Coveritlive in the Classroom

I am going to be presenting lectures today about Media Evaluation in our Educational Technology and Design here at the University of Northern Iowa. We are looking for new ways to use laptops/smart phones to make the class more interactive so we are going to incorporate Coveritlive.com so that the students will be able to discuss the materials in a back channel while I am speaking.

I created an account and am embedding the Coveritlive window here in my blog. I will have another person in the back of the lecture hall moderating the discussion while I am speaking.

You can follow along at 6:00 pm CST. We will be talking about Media Evaluation. I would love to have your input.

Web 2.0: Gadgets, Gizmos, and Widgets

Here are some additional resources to supplement the materials that I have provided on my presentation wiki.

Classroom Blogs

• Selection and Integration: Readings/Listenings/Watchings/Doings - Use a blog for listing assignments for class.
• Blog-bib - An annotated bibliography on blogging.
• Weekly Teacher Blog - 3rd grade teacher's blog. This is the electronic version of the Friday newsletter for parents. Notice that there is no commenting capacity.
  
• Mrs. Sempek's Wonderful 4th Grade Class - A look at the classroom from the students' eyes. Recent posts show sign language. Look at the Sept and Oct posts to see their writings.
• Keying In - Mrs. Olson reflects on "Practicing Keyboarding While Communicating with the World." This is for the students and their parents and the rest of the world.
  
• A Trip to Burritt on the Mountain - Takes the 4th grade students on a virtual visual and textual tour of a museum before they visit so that they will get more from the experience.
  
• BG Blogging - Creative Writing blogging from Middlebury University

Overall Blogging Examples

• Keyboarding Research and Resources - Used a blog to create a database of research that is searchable by tags/labels.
• Dr. Z Reflects - Dr. Z's humble attempt at blogging.
• Edu.blogs.com - Evan McIntosh. Comments/reflects on using tech in ed.
• Captain's Blog - Journal of Captain Mark Bromwich in Afghanistan.

Blogging Utilities

• Google Reader - Google's great aggregator for blogs. You must have a Google account for this to work.
  
• Bloglines Reader - On-line RSS Feed Reader. Get an account.
• Technorati - This is the Google for Blogs.
• Google Blog Search - This is the Blog search for Google.

Steve Wozniak at ITEC

I have just listened to Steve Wozniak talk about his life of fiddling and creating with technology all of his life. It was really quite interesting to hear that he was a geek from an early age.

Someone just asked him for an outrageous dream. He responded that he would like to create a globe that would display Google Earth. We could just point to places that on the earth and then interact with it that way.

Another guy just asked how it felt to make such a huge difference in the world. I don't think that he really understood the point of the question because he just recounted the things that he did. Said that he invented a computer because he wanted to play games and do his HP work at home.

This is over and we need to get ready to present our panel discussion on Confronting the Challenges of Web 2.0. It will be in this room of 400 people. Wonder how many will show up.