Summarization

Okay, I agree with you that it is easy once you know what you're doing and it can be fun at times and that I have lost some of my fears. BUT, it still takes alot of time! At least it does for me! There have been many favorite discoveries during these lessons. I really like the wikis. I really liked the Google.docs. I also have found lots of neat resources from all of this. Really and truly, even though I've complained about the time, I wanted to take this class to bring me into the 21st century of technology. I am trying to be a role model for the teachers on my campus to improve their technology skills and I feel that this was one way I was able to do that. It is one of my goals to become more technologically savvy so I am proud that I've taken this step. I don't think there is anything you girls need to differently. You have done an amazing job putting this very intricate program together. Although I would have liked more step by step instructions I understand your purpose was for us to discover through trial and error in order to make us more savvy and less fearful and I think the design of this class achieved those results. I am hoping and really need to know that I will be able to return to the 2.0 site anytime I need a review or want to remember something I learned. I've bookmarked the site so I'm planning on returning to it as needed for reminders! As far as committing myself to continue my learning and apply what I've learned I have to be honest. I know how I function. I'll pick one thing that I learned and I'll apply it until I feel comfortable and have used it several times. Then I'll use another and another until I get comfortable enough with all I've learned. I've already got plans on how I will use a couple of these things in this coming school year. I did subscribe to Learning 2.1 and sent it to my GoogleReader. Another principal and I who are taking this class have discussed setting up a Principal's blog that would help us share information and kind of act as a support group. I guess if I have to do a formal resolution it would be that I will continue to check my GoogleReader weekly, use at least two or three new tools that will assist me in my work and try to encourage others to jump on the technology bandwagon. And I will try really hard to set up a blog either with principals or my staff.

Thing 23

Visit 23 Thingsters

As you can see I am now a prominent member of 23 Thingsters! There were tons of social networks to look at. Many of them I couldn't get too far into without joining and I didn't want to join them all. Lots of them were connecting with a specific group of people that would not interest me. I was very impressed by the number of networks out there. I read a couple of discussions that were about issues pertinent to my job. I followed one pretty far making connections through links and it was pretty interesting. I searched for math facts and went through a discussion with one lady who had taught in Africa and now is homeschooling her twins. She had some strong theories on kids learning their math facts even though the current trend in education is not to drill. I could link from there to many of the resources she used. So, that was interesting. I also found some videos on vocabulary that I thought I could maybe use. And, I really like the 23 Thingsters network! Of course, there are lots of implications for education. The one that comes to mind is the teacher networking with her kids or her parents. In the article 7things you should know about Ning, I noticed something about how a group formed like a Christian network so they could kind of set the expectations for that group. Kind of neat!

Thing 22

I've never been a fan of FaceBook or My Space, again, simply because of the time involved. I don't enjoy talking on the phone to friends either so I guess it's not a surprise. But, I did join. (My kids tell me they will not be my friends!) I know I have a couple of friends from high school who use it alot so they will be glad to see me join. My experiences with My Space have not been good. As a school administrator, I am legally obligated to turn kids in who have illegal accounts. I have had two very high maintenance dealings with kids who have posted distasteful comments about other students on My Space that turned into something we had to spend weeks dealing with. It may be a fine place for older kids or adults, but the things I've seen on these kids accounts that I've turned in were way inappropriate. So, it is important for us as educators to at least be familiar with these social networks. I enjoyed the report I read about student use of social networking. The attitude they take on the kids who are nonconformists was interesting and I think they have a good point. They may not be traditional learners, but my goodness they are technologically geniuses in my book! I liked the way Facebook helped me connect with people I knew from High School, College, and my job. I thought that was a good feature. I think what we are going to have to do as educators is use Social Networking in a positive way so we can model appropriate uses. I would love to see my kids facebooking with students across the country or across the world.

Thing7b

I reviewed all the places I subscribe to and read some interesting articles. I added a blog from education week that I thought might be interesting. One of the places I subscribe to is the recent UTube updates. I found one called Validation that I thought was pretty cute. The gist of it is this guy who validates parking tickets, but when you go in he really validates you, so he is very popular. His popularity escalates until he goes in to get his picture taken for his driver's license and he can't get the girl who takes the pictures to smile or let him smile. The story is about 15 minutes long but is really cute and has a good message. Again, most of what I subscribe to is not very impresssive, so when I come across something I might like I've been adding those. I did get a good exercise tip, otherwise not much.

