Thing #23 Your Thoughts

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
I enjoyed learning about tagging, wikis, rollyo, Teacher tube and photostory. These are the "Things" that I think I will use most.

2.How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
Well, I learned that the internet is very awesome, but not as overwhelming as I used to think it was. I have found ways to "harness" the internet beast and make it work for me!

3.Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
I don't think I will be able to have my students blog on-line due to computer availability ( or should I say unavailability). However, I have had students do written "blogs" about pictures on a particular science topic, and we just went from there.

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
I can't think of anything. This has helped me so much since I used to be totally overwhelmed by the internet, now I see it as a very important tool.

5. If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?
YES! It was great to sit here in my pajamas (as I was recovering from back surgery) and play with these web sites!

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?
FANTABULOUS!!!

Thing #22 Ning

I looked at Ning for teachers and found it to be another source of information for a lot of different things including classroom management and lesson plans. However, you could go to blogs that teachers have written and read and comment on them. You can also set up your own web site. I could use this as a site where students go to at the end of a unit and write about what they have learned. However, I could only do this if I had computers in my room most of the time. So, for now, I'll probably stick to face to face commemtaries from students as well as regular assessments to see what they learn in each unit.

Thing #21 Podcasts and Videocasts

I chose my 2 babies as subjects. My babies are 2 retired racing greyhounds. They have been VERY patient with me as I have spent many evenings on this computer doing these 23 things!
I have tried 2 different ways to put my photostory into this blog and so far no luck. It is late so will try again tomorrow.

Well, another day and the thing worked this time. Here are my babies!

Thing #20 You Tube and Teacher Tube

Thanks to our great librarian, Cheryl, I used You Tube videos last year by using the Zamzar conversion program. I used several short videos as "teasers" at the beginning of a lesson. Below is one example of a You Tube video I would use in my class.



This is the first time I have used Teacher Tube and will probably use it as much as possible from now on. Below is a video that I will show my class this year.


I will use these two sites as additions to my lessons as well as introductions.

Thing #19 Web 2.0 Awards List

Most of the ones I looked at were NOT free, but seemed to have a lot of helpful ways to deal with information. These include Wufoo and PB Works. Several of the items on the list were items we have already looked at during the 23 things. I also looked at VuFind and their whole "thing" is being friendly. This software has a section for readers to leave comments and tags. Therefore, when looking up a book, comments from other readers are readily available for viewing. This software also has a review tab that brings up reviews from other websites. Seems to be very user friendly!

Thing #18 Open Office

I like this software and have downloaded it to my computer. It is like having lots of stuff all in one place. I played with several of the features and think I will probably use this application quite a bit during the school year. The advantage of using this software instead of microsoft office is that it is compact, all in one place, and does not come with the massive fees that I am sure microsoft office does. I also really enjoyed the fact that you can save your document to many different formats. Downside - it took a long time to download.

Thing #17 Rollyo

This is going to be a very important tool in my class. I have always done web searches as classroom activities for each unit using the laptops, but this way I can expand it to where the student actually does the research instead of me!! Oh joy! This way I can give them the criteria and have them use Rollyo to search for the required information, knowing that they will only be in contact with the required websites. This will really cut down on a lot of wasted classroom time! This one is really exciting!!