Thumann Resources

21st Century ideas to help facilitate good teaching and learning.

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Project 10 to the 100th

Posted by lthumann on September 30, 2008

www.flickr.com/photos/81035653@N00/2242177289

www.flickr.com/photos/81035653@N00/2242177289

“New studies are reinforcing the simple wisdom that beyond a certain very basic level of material wealth, the only thing that increases individual happiness over time is helping other people.”

Project 10100

Project 10100 is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible. Google asks that if you have an idea that you believe would help somebody, to submit it to them. They are committing $10 million to fund up to five of the final ideas.

To submit your idea, complete this form and upload your 30 second video using YouTube or Google Video.

You can submit as many entries as you want.

Ideas must be submitted by individuals, not organizations.

Submit your idea focused on one of the following 8 categories (Pay attention to #8):

1. Community: How can we help connect people, build communities and protect unique cultures?

2. Opportunity: How can we help people better provide for themselves and their families?

3. Energy: How can we help move the world toward safe, clean, inexpensive energy?

4. Environment: How can we help promote a cleaner and more sustainable global ecosystem?

5. Health: How can we help individuals lead longer, healthier lives?

6. Education: How can we help more people get more access to better education?

7. Shelter: How can we help ensure that everyone has a safe place to live?

8. Everything else: Sometimes the best ideas don’t fit into any category at all.

On January 27, 2009, the public (THAT’S YOU) will select twenty semi-finalists from 100 of the project submissions. An advisory board will then choose up to five final ideas for funding and implementation.

What will the Advisory Board look for in your idea?

Reach: How many people would this idea affect?
Depth: How deeply are people impacted? How urgent is the need?
Attainability: Can this idea be implemented within a year or two?
Efficiency: How simple and cost-effective is your idea?
Longevity: How long will the idea’s impact last?

What will your idea be? How can you use this with your students to make the connection between their lives and their community, their country, or even the planet?

There’s about 20 days left. Click here to read more about Project 10 to the 100th.

Posted in CMSCE, Google | Tagged: , , , , , , | 9 Comments »

My Web 2.0 Whirlwind Needs to Pick Up Some Momentum

Posted by lthumann on August 24, 2008

Back in April I wrote a post the day before I was teaching a small group of educators about Web 2.0 applications. I was undecided as to whether I should completely abandon the eBoard I had been using as a resource in my workshops.  I decided rather than tackling that huge project, I would post the ten tools I was going to be sharing during the workshop that day and asked for your feedback.

During the workshop, I Tweeted out each tool as we went over it. Many of the people in my PLN were so generous as to share their experiences with the tools in their classrooms. I also asked the participants to help create a Google Doc and shared the URL on Twitter so that I could further include my PLN in the day.

Well, it’s time to get some momentum going as I prepare for not only tomorrow’s Web 2.0 workshop,  but as I beef up my Google Site for my sessions at the upcoming Google Teacher Academy on September 24 in Chicago and for one of the sessions I am facilitating on October 14 for NJAET’s Annual Conference titled 21 “Must See” Web 2.0 Websites for Educators.

Here is the Google Doc we will use during the workshop. I’m still working on the wiki pages. It took me longer than I thought it would. There are some blanks in the table and I’d like to add some graphics. (It’s a bit of a sore spot with my husband and my kids right now.) But since everything is always a work in progress, please let me know if you think I missed anything.

Thanks in advance for your help. And BTW - that day in April was the day I first met Christy Tvarok who ran full speed ahead with creating her own blog and bringing her school into the 21st Century - many of you have had the pleasure of meeting Christy F2F or on Twitter. Heather Johnson was also with us.  Heather is one of the Center’s consultants.  She is knowlegeable, energetic, and a National Board Certified Teacher, and this past year she has spent some time with me and her new PLN, learning the tools necessary to take good teaching and learning to the next level. I applaud her thirst for technology literacy! And finally, that same day I met Megan Smith who ultimately joined the Center’s 21st Century Learning Initiative along with 23 other NJ educators. Megan is emmersed in Diigo, Twitter and many other tools gearing up for the 2008-2009 school year.

Posted in CMSCE, PLN, web2.0 | Tagged: , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

iTouch the Future…I Teach - Social Studies

Posted by lthumann on August 12, 2008

ThumannResources - Google Sites

ThumannResources - Google Sites

You don’t have 20 years of teaching experience if you’ve been teaching the same lesson the same way for 20 years. You have to revisit and revise every time you teach a lesson because there is ALWAYS room for improvement.