Thing 21

I can't believe I didn't know all this stuff existed. I think it's like everything else. I don't have time to even look at all the buttons on the page, much less be curious about them. That's why this has been good for me. I needed to be introduced to all this stuff so I could at least be aware of the opportunities to use it. I played with several of these applications. I set up an alert to keep me posted about anything in the news that had to do with swine flu. I couldn't really think of anything pertinent at the moment but I can practice by following that for awhile and then change it when I think of something really pertinent. I also set up a calendar. I want to use this with my ARD team this year. We had alot of communication problems last year with ARDS and I think this will help. I can put in the dates that I know I'm unavailable and then they can schedule around me. We will all be able to access the calendar so I will know daily, weekly, monthly, what my ARD schedule looks like. I also played with Picasso photo album. I really don't manage photos online at the present time, but I want to get started. I think later this summer I will try using that program to download our vacation pictures and make an album. That's something I've been wanting to do for a long time. I think if nothing else, this session will make me more aware and help me start looking at buttons I know nothing about and maybe explore them more.

Thing 20

Either things are getting easier or I'm getting smarter. I'm not sure which! Google docs is cool in several ways. I immediately thought of two ways I could use this at school that would actually solve a couple problems I'm having. All year I have struggled with information sharing. I developed a form I really like that has all the data about a student's testing on one form in a manageable and meaningful order. I filled out the history data and handed them to the teachers so they could continue to record data throughout the year (benchmark and milestone scores). This was great but in order for me to have the information on a child the teacher would have to copy the form each time they added information and replace my old form with the new form. This was not very "green." Nor, was it efficient. I think what I will try this year is sending a spreadsheet with the historical informtion in it to the teacher who can then update it online and send it back to me. This will work MUCH better and we can all be in the know at the same time! I also think this might come in handy for our SOP procedures. We spend precious time at the beginning of the year reviewing SOP things for a few new teachers when the majority of the staff already knows this stuff. If I post the SOP on a googledoc and send it to them they can have it on their computers for easy access and when I need to make a change I can update it and resend it and we can save alot of paper that way, too! I was looking at that registration form you did and I can think of lots of ways to use that but I'll have to talk to you about how you were able to get them to submit it back to you with the use of a submit button. Lots of time I am polling them about something and that would be a good way to get that information.

Thing 19

Voicethreads is much like some of the other "things" we've learned. I can see this in the classroom easily from Kinder to sixth. I love the example of the Kindergarten ABC book where the kids drew the pictures AND did the voiceover. I would have loved this when I taught writing in fourth grade. I like the idea of putting a picture on the overhead and letting the kids write their thoughts or descriptions or explanations and then voicing them so everyone could hear their ideas. Some kids think the same way everytime you ask for input and I think it is great when they get to hear the ideas and thoughts of others. It expands their ability to think in different ways. I guess the only challenge would be to locate microphones for everyone. I think the computer lab has mics but it would be good to make sure. I wish I had know alot of this before I planned our back to school workdays. I would love to have the teachers get some training on some of these "things."

Thing 18

UTube was fun to look at. My daughters showed me lots of fun videos to look at and we spent most of our time there. I did check out some teaching videos that might be usable. The video I downloaded was one of Ron Clark's kids doing a rap on voting rights. It was neat to see them demonstrate what they had learned. My daughter and I got off on a conversation about how hard it would be for me to go back to college now because everything they do is embedded in technology and how lost I would be. One of my girls is having to upload videos of herself teaching lessons and send them to her teacher for her online class. She also had to put together a podcast this year for a project for a class. It was a group project and she was complaining because she was the one that had to actually do all the computer work and she was telling me how long it took. I told her that was OK because she would be the one that learned the most and now had the technology skills she needs. It really is amazing out outdated I feel in the midst of all this. I still think I have lots to offer. I just lack the means to disseminate it!

Thing 17

I have ambivalent feelings on this one. I had trouble accessing many of the podcasts I tried to look at. They said they had been moved or I needed a download of something before I could view them. Many of them are very boring - someone's lectures, stuff like that. I found some good ones I can use and those were fun. I downloaded ITunes because I wanted it on my laptop anyway, but I spent FOREVER trying to get the library to include the podcasts. I only had TV, Music, and Video in my library and there was no way I could subscribe to anything until I had podcast listed. I thought I had tried every tab. I installed it 3 times! Finally, my daughter went to edit and preferences and we were able to add the podcast library and then it was simple. Everything in this class is like this. Once you figure it out, it's simple!! Just wish it was simple to figure it out! I had the most luck with the Learn Out Loud directory or just looking up topics on the ITunes store. I found a really good one on vocabulary (you can tell I have a thing for words)that I subscribed to as well as a couple others I thought might come in handy this year. I see this as most useful to teachers who could podcast lessons for students who are absent or for parents who are wanting to help kids with homework.

