Thing 23!!!

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
I really enjoyed all of the exercises--I like learning how to blog, the mashups, using all of the google tools, and del.icio.ous

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
I learned that even though I am pretty tech savy there is so much that I still don't know and that I need to continue to learn more. Everyday there is something new related to Technology and to keep up with the kids and give them the best education I need to continue to learn all that I can.

Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
There are so many more tools out there that I didn't know about!
I'm very glad that I took this class and the format was great for a summer class.

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
I liked the format- I thought it was easy use and very well thought out. Some of the videos were very basic and had monotone audio-that was difficult to get through. Other than that the videos and tutorials were very helpful. I am a very visual person so having the information presented in a video was very helpful!

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?
I would choose to participate. Like I said in the second question, it is very important to continue to learn everything you can about technology and the applications/tools that are available.

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?
Wow! Best use of my time for a technology class!

I would offer one suggestion to people though...I started working through each of the activities and then would continue without posting to my blog. I figured I would go back and post a few posts at a time...this is not the best way to do this class. You tend to get wrapped up in the exercises because they are fun to do that going back to blog can be difficult and you can get behind. Blog right after finishing and then continue with the next exercise.
Thank you so much for offering this class!! It was great!!

Thing #22 Nings

Nings were very interesting to learn about. I like that they can be geared to a specific topic. This would be very useful in a classroom setting especially in High School and College to have discussions outside of class continue. The fact that many kids/students now adays spend so much time on sites like Facebook and Myspace they might find using a Ning for a class more appealing. Like this class this summer. It doesn't feel like "work" it has been fun.

Thing #21

I love photostory. I had fun putting together a story about my puppy Chase. I could really use this in the classroom. The kids always love seeing themselves on TV. In the past I would play a slide show of the pictures from an activity or special event during our quiet time and they love it. Photostory is really easy to use and I like that you can add audio much easier. Now I just have to find my microphone to my computer to give me even more audio options! Here is my photostory: (trying for the tird time--I think the file was too big at first so I did some editing and resized it.)

Thing #20

I'm glad that I read ahead on the Library2Play assignments. I have been looking through YouTube and Teacher Tube all week. I knew about both but never really took the time to explore either one. I had better luck usually with YouTube in the fact that the videos seem to load faster. On Teacher Tube the videos paused a lot to buffer. However since Teacher Tub will run in district is a big draw. Especially since I found a lot of useful videos for my science units.
Here is one that I found

It is nice having a resource that has so many videos available for instant viewing.

Thing #19

I really liked Farecast for searching for Travel-flights, hotels, etc. I can't believe I haven't come across this site before.
I also have had fun playing around with My Heritage. It is really interesting.
I started this assignment a few days ago. I couldn't really decide which one to focus on so I decided I should just give myself a few days to play around with everything that I could. (and I'm still playing!)

Thing #18- Online Productivity Tools

I did not use the Open Office but did use Google Docs. Since I already had a google account I decided to go that route instead of downloading Open Office.
It was really easy to upload documents that I already had. This will make it easier to access my documents. I like that I can have access from any computer and won't have to remember to bring my zip drive. This will be really helpful at work to add documents that I work on at home. Then I can get to them whenever I need to. Now if I can find time to add everything to Google Docs to get me ready for school that would be great!

Thing #17 Rollyo

This is a great tool. I do have to admit that I grumbled a bit when I had to register for yet another site....but....I'm glad that I did. This really helps to narrow down the many sites that you could possibly search. There a several sites that I use a lot when I'm looking for recipes and it is nice to search only those sites verses the million that are out there. I'm in the process of making several Rollyo searches but here is the link to my cooking search.
http://rollyo.com/smfoster/recipes/

Thing #16

I really liked how easy the wiki was to use. Sign in was easy and adding to the wiki was so simple. It would be a great way to collaborate on a topic with out having to meet face to face. Wikis could be used to cut down on the meetings upon meetings that seem to build up during the school year. It seems as though a wiki could be started to begin the discussion so that when a meeting is plan you already have the discussion started. It could be a wonderful way to move a meeting along and increase the productivity during that meeting. Resulting in less face to face meetings but still reaching the your goal.
I also like that it can be used for anything for work to planning a trip with friends. It seems much easier to use than sending tons of emails back and forth to everyone.

