Thing 23

YEA!!!!! I finished in the month of June. That was my goal. I have learned so many things. I will enjoy looking back over what I did and think about how it could be applied to my classroom. I am pleased my librarian encouraged me to complete this course. I am still amazed at how much is out there.

Questions:
1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

I learned so many things. I think my favorite were the Mashups. I loved the mosaic maker , trading cards, and magazine covers. What a fun way to display pictures. I also had fun with the comic strip generator and wordle. I think these are all powerful tools that my students will enjoy.

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

It allowed me to work at my own schedule and spend as much time as I wanted exploring new things. I was constantly amazed at all the different things I was learning. I know it was an 18 hour course, but I think I spend a lot more time than that. The time went by so fast.

3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

Yes, I enjoyed Photo Story 3 so much that I loaded it on my Mother’s computer and showed her how to use it. She was excited about putting her pictures into a video and sharing it with others. When I first started looking at the pod cast/video cast I did not think I would like doing this. I was really surprised at how easy it was and I liked my finished product.

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

I can’t think of anything that would make it better.

5. If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?

Yes, I enjoyed working at home when I had time. It’s also a good thing we were asked to blog about each experience because this will help me to remember what I did.

6. 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?

FUN!

Thing 22

I thought Ning for Teachers offered many options for classroom teachers. It focused on education. It offers ideas , lesson plans, and education blog groups. This is an education community to connect teachers.

I'm not sure how I would use this with my students.

Thing 21

What a fun way to share pictures. I was a little frustrated when I noticed we had to make our own pod cast/video cast, but once I got started I thought this is really a lot of fun and very easy. I think students would love sharing projects by making a video. They would not mind taping their voice. I don't like the way I sound on tape ,so I did not record my voice. I like putting music to the pictures. I am going to try using Photo Story with my kids next year.

Thing 20

Mrs. Burk Perimeter Rap

Shared via AddThis


Teacher Tube and You Tube have lots of videos that would excite the students and help them to learn in an all new way. I had fun looking at lots of different videos. I choose the one on perimeter because students always have trouble telling the difference between area and perimeter. I also noticed they had a lot on the water cycle. I want to remember this. I think it would be fun to place one of these videos into a flip chart. Once again the time gets away from you before you realize it.

Thing 19

Wow! What a list. I looked at many of them. In imcooked, you cook it, film it, and then share it. I think back many years ago when we filmed my Grandmother making homemade bread. This would have been a fun way to share with family. We made many VHS copies to share-which took a lot of time. This was many years ago when technology was limited. While on this site I watched a video about cloning KFC Grilled Chicken. At the end of the video it said to go to topsecretrecipes.com. I checked out Yelp. This site has guides and reviews by real people on different business. Many different categories and neighborhoods were listed. It might be fun for students to write a review on a place/restaurant they have visited. I went to one site that had upcoming events for different cities. I thought this was helpful if you are planning a trip. Lulu allows you to make books with photos and then purchase the book. Biblio has many out of print books for purchase.

Thing 18

I did not know Open Office existed. I was surprised to hear it was loaded on our lap tops already. I can see many advantages to using an online productivity Tool. First of all, it is free and can run on all platforms. It has all the tools like Microsoft-Text, Database, spread sheet, Presentation, drawings. It might be a way for students to show work to their family at home. It looks easy to use if you are use to Microsoft products. The one main disadvantages is you must have Internet access. Google Docs is a great way to share documents and have many different people add information without having to send the document over email.

Thing 17

Rollyo is pretty impressive. This was new to me. I have never heard of it before. It is a great way to put together web information for students. They would go staight to the places you wanted them to view and not spend hours just looking around and never taking any notes. The video Bruce put together was very helpful! Iit was useful as I was building my own search engine for Texas. I am a very visual learner. I am going to use this with my students.

Here is the link to my search engine for Texas History
http://rollyo.com/search.html?q=Texas&sid=555345

Thing 16

Wiki is a powerful collaborate tool. Our librarian introduced it to our faculty by using it to sign up for lunches from Salad Guy. It was an easy way to make a list of what each person wanted and make sure we had enough people for the order to go through. I think it would be a fun way to have book reviews over novels read. I also think it could be used when students work together in a group to report out what they found on a particular topic of research.

Thing 15

After reading many of the articles it really shows how our libraries have changed over the years. It also shows what is to come. The kids of today have so much more available to them. They have also become more participatory with the web.

I found this information interesting when describing libraries.
What are libraries? Libraries are not just collections of documents and books, they are conversations, they are convocations of people, ideas, and artifacts in dynamic exchanges.
http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/6.htm by Dr. Wendy Schultz

It is very exciting to think about the future of libraries. It also tells me I need to work harder to stay on top of what it out there. The web has give us opportunities to grow as life long learners and view libraries in a whole new way.

