Thing #23

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

- photostory, picnik, google docs, rollyo (to help narrow searches), image generator,
mashups

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
-It has made me more aware of what is available on the internet not only for me as a teacher,
but also for my students. Now I have resources available to me no matter where I am I can
access any of these "things" to help me.

3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
- I think for me the RSS feed was something I can take away and use b/c then I can have all
my favorite websites on one page. Also I loved the customizing of the my home page. I
never knew I could do that. It was really fun!

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
-Since this is the first time to do this and I am not a person who sits at the computer and blogs
all the time, I thought it was veery well developed and very user friendly!

5. If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?
- I will definitely do another of these programs!

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?
- Great discovery!

7. Now go and comment on some of the other Players' blogs.

Thing #22

I am not so sure about these Nings. I found a couple of websites that were about summer reading and book reviews. My problem is I don't have time to keep up with all the latest and greatest books for 5th grade, so I can I can go to the Librarian Ning and find out about different books for my class and myself. I am not sure I would use this in class b/c it takes up more time than I have for my students. I will continue to look for Nings related to books and share them with my class.

Thing #21

Well, I really liked this. It is right up my alley. I have made several animoto videos, but have never used photostory or podcasting. Our school has used photostory and they have turned out great. I did a photostory of my duaghter. She had to do a timeline this year in first grade, so I already had the photos ready to place in order.

Thing #20

I really like youtube and teacher tube. I watched teacher tube at school before when we were in computer class. I watched a video on classroom management and transitions. There are so many videos to watch and search through it can be a little overwhelming. Eventually I get tired of searching them all. There were so many different videos that popped up for libraries on youtube, some useful others not so much.

B/c we can access teacher tube at school it is definitely worth to use it instead of trying to download and embed youtube. I will use this resource next year for sure I just forget about it, but now I won't.
The video that I chose was the Preamble by Barney Fife. I have my children memorize and recite the preamble ach year, so I thought owuld be funny to show them.

Thing #19

I chose to play with picnik photo imaging. I wanted to play with comiqu, but the server was down and I couldn't play with it.
I took our family pics from the ranch and made a collage and played with it in all sorts of ways. There is a plethora of choices for you to choose from to make collages or just make plain pics into really cool concoctions. I don't know that it is any more special than another photo sight, but I have used other picture maker programs and this one I like the best.
I don't know how a library can use it, but within the classroom I can think my class could use this for gifts for their parents or even just playing for fun and making projects. This is just a fun sight to play with. If you pay for the premium package, then you can do a lot more.

Thing #18

I like Google Docs. I played with it at the beginning of this class and got to see all the docs it offers. I like that I can use Google docs and can access it from any computer b/c it is saved on the internet. It offers so many different templates for presentation designs, fun card templates so my students can make their own invitation cards for their parents through out the year, albums and flip books are also really great.
I really couldnt decide if there were any disadvantages to Google docs b/c I really couldn't find any.

I have not been able to check out Open Office b/c I registered but they still haven't sent me my confirmation with my login info and it has been over an hour, it loses for sure. Maybe when they send me my login info I can play with it, but it is taking to long!

Thing #17

I really like this site! I find that 5th graders have a really hard time narrowing their searches and end up with all sorts of websites that are not relevant to their needs. I do an endangered animals report as an culminating project to our science unit of environments and our novel for reading about an endangered animal that a girl has to try and save. Rollyo helps to narrow the field down to popular sites for age and relevance. Here is my link to my page on Rollyo.

http://rollyo.com/sweet_summertime/mrs._marshmallow

I can see myself using this site during the school year.

Thing #15

Sorry, they are out of order didn't realize this until I posted 16.

