSLI) within Detroit Public Schools for 9 years. My caseload has ranged in size around 50-60 students covering preschool to high school students. I have felt for sometime that connecting with my students has been a problem over extended periods with utilization of auditory and visual material for therapy activities. So much of students hobbies revolve around electronic media (i.e., cell phones, television, gaming devices, video games, computer usage, etc.). Over the last few years my role as a student support service teacher has revolved around attempting to mold my interventions and therapy around the curriculum in the classroom. Maintaining student interest has been challenging at times due to a multitude of issues. It is my hope that this course will allow for better interactions and successes for my students and myself as a support educator.
The material presented during Thing 1 was very interesting and intimidating for me. Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and media sharing are all very new topics for me. The article by David Warlick sounded so wonderful in the way that everything completed by educators, students, administrators, and parents was so interconnected and relevant to the education goals for students. I felt overwhelmed by the end of the article. But I also realize that one has to start somewhere to create change and improve my professional process. The video was very enlightening in regards to the realities of the potential that digital learning can have on today's students. Not only can learning occur within the classroom, but also by interacting digitally.
I will be interested to see how well interactions with my students and colleagues will be impacted by utilizing the tools that I will be learning over the next 10 weeks. I hope and trust that I have created my blog and post in Thing 2 satisfactorily. I am not sure that I set everything up properly. I am not sure how to change or "go back". But I guess with time and your input, I will learn.
Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts. Have a nice evening, Gregory
(P.S., I tried to upload an image of kindergarten school children from New Orleans to my blog. I am not sure it worked. If it is not here, I will try again another time. Bye.)