Thing #15

After reading all of the articles, blogs, etc it really made me realize how much things have changed since I was in school. I've learned the new technology and have always been interested in technology so it was as obvious to me how much our lives have changed. I realized it when I was reading about how librarians jobs are changing. That is when I realized that I rarely stepped foot into the actual library in college. I had so many resources that made my research possible with out spending all day in the actual building. As a teacher I use my school library so much more than I ever have before. I think that has to do impart because of our WONDERFUL librarian. She is a graduate of this class and has implemented many of the Web 2.0 resources into our daily life as teachers and staff. It made me really think back to several years ago when I came to the school--our library has changed so much. (In a good way)
I have to wonder though--will the physical library building become a thing of the past since we have moved toward web based resources so much more? It seems odd to think that "going to the library" could take on a whole new meaning for my kids in the future....will they even know what a library like I know it (shelves of books, a library card, librarian to help you find that special book) looks like?

Thing #14

Working with Technorati was interesting. I was able to find a lot of different blog post. Some even led me to articles in some of the Online Newspaper Websites about events that I hadn't read about.
I'm not really sure though how this can help me in my classroom. The only way that I can think of right now is that it can help me find blogs about classrooms and education. However because blogs are opinions you have to be careful how much credibility you give the posts. It has be interesting reading and the tags make it much easier to find and search for you subject matter.

Thing #13

I really enjoyed learning about Del.icio.us I have spent the time over the last few days adding more of my web pages to my account. I can't wait to use this more!! I usually have so many great resources on my home computer that I can't always access from school or some place else since they are bookmarked on only my home computer. This site helps solve that problem. I also love the sharing aspect of it. Only problem I'm going to have is I might find myself glued to the computer checking out newly found websites from friends.

Thing #12

I have enjoyed reading other people's blogs. I found that some people had some of the same opinions as myself as well as discovered new ideas about the discovery activities and how to use them.
I sometimes find it hard to make a "contribution to the conversation" instead of an encouraging "way to go" type comment. Although I enjoy getting the "way to go" comments. I like the encouragement at times.
It is very important though to read before you write and then also reread what you have written before posting. Since you can not tell the inflection from your voice when you type something out it is important to be sure what you type is polite and won't be taken the wrong way.

Thing #11 LibraryThing

I love LibraryThing....I've had an account since last year. Unfortunately I haven't finished logging my books into my account. It has helped me keep track of the books that I have and since it accessible online I can check it anywhere. Very helpful between home and work. It is also not very expensive to have a lifetime membership and log as many books as you want. Which has been wonderful since I have shelves and shelves of books. It has helped me during lesson planning to quickly see if I alread own a book that I need or if I need to check it out from the library. One of my goals this summer was to finish logging my books...so far I've done well--hopefully I will be finished before school starts!

Thing #10 Online Image Generators

These have been fun to play around with. Out of the links listed I liked Image chef http://www.imagechef.com/ and Big Huge Labs http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/ the best. They were the easiest to use with the most choices from the one link. I can't wait to use the trading cards with my kids--great way to help the kids get to know their new classmates and teacher.

Also fun to make things for your personal use and scrapbooking.

Thing #9

Now that I know what to look for (the little icon) it is easy to find out if a site has a feed or not. I did like using Topix...it gave me news stories--even news in Katy. What I did find difficult was sorting through the massive amounts of information. It was overwhelming at times. Also because of the large quantity it makes it harder to sort out and find reputable sites. I found that it was easier to go through sites I had already booked marked and check the icon in my tool bar...if there was a feed then I could click the button to add.

