Thanks to all for the laughs, the incredible ideas, and the sharing of tools and discoveries.  What a wealth of learning and inspiration was always percolating in that room.  Thanks to Bud and Jerry for all the time spent outside of class time, sharing their expertise, and the well-run camp activities.  We learned a lot just from watching the use of all the tools in the background.

 Have a great summer, campers.

In a sense, today is the REAL first day of CyberCamp – the first day when posting or sharing isn’t in some way mandated by someone else.  I hope folks will continue to sharing their work and learning here, in this space.  I look forward to reading more from you, CyberCampers, from learning from you as you continue to learn.

I’m grateful for all of your hard work so far, and I know there’s plenty more to do.  I’m eager to see your projects happen, and to participate as I can in them.  To paraphrase Garrison Keillor’s catchphrase for his daily Writer’s Almanac podcast, I hope you’re well, doing good work, and that you keep in touch.

I’m working on some iLife software (iMovie and Garage Band) as tools for creating the podcasts. Still getting there.

Hoping to continue with my good Karma today!

I’m learning some great programs and there are many more on my list of ideas to check out.  Today Amy introduced me to Comic Life - and I used it to re-invent my webpage.  I’ve also learned about the Visual Equation Editor (thanks Richard!). 

Some ideas I’ll be checking out before Monday include how to use text messaging in class (for educational purposes, not just for finding out who is going where for lunch) and how to embed power points in a webpage or blog.  I’ll share more about what I find in my WiP on Monday.

I am starting to get over the fact that my video is amateurish. (Maybe that will prevent legal action!) I often comment to my students that I don’t expect perfection from them on the first try, so maybe I’ll follow my own wisdom.

I am planning on continue on with my project and seeing it through. Then I can go back and reflect, correct and improve.

Thanks to everyone for my stars and wishes. The stars brought me back to the path and the wishes will help me move forward in the right direction.

Work in Progress Presentation (WiP)

One of the values of CyberCamp is sharing.  Talking about what we’re up to is a good way to better understand our own work, and the act of sharing it with a group is useful, too, because it allows your fellow CyberCampers to help you out, be it hrough good questions, suggestions, or becoming an extra set of eyes and ears in the world seeking resources to help you with your project.

Because sharing is so essential, we’ve set up time here at CyberCamp for everyone to have a 20 minute block of time in which to share their work.  Each day, we’ll ask two of you to share what you’re working on and then we’ll give ten minutes to the CyberCampers to give you some constructive feedback.  We’ll be talking more about what “constructive feedback” looks at CyberCamp, but know that you’ll be getting help – not criticism.

Again, because sharing is so essential to what we do, we’ll be adding an extra level of sharing to your process.  We’ll literally be sharing your Work in Progress conversation with the world and archiving your presentation here on the blog using a tool called Ustream.  This will allow you to share your work with, and to learn from, the world.  While that can be scary, trust us when we tell you that your work is important and worthy of being shared.

This is new ground for Jerry and I, too, so we’ll be learning together about how best to create these WiP presentations for the maximum benefit to you.  Keep us honest.  Also, I’ll be modeling the first one tomorrow so that we can all have an example to work from.

Blogging into/out of the Day

We’ll begin and end each day with some time for blogging here.  We’re all going to blog here so that we can document our individual processes as well as share them with each other.  We’re also blogging as a way to share resources, be intentionally reflective about our work and be helpful to each other.  If you’ve never used a blog, then you might want and/or need some ideas to help get you started.  Here are a few ways you might choose to post during this time:

1.  Blogging as remembering. You might want to write a post documenting something that you learned, observed, or found during your work.  Blog posts that are remembering in nature might be a few sentences about what you’ve learned, or they might be a link to a great resource along with some information about why you found the resource to be of value. Once you post it, whatever you post will be here later when you need it.

2.  Blogging as reflecting. As you move forward with your project, you might want to write a little bit as a way of thinking differently or reflecting on your work up to this point.  Why is your project important?  Why do you think you need to use a specific tool to get a job done?  How might you use something that you’ve read or talked about in your classroom in the fall.

3.  Blogging as questioning. You may find that you have lots of questions.  This blog is a shared space – consider asking a question here for your fellow CyberCampers to address.  How did you do X?  Why did you do it that way?  How might you incorporate wikis into your classroom?  Want some feedback on any element of your project?  Write a blog post with some useful context and a good question or two – we’ll answer you.  We promise.

4.  Blogging as sharing. See something cool?  Tell us about it.  Embed a video.  Post a picture. Link. Sometimes, the best part of camp is show and tell.

5.  Blogging as experimenting. Want us to try out a tool or a lesson or an activity?  Post it here along with some instructions and, perhaps, a question or two to guide our exploration/experimentation.

(You might notice that remembering and reflecting and sharing and experimenting and questioning aren’t mutually exclusive tasks.  It’s okay of you write a post that crosses the lines and exists as one or more of these suggestions.  That’s okay. In fact, it’s downright wonderful.  In addition – this isn’t an exhaustive list of ways that you can use the blogging time built into CyberCamp.  Feel free to go in a new direction.  Provided that you’re using the blog to further your work and our learning, whatever you choose to do is more than acceptable.  We’re grateful that you’re fiddling with the format to make CyberCamp that much more useful to you.)

In the comments to this post, take a second to share an experience that you’ve had with blogging, or to ask a question about how blogging works at CyberCamp.  Certainly, you’re welcome to blog more than the minimum 20 minutes a day.  It’s our hope that you’ll leave CyberCamp thinking about starting your own blog to continue your learning.  Or, if you choose, you can continue to blog here.  This blog won’t go away at the end of the Camp – it’ll continue to exist as a shared resource for you, for us, and for the worldwide audience that might learn from and with us here.