Thing # 23 Final Thoughts

WHEW! I am done! I really liked it! I will be doing the next set next year!

What were your favorite discoveries or exercised on this learning journey? I liked the photo story and the mashups and of course flikr!

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals? I always like to see what the new stuff is out there but never never have the time to really just browse online. I normally stay with the same sites but this "class" is good because it exposed me to some things I didn't' know were out there!

Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you? The amount of time I could become engrossed in these applications. I would look up and hours would be gone!

What could we do differently to improve upon this program's format or concept? I think you could list more options and the participant could pick the 23 they want to do. So that everyone had the same about of blogs etc but had the choice to try ALL new things. For example, I had seen wordle, you tube and teacher tube as well as some of the other ones but if you listed about 30 and I chose the 23 I wanted then that would be good to have some choice.

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future would you choose to participate?
Definitely! This is a great way to get your hours in at your own pace.

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!

Thanks so much for putting this all together it has been a real eye opener and I will definitely be putting this to use in my classroom!!

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Thing # 22 Ning

What a neat idea! I don't know if I want my students to be out there "in the wild" but a social networking page that I control would be neat!! I love the Elementary Ning. You could set it up to share with other educators to share ideas across the world! LOVE IT! I already do face book but this is better because it merges both the aspects of a wiki with the social part! Super cool!

Thing # 21 Photo Story

I like these. I used to use Animoto but the quality isn't too good unless you buy it in hd format for a fee.

I like it. This is justmy practice one I didn't have the right music on this computer!

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Thing # 20 You Tube and Teacher Tube

Every year I have the students make Rube Goldberg machines on paper when we talk about systems in everyday life. These are fun and the kids love them! I show these two videos to discuss and explain what exactly a Rube Goldberg machine is and the concepts! Check them out!




Don't worry this is paint on the guy not blood. It is student friendly!




This one is the honda commercial from a while ago.

Both super fun!
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Things # 19 Web 2.0 Awards

What is special about the tool?
One tool is the travel section winner where you can search different travel sites is called farecast. It is so fun. There is a Math Menu that I have been working on involving flight schedules and how much money it would take to fly different places this is a really neat little site that compares travel sites with putting in one set of dates! I love it!

I also really like Pandora! I made my own channel and really like that I can play it in the background. I made one for the class that is very calming to play when the students are doing the morning warm up and during journal time.

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Thing # 18 Online Producticity Tools

I really like these. I like that you can collaborate on the same document. I like that it is web based so that students can access it from anywhere. I really love it. It is so easy to use. I will be using this a lot on my school computers because the students can go to any computer and log on to this site to find the documents to work on. No need to save to the desktop and have to only work on that one computer! GREAT GREAT GREAT! What a find!

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Thing # 17 Rollyo

I like the idea but I am having trouble deciding what to use it on. I could make a safe search engine for my students directly related to what my class is searching but I think I need to do more thinking on what exactly to put in there! Maybe I could try to set it up for the scientist wiki that I am going to set up. I could set it up so that the students get accurate information.

I did like all the already made things that were fun to try out. The celebrity gossip one was fun to try too!

Thing #16 Wiki

I LOVE LOVE LOVE these! I think I can use these a lot. I was thinking about setting up a page on the big ideas in science ex matter and its properties and having students add to it. Or as a way to get in the scientist teks into the mix easier we could do research and add it to the wiki. SUPER! It was so easy to add. If a student can word a word document he can certainly do this. I am very excited to get back to the classroom to try out all these new things!

Thing #15 Web 2.0 Library 2.0

WOW... that video was very good! It is very typical of most students in this day and age. My step children are able to do 3 thing including reading, studying and checking facebook all while maintaining a conversation with me. They need stimulation and other forms not found in a book. I think our district is ahead of this curve by putting the activeboards in classrooms and making so many things interactive in our libraries. I think most of the teachers are not using the technology to the best ability in those classrooms. We need to push this more by making it part of our PD and PDAS as well. I have seen some teachers just use the activeboards as a glorified over head not really interactive just same old stand and deliver just done on the board. I think it would be a good idea for the district to offer incentives for making flipcharts and sharing them with other teachers. We need to get on board with the students because they will just tune us out or worse become discipline problems. The students are ever changing and as teachers we need to change with them.

While I think that the library needs to change to be more interactive we also need to hold onto books as well. Weather it be in electronic form or old fashion book form we need to stress the importance of being able to read and communicate both short (tweets) and longer formats (novels!)

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Thing # 14 Technorati and how tags work

I liked this one. I am always be on the look out for cool blogs! I found a really fun one on foodies. My hubby and I are big into food so that one was fun to read for a while. I also am now into cupcakes and I found one on that too! This is definitely easier than just skipping to the next blog like on blogspot!

I love blogging! I didn't like that the widgets are no longer working. The site says it will be making the new widgets available soon! I guess I will have to come back at a later date. I hope they are fun and I can spice up my blog with new widgets! I am starting to get a little technology over load though. I hope I can remember which one is which and where everything went too!!!!!!!



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Thing # 13 Tagging and Discover Delicious

I like this one. I think the idea of having a place to bookmark a lot of favorite sites is a good idea! I like that you can use it to bookmark sites for your classroom when doing research or other projects. I think I could also use it to have a list of bookmarks to share with my team as well. I like it. I already made one that has several science sites! YEA!

