Plagiarism is a huge problem today. I know that I am always saying, “Cite your sources!” but I feel as if my words are falling on deaf ears. After all, who would know? Whoever really gets caught?
This article shows that anyone can find out…and it’s not pretty:
http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2008/05/plagiarism-its.html
If you don’t need immediate feedback and enjoy a little game on the web, then go to http://www.wheresgeorge.com and see how you can search for and follow specially marked dollar bills.
Have you ever received a dollar bill with the words “go to www.wheresgeorge.com” and thought nothing of it? It means that someone has entered the serial number and series of that bill into the wheresgeorge website in hopes that the next recipient will continue to track the bill’s whereabouts.
Once you receive a bill with the stamp or words on it, go to the site and get a log in, enter the site, and then enter the info from the bill. Up will come the last person who logged its place on the globe. You continue the tracking and then you also will get notification when the bill is spotted and entered again. You can also just write “www.wheresgeorge.com” in TINY print and then enter your own one dollar bills.
You may never hear again but then again, you just might. It’s fun and doesn’t cost a thing. Enjoy!
Check out this article. This man took one Polaroid picture a day for over two decades. What a lovely legacy!
I have just joined a photo contest on Flickr. It was mentioned in a photojojo update and for the fun of it, I decided to join. You need to only go to mission24’s group in Flickr, put “join” in the subject of your email, and you can begin.
Once a week, you will get an email with a word or phrase. Your assignment is to capture a new photo depicting the current word of the week. This week, it was “tip.” My husband and I went over many different meanings of the word and I settled on tip as in the wheel barrow was tipped over; hence, the picture showing in this list: http://www.flickr.com/groups/mission24/
Join us!
On Thursday, I went to a workshop presented by Maria Knee. It was on Voicethreads and wikis. I already use Voicethreads and wikis but I know Maria and I wanted to see what else I could learn.
There were three things that I know now that I didn’t know before. Well, there could have been many things but these three things stick in mind days later.
1. I didn’t know that you could post a picture with just the URL.
2. Also, I loved her idea of how to celebrate the 100 days of school. I have searched and searched for a good way to do that and have always come up with dead links and stuff that I thought was contrived. She used a wiki and created one page for each of the 100 days and posted different things that could make up those numbers. She is a kindergarten teacher and I have kindergarten as well as the rest of the school so I would have to make two, one for the 100th day for k and one for first grade. Kindergarten starts a few days later here so the numbers don’t jive.
3. Maria uses webkinz. I was curious as to how she did that. She buys one a year and they go on as a class. I had many questions because webkinz only allows one log in at a time. I had bought a few for kids who didn’t have any but they expire after a year. We will see; I’d like to have more ideas about how to use them.
Looking forward to my next workshop!
The first step to using epals is to create your own account as a teacher or parent at http://www.epals.com/index.tpl. You will create a profile of grade levels, ways you would like to communicate, countries and languages you’d prefer, etc. Epals will verify that you are who you say you are and you will get an approval email a few days later. Then you are free to search the profiles and forums to find your way around the site.
Last year I began using epals.com with one 3rd grade class whose teacher came to the computer lab with the kids. Between her insisting that all emails began with “Dear Thomas, (return) How are you? I am fine, thank you.” etc and me not realizing how much needed to be taught ahead of time, the project was a disaster. The simplest thing, like the ‘@’ symbol, would throw some of the kids into next week. Eventually, I got the hang of things and we limped along until the end of the year. One good thing was I had chosen a class from England so there was no language barrier.
This year, I decided to use epals with 4th and 5th grade. I sent home permission slips and received all but one back. It was very easy to create epal accounts. You have a choice of using a name that they will create your accounts from, or you can let them make the name. I chose to use the classroom teacher’s name, which in hindsight means I have to change that next year. I need to rethink what I will do, but it will probably be along the lines of their first names combined with numbers.
I searched through many many schools and countries to find the ones I wanted the kids to correspond with. I chose criteria that the students must speak English, or at least try, and about the same age level. We have emailed Turkey, Spain, Guadalupe, Mexico, Brazil, New Zealand, and many others.
When you find a school that you would like to email, there is a contact person, much like yourself, with whom you will correspond. This was key! The better established you are with your foreign counterpart, the more successful your kids’ experience will be. Let me explain…
Some of the places that I was trying to have the kids connect with had very little buy-in. It seems that the teachers had heard of epals and decided to give it a whirl, not thinking how much their epals were counting on those return emails. Many was the week or month that no email was returned from our overseas epals. Hence, the reason that all those other countries I had to contact to try to keep the original enthusiasm alive.
My most successful epal experience was with a class in Sweden. The reason we are doing as well as we are is that the classroom teacher and I became friends! It happened in an odd way; while we were setting up our kids and their epals, one of us messed up and assigned some of them incorrectly. Well, the other teacher and I ended up comparing notes about how screwy things can get, and we are now in daily communication on our own private message board. We also talk on IM all the time…so when her students owe mine some email, it’s very easy to say, “Can you get on Henrik to send Ann an email, please? She’s been waiting a long time!” and she passes along the message. I am afraid that many of the teachers, once they set up their students’ accounts, stop checking their email. This is not a good thing…
Every single email that comes into my school or goes out to the other school has to be read by the teacher. It has to be approved before it is sent on. This is VERY time consuming. I happen to enjoy sitting at my computer all night long so for me it is not such a problem, but for people with busy lives, I can see why every week might even be difficult to keep up with.
Finally, if there are inappropriate things in the emails, that needs to also be dealt with. If students move away, epals need to be reassigned, which can be sort of sad for both parties.
Will I do this again next year? Absolutely. But I will try to find out what kind of commitment the other teacher is willing to make. Also, if you choose a country without modern infrastructure, remember that dial up, slow modems, stolen equipment, etc. all combine to make some some very long stretches of time between emails.
One more thing: Other countries have very different vacation schedules than we do. They may have two weeks off when we have one. Many factors will affect the timeliness of your epal relationships.
I would suggest starting off by allowing your students to email each other. Then branch out to other classes in your school or a school nearby . Make sure the kids know their user names and passwords, although a printout of that info is easily obtained.
I’d be happy to try to answer any questions regarding epals. And if you have a 4th or 5th grade class next year that you’d like to have email Portsmouth, New Hampshire in the US, please give me a tweet or a ping!
We have been using some of the fine math websites out there. Grade 3 is a good age to do this with. Today, we spent quite a bit of time on this page: http://tinyurl.com/l2r7z. After a good half hour, one girl figured it out. It even took me a little while to remember how to do it!
Chad Lehman and I did our state conference this AM. Our kids were so excited and tad rambunctious but we got the job done! His two girls, very well composed, asked our 18 or so kids a variety of questions, like what do we like about living in New Hampshire, what is the biggest city, did we have any famous citizens, etc. Mr. Lehman is having a Skype conference with one class in every state. What a great way to learn about our great country!