Thing #8 RSS and News Readers

I really like the RSS & News Readers. It helped simplify all of the websites I check reguarly for news and info. I like that I can now log in and read the Chronicle, check my favorite cooking website for new recipes, check on my sports teams, and see what is new on one of my magazines all at the same time. I wish I knew about this before! Now I will save more time!
The best thing is that I can check everything at once...personal links like cooking, homesites, and dog sites as well as professional sites that I use for teaching and news. The downside is that it seems addicting! I keep looking for new things to add! :)

Thing #7 Google Tools

I've used Google calendar for about a year now and have loved it. I love that you can make several different calendars. Some that I have are: personal (dates for outings with friends, dinner plans etc.), birthdays & anniversaries, Work (staff development days, inservice, ect), and school (field trips, important classroom activities). It worked really well since you can set the privacy level of the calendars and share calendars with certain people. The School calendar I shared with my parents in the classroom. It was really easy to add a date for field trips and all of the relevant information for them. They could access the calendar anytime since it was a shared calendar--but since I didn't share my other calendars with them it kept my personal information private. However I could veiw all of the calendars at once (all color coded) and be able to see how busy or how much free time I would have on a day/week.

After looking at all of the tools I chose to further explore notebook, picasa web albums, and google docs.
Love the notebook since you can use it while looking at other web page--great for copying text, ideas from websites and much easier than copying it into a word doc or handwriting it down on paper. The best thing is that I can access it from any computer!
This was the same for google docs--still playing around with this one. Because there is so much that you can do with it I still feel a little overwhelmed by it. I'm going to go back and spend more time on this. But this would be great for working with your grade level team on documents. Especially since everyone can collaborate on the documents. Also a great way to store documents used everyday...always good to have more than one back up.
I went on and picked 3 tools to try out....so my 3rd was Picasa web albums. I use the picasa software to organize my pictures on my computer but haven't tried the web albums until now. It was fairly easy to use...especially since I already had my pictures organized with Picasa on my computer. However I don't think that I will really use it that much. Last November I had a break-in and my computer was stolen, which also meant all of the pictures that I hadn't backed up were lost :( After that happened I began using another website to store my pictures which I think works better for me since I can store them, share, and order the pictures from the site or have them sent to a store for pick up. It would just take too much time to move all of my pictures over to Picasa, but I still think it is great and love the software to download to the computer for organizing my pictures...really easy to use (and it's free!)

Thing #6

I think I could spend the whole day playing with all of the different mashups and sites. I really like the trading cards. Our librarian showed them to us a few months ago. This would be great to use at the beginning of the year. During the first few days of school take a picture of each child and have them tell the class 3 things they want to share about themselves. Then you could put their name, the classroom, and the 3 things they shared. After the class was finished then you could print them out for all of the kids to get a trading card from each of their new classmates. It would be a fun way to get to know each other.

The motivational posters would be great to use throughout the classroom, especially with pictures of your current students.


The mosaics were really easy to create and would be a great add on to a research project, writing, visuals for your lessons, etc.

I just hope I can remember all of these ideas come August.
I didn't get to play around with all of the programs but will be going back to check out the ones I missed!

Thing #5

Well, I've spent most of the morning on Flickr. Once I get myself more familiar with the 1st grade curriculum I'll be able to really use this to my advantage. I picked out two photos. This first one is of a daisy...I love daisies. I thought this photo was neat because of the close-up shot of the flower.

The next photo I found was a really beautiful picture of a butterfly. I know that I can use this next year with my class. There were so many different pictures and different views of butterflies. I can't wait to go back and find more pictures to use. My mind is already thinking about how to use the pictures on this site....writing prompts, pictures to go with stories or poems, the possibilities are endless!!

Thing #3

Well setting up the blog wasn't as difficult as I thought. After playing around and watching the tutorials it seemed pretty easy. I already had an avatar set up through my yahoo account so I just made a few changes to it and figured out how to export. I had never exported the avatar before so that was something new. The hardest part for me was coming up with a name for the blog. I'm not sure why that was so hard, I guess I was over thinking it. I can't wait to get started on the rest of the "Things" and see what I can use in my classroom next year!

Thing #2

I would have to say the easiest of the 7 1/2 for me would actually be #6 Using technology to your advantage. I enjoy learning about new technology and I use it as a resource for many projects, learning experiences, and just for fun.
There are 2 habits that can be a challenge for me: # 1 Beginning with the end in mind. I don't always start out with a clear goal or end in mind. This is something I hope to be more consistent on in the future. Also # 7 1/2-Play can be a challenge. Being a PreK teacher for the past few years I know the importance of learning through play. However, in my own learning I sometimes forget about what an important resource it can be.