Thing #23!

YIPPEE!!!! I am at Thing 23! What an adventure!

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
My favorite things through this experience were:Google reader, wikis, creating a blog, and learning about Library Thing - I love that!!!!!
How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
I have felt rather guilty the past year or so because I knew there was so much I DIDN'T know about technology! This was a great way to push myself to learn some new things in an area that is a bit overwhelming to me.
Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you? I was amazed at how much I could use personally! I use Google reader EVERY day now and had so much fun creating a wiki for a book club that I love.
What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept? I think this was a great program - very organized!!!! At times I needed help with a few things, and luckily I have a fabulous librarian that would email me/call me over the summer to lend support! It was A LOT to learn, so maybe having "mini sessions"? All in all - I am amazed at how you put this together!
If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate? YES!
How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote 23 Things learning activities? Challenging, rewarding and applicable!

Thing #22

I spent some time on the Teacher Ning - and again I was amazed at how much teacher chatting is going on out there in cyber world! I thought it was interesting to "peek in"and see what others are thinking (and venting) about!
One benefit of Nings, as mentioned in the article, was that it looks like a way for educators to communicate with students, and students with students, in a more "business related" fashion. I know some teachers that have MySpace and Facebook accounts that they invite their students to view and I've always felt a bit uncomfortable with that...it seems a little too personal...although I do believe that this is the way kids are communicating nowadays and maybe Ning is a way for us to meet them where they are, without getting too personal. Hmmm...will have to continue thinking on that one!

Thing #21

Ok - I am going to come back to this one! I have emailed my super fabulous librarian and she is sending help!

More later... Here we go! My LMS sent me information on photo story and it was pretty easy after that! However, I don't have a microphone for my computer so I am not sure you will be able to hear my voice! Which may NOT be a bad thing!!!


OOPS - well it looks like it will not let me upload my video! It goes through the motions and then gives me a message to contact "support"!

Thing #20

I had lots of fun with YouTube and TeacherTube. I had been introduced to YouTube by friends showing me silly things on the site, but I didn't even know there was TeacherTube! There were lots of neat things that I could see using with my kiddos - especially a cute dinosaur project that a 2nd grade class has created. I love the idea of having all of these new ways in which kids can share their knowledge with the world! Wow! I love using video to teach. I know, I know...kids spend too much time in front of tvs as it is, but truly, short videos can be very effective! Probably because it is a familiar format! Personally, my favorite things in this technology adventure have been those videos that explain the new technology simply. I think they are called common craft videos. In any case - I love them and can understand them! I think kids feel the same way when we take a difficult concept and present it in a way that is familiar and friendly. This is just a silly Muppet's video. I loved the Muppets as a kid and who can resist the vocal stylings of the Swedish Chef?

Thing #19

This was an interesting search! I spent the majority of my time at Craigslist and Lulu but I also LOVE that there was a Spanishpod site where you could learn Spanish online, for free and at your own pace! I really have no more excuses now for not learning this...
In any case, I looked at Craigslist simply because I had heard about it but wasn't quite sure what it was all about. It was very easy to use and is a great tool to find local listings for all sorts of things in a variety of cities. I loved that is was very user friendly. They also had a link to the "Best Of" Craigslist which was hilarious, but certainly not appropriate content for students! Lulu was a great site in which you can publish your work and then sell it online! After taking NJWP training a few years ago, I remain mindful of the need to find creative ways for my students to be able to publish and share their work. This is a great tool for writers to get professional looking published works. I am not sure how user friendly it is, but it appeared to be fairly simple. Great activity!

Thing #18

Ahhh...Google to the rescue! For some reason (I am sure it is just the format) all things Google seem so much easier for me to understand! I played around with Googledocs. I wasn't quite sure why one would need these products if you had the good old Microsoft Office Suite, however I read several of the reviews and it became clearer! I guess the obvious advantage is it is free! I do get frustrated that Microsoft (and other software companies) update and change their products every year or so and you are forced to buy the new product which does not seem to "read" or be compatible with the older product. The online tools seem to be updated instantly without one having to make any more purchases. Another advantage is that it is all online - so there is no need to worry about storage issues or access from other computers. To be able to access your work from anyplace and anytime seems to be a recurring theme with all of these new online tools. Also, it appears from reading the reviews that folks love being able to read, publish and edit their docs in "real time" - I can certainly see it being nice for documents to be able to be shared easily on the web versus trying to email everything. These are a great alternative.

Thing #17

All I can say is, "huh?" I don't understand how to actually use Rollyo. I understand the concept of creating your own search engine and I even created my own account and added some other folks' searchrolls into mine, but I can not figure out how to actually use them or how to link this to my blog. I am so confused. I searched other people's blogs to see what they did fot this posting but am still at a loss...any ideas?

Thing #16

WOW! Wikis are pretty easy! I was amazed at how simple it was to edit and save on the sbisd sandbox wiki! I love the idea of using these to coordinate things with a group of people! So many times my email mailbox gets filled up with 10,000 forwarded email chains - especially when it is just my family trying to all get together for dinner!!! It seems a bit silly to create an entire website just to avoid a bunch of forwarded emails back and forth...but then again it is so much easier! It would be great for team planning - especially when we are planning big events, field trips, and units of study. I think kids would love it - though I am not sure how exactly it would work with little guys...any ideas?

Thing #15

I tend to be old fashioned and the whole Library 2.0 thing freaks me out a bit. I imagine walking into a library without books and that completely sends me over the edge. I'm just getting over the loss of the card catalog. However, knowing that most of our young learners are much more technology savvy than I am, I do see the need for libraries and librarians to be able to assist them in navigating through all of the information and search engines that are out there. Honestly though, isn't this what librarians have ALWAYS done? We come to them with our questions and they help up to find the information we need - in whatever shape of form that may come in. So maybe this whole Library 2.0 thing, in its essence, isn't anything that good librarians haven't been doing for centuries. I did appreciate a point in one of the articles that warned against "technolust" - technology for technologies sake. I think we are very guilty of spending millions of dollars on programs and licenses that only a handful of folks really use and that may or may not truly impact student learning.

Thing #14

Technorati was fun to play around with...I continue to be amazed at the sheer mass of information on the web as well as all the varied ways to search and label it all! It is all a bit overwhelming. Yes, I can see how all of this can be wonderful and helpful, but I do think that we need to educate our students on how to be conscious consumers of information. Just because you find 100 blogs on something that you are researching doesn't mean all of that information is accurate or worthy. "Popular" sites/blogs are not necessarily accurate or more valuable that others and I think students tend to gravitate to the ones with the most traffic. Don't get me wrong - I think all of this free information is wonderful...we just need to be thoughtful as we discover it all.

Thing #13

At first I wasn't quite sure that I really needed a place to "house" all of my bookmarks, but after watching the commoncraft video I certainly began to see the light! What is nice is that I can access my bookmarked sites from any computer, anywhere. For now, I think this will be just a place for me to organize my sites and remember why I saved them! However, I can see this as being a great tool for teachers and students that are researching similar subjects. So many times when my team is planning we think, "Surely someone has already figured this stuff out!" ...and it would be great, especially within a district, for teachers to be able to share their favorite sites and online goodies.