Thing 16

Finally, an easy lesson! I really like the Library Thing. I actually found a couple of books by my favorite authors that I didn't know were out so I'm heading to the bookstore tomorrow. After I finish this class, maybe I'll have time to read!!! I enjoyed exploring this site, checking out the author information. I didn't really like the suggestion tool. All it seems to do is pull up books with the same key words in the title, not really books that are similar that I might find interesting reading. I would like to play with this site a little more to find out how I can group my books. It was easy to add them to my list, but I'd like to put them into groups or categories. Maybe I do that by tagging. I'll have to go back and try. The first thing that came to mind professionally about this site is how wonderful it would have been when I was in the classroom and I could list all my own books available to the kids. I would have been able to pull the list to see if I had a certain book or if I needed to find it from another source. Personally, I could add the books I had so I didn't repurchase the same book (done that before). If I had internet on my phone it might be neat to keep the list in my phone so that when I was in the bookstore I could always know what books I wanted to buy. Cool site!

Thing 15

Well, this was an all-day affair! I did get my page done on the Wiki. I had to be very methodical to be sure I completed every step. It is pretty much laid out for you but I found it lots easier when I used the Cheat Sheet. Once I figured out how to do the headings it was easy. I wondered if there was a way to move my table of contents. It just kind of floated around on my page. Once I figured out how to do the links it was easy. The only time I had trouble was trying to put in my slideshow. My daughter says that the reason I couldn't do the link there was because it was not an actual website, it was an html code. We ended up finding a way to link to the page of my blog that holds the slideshow. Hope that's OK. The problems were just in figuring everything out. Once you figured it out, it made sense. I followed the steps to add my page to the link, then realized I had not added an image. I did that afterwards (my other daughter showed me some shortcuts for that) and I was glad to know that those changes showed up on the page. All in all I can't figured out what took so long, but it did!

Thing 14-stretch

Aren't you proud of me for stretching when I'm so far behind!!! I did look at the Wikipedia and enjoyed the discussion page. I was exploring Ghengis Khan because I am starting a biography about him. One guy was really interested in the correct grammar of the opening sentence of the article. Under the vandalism section I enjoyed the idea that Ghengis Khan's demise had to do with a princess and that she reportedly had a very unique technique for causing him pain. (Check it out!) One vandal also reported that Martha Stewart blew up her dog named Ghengis Khan. Need to make sure that students understand that anyone can add information to this and that they have to consider that when they use that tool.

Thing 14

Really cool to see some of those wikis. I still don't feel prepared to do one yet but I guess I'll figure it out on the next lesson! The overview slide show about wikis makes it look so easy but after looking at some, I see lots of features they didn't discuss. Like everything else this will take me some time! I looked at a number of the wikis posted. One of my favorites was the Thousands Project. I loved the idea and some of the questions they asked because the questions were designed to really find out about others. Our kids are so self-consumed these days I really liked what this could bring out in them. Just the nature of asking for a thousand responses to their monthly question brings a global response for them to interact with and I think that is humbling and kind of mind-boggling. It definitely brings us to consider ourselves as just a drop in the ocean. This one seemed very easy for any classroom to do. I also like the Seuss wiki. I really liked the organization to it. All the parts (pages?) were listed on the side and I could easily navigate to the portions I wanted to visit. It was like a table of contents for the wiki. Some of the links I could not get to - the page was not available, so I don't know if the author had some things protected or not. I did see she was licensed under the Creative Commons logo. I also saw a slide show by BubbleShare which looked interesting. I haven't come across that yet in our lessons, so that may be one I have to look up! I also noticed the embedded videos in the Primary Math wiki. My daughter is taking on online Math class this summer and she has had to teach math lessons and videotape them, upload them to UTube so her teacher can download them and grade them. I noticed this video was from UTube so I'm wondering if that is how this class is working. I see lots of possibilities for the use of wikis in the classroom at any age, which is exciting. I'm thinking it might be a neat staff development session for me to have my Tech Facilitator teach my teachers how to create a wiki with their kids. I really think a number of them would take off on this. I see professionally a use within the elementary principal community where we could exchange ideas for campus improvement plans, staff development sessions, etc. We rarely get an opportunity to share ideas and yet I think that is so important. This may give us an arena for that. Very interesting!

Thing 13

I really liked using this delicious website. I enjoyed what I found to bookmark and think I may actually use some of this! I like this better than my blogger page because I enjoy what I am reading more. I guess I'll need to spend some time editing my blog reader so I find stuff I enjoy. It has amazed me at how much is out there on the internet that I am so totally unaware of. I can see how this could be addictive to a certain type of person (not me I'm afraid!) I think the way I will use this in my job will be for passing on interesting sites to my teachers in my blog. That way I can get feedback from them and feel like I'm more of a guide for them.

Thing 7.a

On one of the blogs I am reading, there is an interesting article about education and the way it is changing. It mentioned three things to do to prepare for changes. It suggested we read Alfie Kohn's latest book of Beyond Discipline, watch a video on UTube called "Home" and reflect on social learning with a big push on using Web tools. It was an interesting article, very global in its concept. It did comment on the way that educators use their summer contemplating and thinking which I believe is true of myself. Many times throughout the year I don't feel like I just have time to contemplate things or research things. It was an interesting article.