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.