I am going to respond to the Away from the icebergs Library 2.0. To me it seemed that these articles were written by people not in the world of elementary schools, mostly colleges. I could be wrong, but that is what I got from them. Ok, now to my response- as someone who earned my masters degree in reading through Sam Houston States online reading program, I can see both sides of the issue of paper libraries vs. online libraries. I did all my research online through the SHSU online library with all the articles I ever needed and of course the web to find info also. Not once did I use actual library building to check out books or do research. So at an upper level of education like college, I think the just in case colleciton is not useful. At the elementary level they need the hands on experience of checking out books and learning to love to read. Snuggling up with a good book is easy to do, but snuggling up with a computer is not so relaxing. I find myself constantly trying to find a comfortable position with this laptop, but I juts can't seem to do it.
Again all 3 of these issues, I think depend on the level at which you are teaching. Kids need to understand the idea and purpose of doing research. They need to practice it also. I know in my class the kiddos do most of their research online, but I do have them check out at least on book to reference. I also use the books to help them see and understand how information is organized. I agree that we need to help the user learn to use the internet efficiently in order to read and learn instead getting stuck with non-useful sites and information.
I agree that there always has to be some sort of change or progress in order to keep a business running, you can't stay in dark and keep your business going strong, but do think there is a way to incorporate both the virtual library and he physical library. Librarians are the key, along with teachers, to getting kids hooked on books and interested in reading. Kids need to be able to pull and book off the shelf and get lost in it.

Thing #16

I am not sure how I skipped thing 15, but here is thing 16.
I really liked this exercise with wikis. It was very easy to understand. I have used wikipedia, so I was familiar that it was a type of site to get info. I don't understand why these wikis would be able to be changed by anyone b/c that does leave it open for anyone to put false info out there, but that is the chance you take when using this type of source for finding out info on topics. I liked the video explaining how you could use a wiki in a group situation. That was really cool the camping example. I am in the middle of helping coordinate VBS at church and I have so many emails I can't keep them all straight. This would have been a wonderful way to share new info between all of us. Finally, an exerice that was easy to understand!

Thing #14

1. I couldn't find tagging on Technorati. I did the search and found some non related stuff to the topic.

2. Ok, the surprising thing is I don't understand how people have time to post all these blogs and tags. I just don't have the time to spend blogging and tagging in my daily life (teaching, being a wife and mother), so I didn't really find anything that was of interest to me.

3. I am sure there is something beneficial in all this tagging, but it is just not for me and my world. I really find it time consuming and something time wise that would work in my classroom.

I think to really understand these last few things you have to spend way too much time playing with all these web sights. I think if I had someone sit down and walk me through all this I would have a better grasp of it all.

Thing #13

I found this all to be very confusing. I use facebook and get tags all the time, but I thought that just meant I was seen or "tagged" in a picture.
I can see the potential of using this for research purposes within the classroom and being able to access these tags from any where. If you were to assign your class a topic to read up on, you could tag some articles for them and then have them choose which ones to read. There are limitless areas in the curriculum to use this with, but I still don't have a good grasp of this whole concept. I guess I am going to have to do some more research on this and talk with people to really get a good grasp of tagging.

Thing #12

1. The 2 things that I thought were important were posting a meaningful message and criticize kindly. I am one who would leave one liners instead of really responding to the post. I really thought about why it is important to leave a meaningful message versus a one line post and I will be more aware and post more meaningful post. I guess I am talker not a writer or typist, I would rather say it than write it.
The criticize kindly was good. Just like with words out of our mouths we need to be mindful of how we respond online. I found through emails that b/c you can't see the person's face writing your email it can be hard to determine if they are joking or being serious sometimes. If we disagree with someone in person we handle or should handle it in a non confrontational or constructive way instead of attacking the person for seeing things differently, same goes with online. We need to make sure that our children if they are blogging that they are doing it in a kind way and not being rude to others online.

3. I posted blog on the issue of white fire fighters getting passed up for promotions due to Sotomayor's ruling, which was over turned today by her future colleagues if she makes it to the Supreme Court. I choose this b/c my uncle is a fire fighter and I am tired of discrimination of any color. if you are qualified for the job great! It shouldn't matter what color you are.
I also posted on 1800Blogger about Yao Ming's possibly career ending injury. I am a big basketball fand I can't believe some one so big is always hurt. He should be plowing down others, not smaller players plowing him down.

Thing #11

I liked Library Thing. This a great way to catalog my classroom library. I my classroom library on sheets of paper. This is my kind of user friendly website, very simple to use. I looked at some of the groups and the only one that interested me was the Children's fiction group. I saw lots of Harry Potter groups, which were interesting, but not my interest. I can't wait to catalog my classroom library!

