thing #23

1. My favorite discoveries are google tools, flickr and ning for teachers. I will enjoy and use these the most. As I mentioned in my previous post, I was not inspired to make blog comments until reading the teacher blogs on ning for teachers.
2. This online class has definitely affected my lifelong learning goal to keep up with the new technologies available.
3. The main surprises I had during this class was discovering so many ideas I can use for my personal use/improvement. I tried to focus on how I will use this for my work but there are so many opportunities for persoanl growth as well.
4. I would have liked to be able to live chat with some one or meet when I got frustrated a couple times. That would have saved me some time clicking around and using trial by error. Other than that I think the format is great.
5. If you offer another program I would participate! There is so much more to learn in depth.
6. My one word description is: motivating!
7. I am reserved about commenting, I don't want to say something meaningless and I don't want to sound know-it-all-ish, but I will go make some comments now. Thanks for offering this class!

thing # 22

I enjoyed reading ning for teachers. The teacher blogs were so fun to read. I was concerned at first that it would be a complaining session but far from it, it has insiteful sharing! One blog said I wonder what type of me I'll be this year, quiet me or... I know what she means, I go through small changes like that, that tweek my basic personality. I learned so much from posts with suggestions on classroom management. I think I am hooked on this site! Then I checked out lesson plans and found some very creative and very current activities/plans. Ok, so I'm in to this site, and I go to the message boards. Well they are even better than the blogs and lesson plans, I think this will be the site that I start to comment on. Until nings for teachers I didn't feel like commenting!

thing #21

I spent thursday after noon and Friday creating a photostory and a switchpod account. I had 2 problems. The photostory would not let me load the backgroung music from my itunes. I converted the mp4 to mp3 and it still would not load. Any ideas?
My next problem was that when I uploaded my photostory (minus the music) switchpod gave me this message: The submitted file was of invalid type. I am going to e-mail them for details on that.
I almost forgot that when I downloaded photostory 3 to my home computer I had a lot of trouble, it didn't work well with vista. When my itunes wouldn't load for the background, I clicked on the red record button to narrate but I got a message that my computer has to be reconfigured. That sounded like trouble. I would rather look at using my school lap top to finish my photostory and upload it on switchpod.

thing #20

This video for the fisrt day of school is awesome. I think showing a video clip is a fun way to start! I had the clip stop every few seconds. I don't know why it keeps doing that. Any ideas as to how I can fix that?

thing #19

I browsed through colorblender (you pick a color and the site generates a matching palette of colors. Cute but not a high need area for me. Next I looked at swivel (data, graphs, photos) but I was really intrigued by http://www.millionmasterpiece.com/. It is like deviant art only the purpose is to raise money for charities. They claim to be: Officially the World's largest collaborative arts project and drawing community. I am inspired by the favorites gallery. They are creating a million piece art "quilt". This is creative and a fun site. I bookmarked it!

thing #18

Google doc is fast. This will save so much time and give easier access for students to share information while working on projects. It gives easier portability too. So many of my students need to be able to work at home and school on papers/projects. They don't have flash drives, printers, etc. Some have to use the public library computers because they don't have the internet at home. This is a great resource for them. I will use it for some things.

thing #17

I love making search rolls! I can limit the time wasted searching for information! The L2P player's video wouldn't play so I created an account and made a searchroll http://rollyo.com/dss/
I would like to see each student create their own searchroll. So many times I help students trying to find a site they used but can't figure out how they stumbled on it.

thing #16

Wiki's can be used for student group projects. It would be a great way to for some students to get engaged. It would be nice to use for planning meeting agendas. Wiki's could be used for organizing parent participation in a PTA project. I will definitely use it with my family/friends to organize reunions/campouts/etc.

thing # 15

I think library 2.0 is "the library is everywhere, barrier-free, and participatory as said in To a temporary place in time...
Rick Anderson in Away from the “icebergs" thinks Library patrons will expect access to everything and expect to spend as little time as possible searching for information so they can spend as much time as possible actually reading the information. Lastly he feels we must bring library services to patrons rather than insisting that they come to us. Yes, that is what our students need!
I need guidelines for how to adapt to the changes libraries are implementing and I found them at A Path to Becoming a 21st Century Literate Educator — Self Development. Here is the link:
http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/?s=Library+2.0
In my opinion school libraries have to change to keep pace with our students needs. My daughter has never read the paper, she gets her news online. I grew up having a dailiy newspaper (actually 2) to go through. My son is uninterested in the printed news as well. He uses blogs and you tube. They both are not out of touch they just get their info electronically!

thing #14

Technorati is overwhelming. I found a cool link for kids at funetics http://www.themommyblogger.com/2008/07/28/funetics/ but when I went to the funetics site it is down for this week. I found other stuff to check out. Even though tecnorati has a lot to offer I think I will use delicious more.

thing #13

The social aspect of the social bookmarking site is going to be the very helpful for me to share tags with coworkers. Also I move around the building during the day and have to use a variety of computers. I need access to my bookmarks for students so this account with delicious will help me so much!!!

the rest of thing #12

I found a blog on gardening in houston. What attracted me to this blog was the information on gardening and the links available. Check it out at: http://www.houstonvegetablegarden.com/
My next blog is on dyslexia. It is a blog requesting personal views and experiences from teachers, parents and children with dyslexia. I am very interested in reading the entries. the link is: http://www.cypnow.co.uk/news/ByDiscipline/Education/login/831343/

thing # 12

The two points I want to highlight are inviting comments to increase the number of comments to your blog post and the idea that you should leave comments that add value to the discussion. I feel more comfortable leaving a comment now.
I made 5 comments but I am still a lurker. Getting better...

thing #11

I created my account but went blank when listing my books. I snapped out of my rut and remembered some favorites. After I got my book list done, I really enjoyed reading about all the groups available.

thing #10

I used image chef for the word in the sand image in my previous post. Here is the link: http://www.imagechef.com/
I think these images would be great for posting a journal prompt or vocabulary word, etc. Endless posibilities!

keep reading

thing #9

Google blog search was the easiest to use. I wasn't as successful with syndic8, I tried several searches but didn't find much I was interested in. Using google blog search I put in Spring branch isd and read Mike Falick's blog. I learned so much from it. I will read his regularly now. I didn't find any unusual feeds but I was overwhelmed with the volume of feeds to choose from.

thing #8

I like the time saving aspect of using RSS feeds for news. I added the science bundle on google reader. I think the library can offer feeds for students to use for their current event assignments. There were 49 articles in today's science feeds. Plenty to go around for a class assignment.

thing # 7

I discovered "explore the sky" in google earth. You can look at images from hubble , I am amazed! Will we be able to download google earth on our school computers?
I set up an igoogle home page and an alert for weather. I want to check out more on atomic learning.

thing #6

Here's my trading card. My favorites from FD Toys: mosiac maker, palette generator, jigsaw and map maker!

thing #5

Flickr has more photos than I thought and I really like the tags. I found this photo of Texas bluebonnets.

thing #3

It was fun but I get impatient looking for things.

thing #2

The easiest habit is setting a goal. The hardest is viewing problems as challenges.

my first post

Thanks SBISD!