Thing #23

Hallelujah! I finally made it through the whole 23! I have learned an incredible amount about technology along the way. My husband has been impressed with some of my creations. I'm sure he's tired of getting called to the computer to see what the latest is though. I feel like I have a wealth of information that I never had before. Not to mention that I don't feel so technology challenged as I did before. Granted, I have a whole lot more to learn, and I struggled with several things. Some I never did feel comfortable with like Rollyo. Even though I loved creating my photostory, I ran into a lot of frustration getting my video to embed. My favorites along the way were photostory3, LibraryThing, Web 2.0 Awards List, Teacher Tube, wikis, Del.icio.us, Comic Strip Generator, and Custom Sign Generator. This program is wonderful. It can be overwhelming at times though and very frustrating for someone who is not comfortable with the ins and outs of navigating the computer. I definitely grew as a person and as a life-long learner. I would recommend 23 Things to others very easily. In fact, I spoke to our technology liaison at my school and recommended that it could be something that our teachers could be shown.

One sentence to recommend this: Twenty-three things empowers you as an educator!

Thing #22 Nings

I visited all three Nings and liked Ning for Teachers and Teacher Librarian Ning the most. Reading one post in Teacher Librarian on 21st century libraries, I stumbled upon a neat blog from 11 and 12 years in Auckland, New Zealand. (http://www.classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=71175AlmightyBloggers). I also found a librarian song sung by Joe Uverges for the Colorado Association of Libraries Conference in 2006. It was interesting people who've joined on the Frappr map. In the forum areas, you can get feedback for lessons, problems you're having in the classroom, ideas to convince educators to come on board with 2.0, etc. Some of the videos I accessed were good, while others were a waste of time. How to use it? Communication and ideas first come to mind. Possibly can use it with students and finding out about students in other parts of the world. It will take more thought on the matter.

Thing #21 Vidcast, Podcasting

I thoroughly enjoyed doing this thing. I used Photostory 3. Although I didn't have a microphone to do a narration, I loved picking out music to accompany my pictures. I really had to limit myself on the amount of pictures I chose. Once I saw the end result, I realized that the photographer who took pictures of one of my daughters used this with music as a way for me to see all the pictures in video rather than just showing me the pictures. When I consider the possiblities for school use, it can be used for reports, parent night, or a myriad of other class projects. Because my family has visited so many National Parks and Monuments, toured various facilities, and had a variety of experiences, I could make videos of places to show my students. Usually I tell them stories and show pictures, but this is a very exciting option. Uploading the video took a lot longer than I thought it would. However, it was worth the wait. I'm anxious to show this to my girls. I'll also want to share this by email with their grandparents. This was one of the highlights of 23 Things for me

Thing #20

I was introduced to YouTube by my daughters. They directed me to see some things that their friends had posted. I also viewed a fantastic play posted about a year ago at one of their football games. I had a hard time finding a video that I liked, but selected one that would be useful. Where I ran into difficulty, was only embedding the video I wanted. I kept getting others attached somehow. Even now, I hope that it works right. I can see how this would be valuable to excite students about learning and even make one of a classroom. The one I found, Crazy Professors Reading Game, is a great one.

Thing #19 Web 2.0 Awards List

Ok, I love this one! So many great sites and the rankings provided extra info I paid attention to. I saw some of the ones that we had already visited like flickr and Picasa. I was particularly interested in realtravel.com because my husband and I love to travel and this one provided travel advice, a travel guide, and a trip planner. I had visited craiglist before and checked out Oodle too (online classifieds). One Sentence had some very touching true stories and some that were hilarious. DonorsChoose.org was super because it was an arena for teachers advertising for donations for particular projects that people could donate to. I added a school countdown from springwidgets to my blog. This looks a lot like a countdown our librarian has provided for our school-wide Drop Every Thing And Read time we have on the first Friday of the month. So, I could use Web 2.0 personally as well as professionally. It's a great shopping site for websites.

Thing #18 Online Productivity Tools

Well, since so many people had complained about the length of time it took to download Open Office, I went to Google Docs first. Liked all that I found. Then I went to download Open Office. Decided to go outside and check out the garden for awhile and came back in. I can see its advantages especially for students who may not have access to some programming. I'm so used to Microsoft Office. I'll keep these in mind for future reference. Since so many had problems with download time, that seems to be the major complaint.

Thing #17 Sandbox

Fun! I was fascinated with the PB wiki tour. Plugins are way cool. Really liked video and calendar plugins. PB wikitips will be added to my del.icio.us for future reference. I know that I will use wikis for collaboration on projects, sharing book reviews, and possibly for journal quickwrites (sandbox idea) to prompts. It will be a fun way to get students to write without wasting paper. Conservation idea! More creative ideas are floating around in my head, but I need to think about them a little more.

Thing #16 Wikis

Wiki! Wiki! or Fast! I can say that is how this school year has been going. I thought I'd heard that term before (probably in Elvis' Blue Hawaii), but didn't associate it with technology. Actually I had heard of Wikis before, mostly because of Wikipedia and our technology liaison showing our school the one he'd created for us. I enjoyed "Wikis in Plain English" again despite seeing in class. It reminded me that wikis are instrumental in coordinating and organizing info. Two wikis I enjoyed were Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki and Library Bloggers Wiki. The first was chockful of info including Dr. Gail Dickison's tips on weeding (15 min./week-1 shelf/week), conferences, programming, seelling your library, selection/maintenance, etc. The second on Pedabloggy was really interesting. One section that I explored led me to Holly Room's Trout Song done to the tune of "Splish Splash" that kindergarteners had learned while studying trout from eggs to release.
All in all, I found a lot of helpful and interesting information in the wikis I visited. They are good for someone like me who is limited in knowledge of HTML or other markup language. One of the cons listed for them (vandalism) was noted in a wiki that said due to recent vandalism, contributors are required to list an email before allowed into the site. Teachers/librarians who are control freaks probably wouldn't handle wikis well. I lked one particular idea of annotating a catalog (classroom books even) with a wiki to post reviews. The other ideas given in conjunction with lesson provided food for thought.