I’ve decided that one of the things that I can do to improve the professional development that I offer is to move some of my resources from my old eBoards to my new wiki. As I’m doing this I’m adding some of my presentations to SlideShare and of course editing and updating many of them as well.

On August 13, I’ll be teaching my iPods in Education workshop again. This is one of my favorite sessions. I always look forward to sharing all that you can do with the iPod and I have had a great time blogging about all the resource that are available to educators and students that have access to iPod Touches.

There are a few resources I’d like to share for Social Studies, including some for the upcoming Presidential Election. Please don’t hesitate to leave a comment if you’ve found any others.

iCandidate Poll

This is a set of 20 questions that you answer to determine which of our two Presidential Candidates is a better match for your political opnions based on your answers.

iPodia

This site is Wikipedia for the iPhone / iTouch. iPodia does promise a new version is coming out soon, but I did not have a problem with the current version. Everything that you see on Wikipedia on the regular-sized monitor looks very nice and is readable on their mobile site.

Speedymarks.com offers some interactive quizzes for the iTouch. Pictured to the right is the quiz for the location of the United States. The user can select whether they be given 2, 3 or 4 choices to respond to the red highlighted area.

This same website also provides a Country Quiz. The user has a half dozen or so regions to choose from before they have to respond to questions specific to that region.

Once again, I’ve published the Google Doc that I used to gather the Social Studies resources for this post. Don’t forget you can also view my wiki on iPods in Education at http://sites.google.com/site/thumannresources/ or click on the Google Sites button under my picture on the right side of your monitor.

Posted in iTouch | Tagged: , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Del.icio.us Gets a Facelift

Posted by lthumann on August 1, 2008

The New and Improved Del.icio.us

The New and Improved Del.icio.us

Was I excited when I saw that Del.icio.us, one of my favorite social bookmarking tools, had undergone a major overhaul.  Besides the aesthetic changes, they also have added some new AMAZING features.

I’ve outlined some of my favorite new features for you below. If you are a current Del.icio.us user, you have to take a look for yourself to really appreciate the improvements. If you don’t currently use social bookmarking, please watch this video from the folks at CommonCraft to see how this Web 2.0 tool will be  beneficial for you.

The improvements that immediately caught my attention were:

You can now search a Bundle!! – I use Bundles in my professional development workshops, but I was frustrated that they were not searchable, so this is something that I was really hoping for.

They’ve changed the way the number of times something is tagged is noted. It’s now very obvious how many times something has been tagged. See the screen shot below.

Really know the people in your Network. See their Top 10 Tags in their sidebar and if you’re confused by their funky username - assign them a nickname.

Check out the video from the Delicious Blog Flickr Photo Stream and make sure to note that Delicious has officially changed it’s domain.

And to read about what’s new from Del.icio.us themselves, just visit their website resource at http://delicious.com/help/whatsnew.

What’s your favorite part of the new-and-improved Del.icio.us?

Posted in PLN, web2.0 | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

The Journey Continues…

Posted by lthumann on July 27, 2008

I really liked the format that  Liz Davis suggested for our session at BLC08. It kept us on task for the short time we had and we were able to organize a large amount of information and still (hopefully) present it in a clear fashion. In the spirit of the positive responses Liz and I received two weeks ago, I have decided to repeat that format this Monday when the teachers (and their administrators) return for our roundtable discussion on what everyone enrolled in the Initiative has gained from immersing themselves in their newly formed professional learning networks.

The format is simple. We schedule the morning around three questions: What? So What? and Now What?

What?

  1. We’ll revisit our essential questions that we answered together and published as a Google doc.
  2. We’ll talk about the discussion of the merits of joining Twitter and Diigo as a way to establish your personal learning networks and maximize the benefits of social bookmarking.

So What?

  1. We’ll use Diigo Webslides to scroll through everything that has been bookmarked to the CMSCE-4-Learning group asking the person that bookmarked the site to give a quick description of it.
  2. We’ll talk about the discussions in the Forum and the participation and usefulness of the Forum as a place to communicate.
  3. So what did you learn? Everyone around the table has a chance to share their experiences. Those that did not join the group should speak specifically as to why and what would help/encourage/guide them to participate.

Now What?

  1. What do you want to do? What grade levels and subject areas to you want to begin working with?
  2. What is or is not appropriate in this new learning environment? Firewalls, Acceptable Use Policies and Internet filtering can sometimes keep us from accessing the tools and resources we need to accomplish our objectives.
  3. Questions and comments from all participants.

Posted in 21st_Century_Learning, CMSCE, PLN, web2.0 | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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