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Thing # 12 Comments

As a person who has anther blog I think that comments are so relevant. It reminds you that you are not just typing nobody but there are actually people reading. On cool cat teacher blog, I think that she has a good point when she says that you shouldn't be afraid to comment. I write about people that are in my life, job and etc. Most of my followers are those people who know me and comment to me in person. It is more fun for them to comment on the blog for all to see. I also LOVE that they really enjoy it. My blog is meant to be funny so know that I am hitting my mark is very positive!

I also am a firm believer in that if you wouldn't say it to the person's face you shouldn't write it in the comments section. There is no reason to be rude! Good thing they have the comment moderation section! You can never take it back once it is out there on the net!

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Thing 11 Library Thing

I set up my library thing and I really enjoyed it! I like being able to list the books that I read and review them. I also enjoyed that I could look at other people's review. I looked for a few teacher groups that would be good to see what they are reading to their classes and didn't find any so I was thinking about making that my group. I also like finding good summer reads for the beach and there was a group for that too! I really like this site. I think that students could make one to share what they are reading and as a different way to a do a book report!

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Thing 10 Image generators

I like these. I liked the wordle and the image chef. I made the alphabet soup one which is cute. I tried to get the wordle to save to my computer but it didn't work! Ahhh... I also like the dumpr site as well. I think students can find some images from flikr and upload them to make a project fun and interesting. I think this is a good resource but I will have to think a bit to see how to use it a great deal in my classroom

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Thing #9 Useful library related blogs

I looked at the search engines for the blogs and they were a little overwhelming! I didn't know where to begin! I didn't like the Syndic8.com. It was such a busy page I didn't get much farther than the home page.

I did like the edublogawards site. I found a few useful sites including one on science and math that I can use next year. So I finally found one that I liked and then when I went to subscribe to it it sent me to a new reader!

I would rather find blogs that I like and follow them on blogspot.

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Thing # 8 RSS

The RSS and google reader is hard to navigate. I had some trouble getting some of the sites into my subscription list. I read a couple of other blogs and new feeds but I couldn't figure out how to make them appear. After I subscribed it was a little easier. Finally my friend discovered that you can type what you wanted in the search field and this moved the process along quicker. I have add some social blogs that I follow as well as science and math instructions blogs.

It may shorten time you would normally be navigating on the web to see items you read frequently. I am not sure of how I would use this in my classroom on any type of regular basis with the students.

The administrations might be able to use this for sending out information that would be assessable from anywhere even when email is not.

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Thing #7 Google tools

This thing is about google tools. I really like the all but some of them ex. calendar I already have with my iPhone so I didn't really need this one. I like the Google documents and the google notebook

Google documents is a document tool that lets people collaborate on a project without having to use the server. I LOVE this! I think that would be super convenient for students in my class to be about to work together on a project (power point) without having to log on to each other's server account OR saving it to the desktop and having to get on the same computer.

Google notebook is GREAT it is depressing that Google is not supporting it anymore and so new users can't sign on and start using it!

Google calendar is a good way to make a group calendar that people can log on to an see from anywhere. I think this would be good for lesson planning and to use with your team for events. My team is departmentalized so it might be good to put all the testing and important dates in one place so that we can see if we schedule for example 2 tests on the same day.

I like it!
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Thing #6

Mash ups

I like these, I particularly like the bookr app. This app has so many ways to use it in the classroom. The kids could do projects about a science topic and present it in this format to make it different from a PowerPoint. They could work together to research what they want to present on their page then the class could make a book that you could publish and buy for your classroom. SUPER COOL!

I also like the trading cards. What a neat way to make vocab cards, cards for projects (ex different habitats) . They could find a pic to make their cards, save the cards then you could even put them on the activboard flipchart! The possibilities are endless.

Thing # 5 Flickr

I have never used Flickr before I normally just look up things straight from google. I am so happy that I did this course because I LOVE LOVE LOVE the pictures. I typed in erosion which is a very hard thing to talk about with the kids because it is a slow process and sort of abstract to them. The pictures I got were awesome. They had all types of erosion that would spark discussions!!

Check out this picture of a sea arch! My class could talk about how it was formed and what would it look like in the years to come. SOOOO cool!

Thing 3 setting up the blog and avatar

The blog was easy to set up as I have another one already. The tricky part was the avatar! I tried all sorts of ways, add a picture but that didn't work. I had the wrong format. Finally I went around by adding a the html through the gadget marked html. HAD I read all the way down the instructions page I would have gotten to the part that told me exactly how to add a picture... next time I will read ALL the instructions!!!

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Thing # 2 Life Long Learner

I think I am a life long learner. I like to go to trainings and tend to stretch myself where I can. I think the easiest for me of the 7 1/2 habits is using technology. I think that I have a pretty good grasp of some techie things. I have my own blog already in addition to this one. I don't shy away from something new and innovative and would like to bring more of that into my classroom. The hardest thing for me would be beginning with the end in mind. I seem to jump into thing without thinking where I would like to end up. This is probably why I have tons of unfinished things going on! That is one thing I will be focusing on this summer.


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