PODCASTS

Podcast Pickle is a great site to find podcasts and then use them in the classroom. In the nursing field treatments are constantly changing so it is very important to stay current on the literature. Having a news show for nursing is a great way to do this. I found a podcast show called The Nursing Show. from searching on Podcast Pickle. You can listen right on the podcast pickle website or you can go to the blog and listen there. This could be used in the classroom by finding a feed on the topic of interest such as Pediatric Cough and Cold Medications and Episode 53 and having students listen from home. The students could then turn in a paper with their comments/ summary or a short discussion could occur in the classroom. These feeds are a great way to incorporate information that is already out there and can save the teacher some time as well!

Flickr in the Classroom

Flickr has millions of photographs from places all around the world. This site could be used as a project for global cooperation to increase the students understanding of other cultures and the settings in which they live. Students could be assigned to search a specific country or group of people and find a picture that really tells them something about a different culture or area. They could then be instructed to interpret the picture and describe the impression they get of the culture or area from it. Students could then describe what it might mean for those people's lives and how aspects of them might be different from what they are used to in their own culture.

GLOBAL COOPERATION WEBSITES

Two global cooperation websites, The Global Schoolhouse and Epals are both places where teachers and learners can collabroate with people all around the world. Global Schoolhouse offers content, programs, tools and resources that can be used in the classroom, as well as ideas for school projects. It has interactive web games for students to learn geography and offers scholarships for web based projects that middle and high school students create about the importance of international affairs and diplomacy. Epals is a simlar website that offers information with a focus around international collaboration. It also has a blog called SchoolBlog where anyone from around the world can post. It also has a special classroom search tool where you can find a classroom and learn what projects teachers from all over are doing.

Example of use in the classroom
Both websites would be a great way for students to learn from interacting on the web with people from other countries. On Epals students could be instructed to follow along already created learning sesssions that have text, videos or even blogs. Students could write a summary or an opionion of the content that was presented or could post their comments right to the blog. Students would be using interactive web tools and be learning about other cultures and traditions which will promote a better understaning of global communites.

Videos In the Classroom

There are many websites that offer videos that may have valuable content for the classroom. For example the videos on my blog titled Lung Sounds and Adolescent Identity were found on two different websites YouTube and Google Video. Both videos I added can be very useful for lectures in Nursing. Videos can be a fun way to grab the students attention and can save you a lot of time preparing a powerpoint slide show that may already exist! The Adolescent Identity video is a stream of quotes that 11th graders wrote when they were asked to answer the question "who am I?" The statements the students made could really provoke some thought and open up a discussion on Identity. The other video which is more of a tutorial on lung sounds is a great way to help the students learn how the lungs actually sound and to help student's ears recognize later what they may hear on a real person. There are so many opportunities to bring videos into the classroom and can help make lessons more meaningful and creative!

TWEETS

After following tweeters on Twitter for the past couple weeks, although without much participation I was able to see what kind of interaction occurs on this website. I found that I think it is very important to follow people who you have the same interests as because many of the posts are very specific to a particular profession or interest. I also thought the streams were a bit confusing because you are seeing every tweet someone posts while they may not be posting a general message to everyone but may be posting a specific responce to someone you do not follow. Overall, I thought it was interesting and would be a great source to seek information from other professionals as well as a fun way to read about the interesting lives or ideas of others.

Twitter in the Classroom

A great blog post Potential uses of twitter in teacher education courses discusses an up and coming website that has potential for educational use. It describes Twitter as “a microblogging platform that allows users to publish brief text updates of up to 140 characters onto the web-based twitter network (aka the "twitterverse").” You can enter these mini updates as often as you like and you can receive “feeds” from the people you choose to follow. Others can add you to their feed and receive the updates you publish. It is like a group chat room with more opportunity to choose who you want to hear from or respond to. It has many opportunities for the classroom.

From the blog above the author states “Our class discussions are often (always?) limited by our time together in a common physical space, it could be used to continue the conversation on a more informal, synchronous basis as thoughts occur.” Students could create a specific account for their classroom tweeting and could then follow all the students/teachers in their class. Specific times could be scheduled where class members could go on to seek out information from other students or teachers, to post comments or further class discussion that seem to end to early.

The article 25+ Incredibly Useful Twitter Tools and Firefox Plugins describes another application of twitter TweetDeck which “Aims to evolve the existing functionality of Twitter by taking an abundance of information i.e twitter feeds, and breaking it down into more manageable bite sized pieces. Tweet Deck enables users to split their main feed (All Tweets) into topic or group specific columns allowing a broader overview of tweets.” This can facilitate the creation of a group of classroom tweeters on the students page so the updates from them are easier to access.

BLOGLINES COOL FEED

From the blog I Learn Technology: An edublog about integrating technology into the classroom at http://ilearntechnology.com/ there was an exciting post you can view by following this link http://ilearntechnology.com/?p=770. The post is about a website called Vista Zoo at http://www.vistazoo.com/ where you can create your own virtual tour by uploading pictures, video, audio and more. You can then insert your vistazoo into any website, such as you tube. It can be a fun way for students to learn about geography or cultures. They could create their very own vista zoo as a project for geography, an art project using pictures/videos from places they have been or anyone can just use it for fun!