Thing 14

Wow! It is amazing how many people blog and tag information for reading. I liked looking at the t0p 100 blogs and top searches. It gives you an idea of what people are interested in. I added the top tags to my blog at the bottom right corner. I'm not sure how I would use this with elementary students. I think you would need to be real careful if you let students search. You never know what they could get into. I think this tool if better for an older audience.

Thing 13

Our librarian has exposed our students and teachers to del.icio.us for several years now. The kids go to del.icio.us for everything. It really saves time when you bookmark a site and then the kids go there to pull it up. No more problems with misspelling or mistyping a web address. They all know the school log on and password and feel very comfortable using this social bookmarking service. It has saved us lots of time.

I really never thought about using it to search topics of interest. That's a great idea because someone else has already filtered out information and many times they have tagged good information. I'm going to start using it for research.

Thing 12

I enjoyed reading the article-How to comment like a King or Queen

• Write a meaningful comment. If you don't care don't comment. Good advice!
• Remember the power of words. We each have the power to build up or tear down. If someone steals your enthusiam, just delete their words and never look back.

I am more of a "lurker" than a communicater in blogs. This is an area I will need to work on. It seems like time went quickly as I was responding to different people in Library2Play.

Thing 11

Library Thing gives you lots of information about books. You can find reviews of books, author chats, book chats, top books, top authors, top books by star ratings. It was interesting to read what others said about books I have read or books I am reading now. The site was very easy to use.

I was also thinking this might be a great way to keep track of all the children's books I own. I noticed this sight will give you a print out in spread sheet form. This is a good way to keep track of books.

Thing 10

SignGenerator.org (Happy Face)

Comic Strip Generator Dumpr

This is really a lot of fun!!!!! Students could use online image generators when learning about captions and figurative language. It would also be a great way to get kids interested in writing about picture they create. Wordle would be fun to do before starting a unit of study in science/social studies to see what they know about a topic. Then do it again after the study and see how much they have learned.

Thing 9

• Edublog was easy to use. You could find a topic and click on it to find the blog. I found it very easy to navigate around. It showed many award winning blogs.
• To be honest, RSS feeds are very overwhelming to me. I can't see myself keeping up with all the blogs sent. Synidc8.com was not as easy to find links and navigate. It was confusing to me.
• I found information on smart boards and how teachers were trained on line. I'm guessing the smart boards are like our activboards. This might have been a great way to be trained. You could always go back and repeat information. I found blogs from scholatic.com with many teacher ideas for different books. It continues to amaze me how much information is out there......

Thing 8

• RSS allows you to see a lot of different topics of your choice quickly without having to go in and out of a site. This would save time. I need to organize better by creating folders. It seems a little disorganized and cluttered. I guess I'm not one to go to any particular web site or blog often. I just look up information for a paticular time and read it then move on.
• It might come in handy if you have particular places you want your students to go. It would all be there and easy to access.
• They would be able to tag articles they wanted everyone to read and discuss at a later time.

Thing 7

Google Maps is reallly cool. I put in our school address and was able to see a satellite view of the school. Here is the link: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=6705+Housman&sll=30.118997,-95.469818&sspn=0.519098,0.86792&layer=t&ie=UTF8&ll=29.800185,-95.469989&spn=0.002151,0.00339&t=h&z=18&msa=0&msid=117060171849906066369.00045329470be6b5282bf
You can email the map or send it to your phone. I could not figure out how to show the map in my daily blog without using a link.

I also signed up for a Google Alert on Houston weather. It amazes me as to how much you can do with Google. I had no idea. Once again the students would love using all the tools to complete projects. I think they would love setting up their own home page and email with igoogle.

Thing 6

I had fun making a trading card with my pet's picture. This could be used in a lot of different ways like with Texas Heros, Indian Tribe Information, Quick Writes about a picture, point of view, and book reviews. The possibilities are endless. I also like the Mosaic Maker. This would be fun to place a picture of each student from my class into a mosaic at the beginning of the year or use after studying a unit in science/ social studies. The magazine cover would also be great after reading a novel to highlight a character. I can see some great projects for students using these tools.

Thing 5 - flickr

It is amazing all the different tags that can be found. As a fourth grade teacher, we study a lot about Texas. I think students would enjoy finding pictures about what they are studying. I did not realize all the copyrights on pictures taken off the web. I also think this would be a fun way to show pictures taken from a field trip.

Thing 3

Setting up the blog was not hard. It was fun creating an image in Avator. I had a little trouble getting it into my blog. I had to go back and read the directions several times. I finally got it to work. YEA!!!!!

Thing 2

I enjoyed reading/listening about the life long learners. I think the easiest for me it keeping the end in mind when completing a task. I am very goal oriented and look to the end before beginning. The hardest for me would be to view problems as challenges. I tend to get frustraded when things don't go as expected, but I continue to work until they are solved.