Online Presentation Tool- Zoho.com

In preparing for a Tech Teacher interview the other day, my Power Point zonked out on me. What was I going to do? I thought for a split second, and I realized that there must be a Web 2.0 tool out there right now that can do the same thing. So, I quickly found zoho.com, which looks like Google owns it. Literally in 30 minutes I was able to create a professional looking presentation that worked really well. The perfect point about the presentation is that with Web 2.0, this document can easily be shared by anyone, which is what you want students to do- make their work visible.

So, for those who are interested, take a look at at the presentation I created below for my interview, and give us your take on it.

Social Unit Design

Should I trademark this term, "Social Unit Design?" If you do a Google search for "Social Unit Design" you don't come up with anything. I know that I'm not the first person to use a wiki to design a unit. But surprisingly when I do more Google searches using terms like "social networking" "unit design" and "wikis," I get a few hits, but nothing specific. Right now there seems to be a real stress on how the students can use Web 2.0, but there doesn't seem to be as much as how we can get teachers to use W2.0 to collaborate and communicate. Even Classroom 2.0's topics are more student-centric, as opposed to teacher-centric; just check out their Success Stories. I see hardly any success stories of teachers using Web 2.0 to collaborate. Hey, if the teachers don't know how to use the tools, then there's a really big problem here. Or a really big market for new ideas, depending on how you see it.

So, for my summertime fun, I've created a Unit Design wiki at http://sciencedesign.pbwiki.com/.
I recently had a discussion with a seasoned teacher, and how every couple of years they spend the entire summer at their dining room table unit and lesson planning for the entire year. That sounds so lonely and boring. It's also pretty close to what I did on almost all of my summer and winter breaks. Being a new teacher as well, I don't have as many ideas for activities. I don't have the years of experience to draw from, so I have to constantly look up learning activities, because my own textbooks and classroom modules just don't give me enough.

So, I'm doing something called Social Unit Design. By creating a wiki on pbwiki.com, I've basically made my unit design a collaborative process. And because the folks at my school aren't with it on Web 2.0, I'm going to farm the work out to science teachers all over the world. Imagine all the work we can do, and all the ideas that we'll come up with, if we put our collective heads together! I'm going to go with my strengths and use Backwards Design, so I am hoping there's some web 2.0 folk out there who are familiar with it.

On my wiki page, basically there's a section for every part of the design process. If we start with the Big Ideas page, then we should get a good start on the process. What's also very cool is that the wiki itself would be an artifact of collaboration, useful to other teachers or students, and the assessment process of the unit could be extremly grand. Imagine 10, 20, or more science teachers all teaching the same unique designed unit all over the country this fall! We'll make content, process, and product all public using ustream.tv, classroom 2.0, or a blog page, and the world can see the final outcomes of all that our students have created.

On another level the collaboration could actually be opened up to the students, and they could share their final outcomes with other students all over the world- online. That could be called "authentic social assessment." Great- Google has zero hits on that phrase as well.

Interesting idea, maybe?

DR

Today at Lamanai

I was taking video of the Mayan temple, and a monster howled from the Jungle.

Bumpy Ride to Mayan Ruins

To get to Lamanai, the Mayan village, we have to go on an hour speedboat ride, then an hour long bus trip, then another hour long speed boat ride up a river. It was much fun, but long. Here's the first ride.

A View at the Cave.

We went diving at Mexico Cave. Here are some of those pictures.

Slideshow from Day 2 and 3

These are the highlights from the past two days. We went on a night dive and saw some barracuda, nurse shark, a porcupine fish, and we also went on a wreck dive, which there are many pictures from. Those will come later. Here you'll also see an arrow crab, and a spotted lobster. Very cool.

What Moon Phase is it here?

Took this Saturday. Do you know what the moon phase is?

Tough Life

Some creatures here really have a bad life.

Slideshow of Sunday's Dive.

This is just about everything I saw yesterday of note. We were all adjusting to our snorkel gear, and that took a little while. First place we went to was Pillar Coral, then we went to Tres Cocos. My gear worked great, and my dive buddy snapped a handful of the underwater photos. He's cool because he has an underwater digital camera. Mine is old style film.

First time Snorkeling

This is my response after I snorkeled in Pillar Coral. It was very cool. I'll have some pictures to show you soon. I do have some video that is more than just me talking, but I'm at an Internet cafe right now, and I'm working as fast as I can.

Landing in Belize.

We took a little twin engine prop plane (a cessna?) to the island. It was very dark and loud and strange going over water at night in a little plane. Here's how it looked.

Waiting at Airport

Here's a couple of videos of my adventure of waiting at Belize City's Airport. What fun it was! Just watch.

Very Little Internet Access

I'm here and taking much picture and video, but my Internet access has been limited. Belize is not very reliable when it comes to Internet, power, electricity. It's a different world right now. But I'm at an Internet cafe, and will get to write more later. also add some pics. I saw some awesome fish today, plants, animals- wow. Can't wait to update you on those. Talk to you all later tonight- hopefully.

Daniel

The Belize Barrier Reef

On December 28th, I will be headed to the Belize Barrier Reef to get an up-close look at its wildlife, and also to see how the ecosystem is being affected by global warming. I will be snorkeling with a group of like-minded folk, and we'll also be checking out some Mayan ruins. I hope that you'll check back here as often as you can, and leave me many comments to reply to. It'll be a fun trip! Hope you'll join me.

Here's where I'll be. If you zoom in on the image, you can see that Ambergris Cay is an small island off of Belize, and that's where I'll be most of the time. We'll snorkel about twice a day to check out the wildlife and the reef. The Belize Reef is actually the top of a 25,000 ft drop-off. And I'll be standing right on top of it! Cool!



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The Ride is Over

Well, I was to take the train home, but thanks to the friendly Metra, they decided to outlaw bicycles this weekend. Figures. So I bucked up and began the trip home. My totally aching butt and chafed hands (so wearing gloves is a good idea!) were ready to do it all again. This time I knew a short cut, I could take the Grand Illinois Trial westward and avoid a lot of roads. The ride to Kenosha I spent way too much time trying to find the trail, and on roads. The Des Plaines River trail was flooded every quarter mile. I rode through it a bunch of times, but there were times when the water level was just too high for my bike. My feet were wet for the entire trip up because of that.

I made a google map of the trip. Unfortunately, bike trails are not on Google maps, so I made assumptions based on the nearest roads. The mileage is pretty accurate.
Here's the map of my trip. Thanks for following!


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Train won't take bikes. Guess i'm riding home!

Made it to kenosha at 7pm. thank god for best western! I just rode my bike for 7 hours.

Kenosha!