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Summercore Reflection on Chapter 11 - To Copy or Not


I believe is the moral responsibility of businesses to follow legal practices and to be a role model in the community.  I am proud of Summercore for making the legalities of downloading part of the curriculum.  I appreciate the facts on p. 237 of the Summercore Primer outlining the laws regarding copying music, software, TV shows, and printed material.  I had a vague idea of the facts, but I needed confirmation.  Like speeding in a car, it is so easy to break these laws, but knowing the laws is the first step in following.  I agree with the Considerations on p. 240, and I also believe that as teachers we should help educate our students on the laws. Citing sources is an important aspect of teachers being role models.

Summercore Notes - Tues., July 22, 2008


I am glad that the SmartBoard was working today because seeing it used raises my comfort level of using it. 

 

Lynne explained that information and resources regarding topics from the first day of Summercore are highlighted on www.del.icio.us/schalman/summercoredayone .

 

Check out www.twitter.com, which is an interactive website popular with the under 25 group.

 

Name files with a good name that includes the extension of the type of document such as

6ssRomeTest0809.doc or GreeceMykonos.jpg .  Steve suggests that students start any name with the date, then name, then assignment, and then the extension. (Keith suggested we put the assignment at the beginning.)

 

Periodically, Save As a different name for large documents to avoid a corruption of one file losing all of your work.

 

www.totlol.com – videos for young children up to grade 6

 

Skype with Sam Schalman-Bergen:

  • Camtwist allows you to show your screen to whomever you are Skyping with.
  • HoraceMann.org/LionTech – LionTech Institute networking tech ideas for the classroom at Horace Mann school.
  • Project on mitosis – students made still pics of different stages and put them together in iMovie to make animation
  • www.moodle.com – is a free course management program, but it must be managed by someone;  downloaded by a school to their server; can incorporate a wiki, a blog, assignments, etc. into the website
  • www.skype.com – audio and video conferencing;  need a camera and microphone

 

Idea for working with another school – have students at one school teach students at another school a skill or teach an activity

 

www.del.icio.us

  • social bookmarking
  • Dept. or grade level could share an account.
  • Username will appear as part of your address
  • Password needs to include letters and numbers
  • Add to your toolbar “Post to Delicious” (on Firefox indicated by the tag button) and “My Delicious”; go to Help under Bookmarking to add toolbar
  • “Setting” is where to go to manage your site

 

Check out www.cyberbee.com .

 

I believe is the moral responsibility of businesses to follow legal practices and to be a role model in the community.  I am proud of Summercore for making the legalities of downloading part of the curriculum.

 

Homework – Read Chap. 11 (downloading, privacy) and write paragraph; study the 33 questions; add to blog

Summercore - Mon., July 21, 2008


The first day of Summercore focused on computer knowledge, blogs and wikis, and using the tab feature.  By Wednesday, everyone in the course is expected to know the answers to the 33 knowledge questions on page 192 of the The Summercore Primer.  Knowledge includes terms such as bytes, kilobytes, megabytes and includes acronyms such as RAM and ROM.  In regards to blogs and wikis, we learned the difference between them and actually built our own blog,… a first for me.  Tomorrow we will build a wiki and further discuss classroom usage of both the blogs and the wikis.  We ended the day with some hands-on practice with tabs.  Rule number one is only hit tab once.  If you feel the need to hit it more than once, then you probably should be giving a different command. I was very happy to learn how to line up information on both the right and the left sides simultaneously. Overall, I walked (actually rode) away from the class with more knowledge and more experience.

 

I am so happy I was able to bring and use the laptop that I will be using in my job this year.  It’s good to get familiar with it with so much support around.  Although it is challenging to miss this time with my family, I believe the skills I earn in this course will help reduce stress during the school year and improve the quality of my work.

Summercore Blog Sites


On Monday, July 21st, 2008, Summercore instructors Lynne Schalman and Steve Bergen shared some of their favorite websites.  After reviewing some of them, I am personally interested in using the following sites.

www.freerice.com  - On this site,  students may earn donations for world hunger by performing vocabulary exercises.  It’s a win-win!

www.teachersfirst.com - This is a list of website resources for teachers by teachers.

www.zamzar.com - This site converts files from one type to another, such as from pdf to a Word document.

See www.del.icio.us for my favorite sites.

 

Picture of Summit Location


The 2009 ISC Summit will be in Curacao, an island in the Caribbean.  Above is a photo from www.curacao-travelguide.com depicting the tradition Dutch architecture of Curacao.  The photo in the header of the blog is from the same website.

 

Video of Curacao Sights


http://youtube.com/watch?v=izYJQVdpUd0

Purpose of This Blog


The purpose of this blog is to allow committee members to share ideas forthe Youth Program of the 2009 ISC Summit to be held in Curacao.  All comments are the opinion of the individuals but will be important in helping the leadership of ISC make final decisions.  It is acceptable to debate issues and disagree as long as everyone remains respectful.  Please remember to write out any abbreviations to improve communications.  Thank you for your participation.