Thing #10

I really enjoyed this activity! I had a lot fun being creative and making a few things. The Comic Strip Generator was fun. I thought that there was some inappropriate comics on there so I have to say that as an elementary teacher I don't think I want them on that website unless I was able to have them search specifically for certain images. Here is my image:Next, I went to WORDLE. I realy liked this website, but unfortunately I found a posting from a teacher asking if they could censor or make a kid friendly website and the answer was no he doesn't censor his website. So this would ahve been an excellent site for the kids to write their vocabulary words for science or any subject with important vocab to remember. They could also use it to put quotes/ text that interested them. I was not able to create mine and I couldn't figure out the problem.

I played with the happy Face Generator. I made my name on it. I don't know how the kids would use it except for just creative fun. You can't tell but it is Zebra stripe.

Thing #9

1. I felt they were all about the same when searching.

This activity didn't really peak my interest too much. I did find what I think was a news worthy blog to add to my RSS was my daughter's camp blog. This is very useful for me so I can keep up with her at camp and all the activities happening throughout her week there.

Other than that I had a hard time being interested in this activity. I didn't know what to search for b/c I don't think this is anything I will or can use in my classroom.

Thing #8

1. I think this is a good idea to be able to put all your favorite websites on one page instead of going to the individual pages.
2. I would not use this in my class or in my personal life because I don't spend all that much time online unless I am shopping.
3. I honestly cannot answer this question, I guess at the middle school and high school level the teachers might use it depending on the subject they teach.

I will be happy to publicly share my reader list, but it really isn't much to look at considering I most likely will not use it.

Thing #7

1. Google Advance Search- I really like this site b/c it is user friendly. I was able to pull many different ppt for all subject areas. Sometimes we just need a visual for certain curriculum and this is a good for me to show it. I will use this a lot next year. You can find just about any topic or subject.

2. iGoogle- I really had fun with this website. It was fun to create a home page. I had fun looking at all the different gadgets that I could add to my home page. My favorite was adding the hungry turtles to my page. I fed them a bunch of food and then watched try and get it all. I am sure I could play with them for a while. Sad that I get simple pleasure out of watching 2 computerized turtles swim around for food. I also liked being able to choose what news was on the page. I spent way too much time playing with all the features.

I made a vaction photo album. but now I can't find it, but I also was having troublr putting my own pictures on it. I was able to drag pictures from Flickr on to it, but I want to figure out why my files were to big when it accepts 2MB and my pics were less than that.

Thing #6

I thought the Sunset:Get Sunrise and Sunset times along with phases of the moon activity was really great. Kids have such a hard time with concept of how the earth rotates on its axis and how the moon revolves around the earth along with its phases. This seems like the perfect website for helping the to understand this concept. I was intrigued by it b/c you just click on the map anywhere and start from the east and west to clearly see the how the sun rises in the east as the earth rotates the sun gradually begins to rise across the earth and set. Not sure how to use this in the library.

There were so many activities to choose from that it made it hard to really focus on one. I agree that the trading cards site is excellent- you could use them in so many different lessons across the curriculum. You could have the class do a research paper on a famous American, hero, or just a person and then the kiddos could trade them out with each other after each presentation. Obviously, the students would need to check out their library books/ use the web to find out info on their subject and then put their research together.



I played with just about all of them, so I had a hard time just choosing one site. I give this activity 5 start rating!

Thing #5

I found some really great pics for science and social studies for landforms. This would be a great site for them or me to use to find actual pictures to go with landform definitions. of course there are plenty of other pics you could use for 5th grade science and even social studies. There were some really good pictures of American history.

Avatar

Still can't get my avatar to show up on my page!

Thing #3 part 2

ok, where the heck did my avatar go? It was there before I posted thing #3 and then when I published thing #3 it was gone!!! UGHHHH!

Thing #3

This sucked trying to get the avatar on my blog page. The directions don't tell you to change the format to JPG. Once I did that it worked. I hope this is the hardest part b/c it was frustrating.

Thing #2 Life Long Learning Habits

easiest habit- teaching b/c it come naturally to me
hardest habit- viewing problems as a challenge instead of crisis

This video wasn't really anything new for me. It just makes you rethink my habits and if I am following through with all of them especially the play part!