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.