Thing 23

The end or just the beginning. There is so much to learn out there the possibilities are endless. I guess my main wondering is how can we as teachers continue to be up to date on new technology and keep going when our kids do not know the jobs that are going to be there in the future. Preparing them with technology and communication through this will definately be key in their future. I came into 23 things knowing and feeling confident in many areas but knew I needed to branch out as well. I encountered some things that I probably may not use and some things that I definately will incorporate into my own life and into my students lives. It will be very interesting to see how my wiki page turns out and hopefully what I have in mind will work out for next year. I still have some things I need to work on though in order to keep up to date with technology and all of the realms that it weaves.

Thing 22

Well I created my own wiki but tried to add my own video that the kids in my class made but the file was too big. I don't really want to put the video up on Utube because of privacy with the kids in my class. I am not sure how that work so if someone happens to read this let me know your thoughts on this. So I added a picture and didn't post a video or website since I didnt feel it was was necessary just yet until I figure out the privacy clearing with kids at my school. I guess that is my only question regarding this. I can see how blogs could be useful with some topics and you could probably add the link to the wiki page for students to fund it accessible and could use your wiki for parents too. Therefore, you have one site with various options for students and parents. A one stop shop!

Here is my wiki:

https://learningtogetheryoung.wikispaces.com/

Thing 21

Using Wikis seem very cool because they are more interactive than just a website. I would just have to play around with this a lot to get the hang of it. I like how the one school had a correspondence with another school and they were discussing seasons and shadows, etc... It would be cool to do this and have parents be involved post videos, picture of work to show off their learning. I will have to see how to do all of this in the next thing and how I could incorporate this as my own.

Thing 20

Well I have been searching through the Itunes library for some podcast and came across a few I liked. The search tools seem very easy and are informative. Below is one of the pod casts that I subscribed to today. I subscribed to SuperNews! I preferred this because after a long day at work I like to fill my mind with some comedy and updated news about various things. I know maybe I should have a more educational podcast...but this is what keeps me sane :) I preferred using Itunes because then I can quickly put things to my Ipod which I use regularly and not have to go through other search engines. If I am going to look for education I will need to use one of the other search options given.

Thing 19

I liked the study guide information from the one example on the podcast that was on the teachers website. Also the examples of kids making slideshows in social studies with recordings that fit the content was great. I also found this podcast on the solar system which I thought was cool too. There were many great examples on the website of student work that was amazing. Now how can I do this?????

http://www.mrcoley.com/coleycast/coleycast44.htm

Thing 18

Well I was trying to find something of interest and this was really funny to me. I was looking for educational things but most slideshows I found were in other languages. So here is my most bizarre slideshow. I could see how if you found a slideshow with curriculum content or pictures it could definately be used in a unit of study.

World's Bizarre Collections

View more presentations from Power Point Slide Shows.

Thing 17

The productivity tools were very interesting. I really liked the remember the milk for myself and I could see using the virtual flashcards for my students. I have students use flashcards in class to study concepts for upcoming tests and this would be a cool way for them to access this at home to study as well. A more interactive approach would really reach out to my fourth and fifth graders.

Thing 16

For thing 16 I can definately see how this would be useful for you and your colleagues. It seems that we use ORCA for many of these items now to add our thoughts and data, etc... to get our work done. Using this with 4th graders would be a little challenging though. Maybe having a document and having them make changs or adding onto other thoughts would be a good start.

Thing 15

I am not really into using the bloglines. Honestly, I do not have time to keep up with going to this and cleaning it out on a daily or weekly basis. I added a new toolbar and that was fine but will I use it in the future probably not. :)

Thing 13 and 14

It was very easy to set up this account and seems like it would be very usefull to keep all of your information together. It is very hard to remember all of the websites that I use daily however I usually tag them at school on my computer.

Thing 12

Putting widgets on seemed easier when I went to the layout page and search this way instead of the sites that were listed I must have been doing something wroong, I kept getting an error message. I belong to facebook and enjoy this by just keeping up with what others and seeing what they are doing. I do not think that online interactions are as valuable as face to face interactions. I understand that in a fast paced world facebook and myspace can keep us connected and we can shgare but we must not forget the importance of a phonecall to hear someones voice or the face to face interaction to keep us connected.

Thing 11

Well I haven't received may comments from anyone on my own bogs but that is okay. I find it hard to actually go have a strong opinion on some of the bogs here since we are mostly reflecting. I am sure it would be different when we are finding an article to comment on with various viewpoints. I think a blog for book clubs would be interesting for kids to do and it would make them more accountable for their reading and thoughts. I am going to try and start this next year.

Thing 10

In class we have been studying social issues. Here I found a video on animal abuse.




I have also use the downloading keepvid but still have the problem of watching the video at school due to the restrictions on our computer. I am going to have to have my husband try and teach me how to put this on a DVD instead.

Thing 9

U Tube is great for video for education, however since it is restricted in building it is very useless for my teaching. Our computer tech gave me a way to download the videos onto my flash drive but then I still do not have the capabilities to play it using our browser because of the media player usage. It would be nice to be able to loosen the restrictions for educators in the buildings so we could show videos on subject matter that really focus on our benchmarks.

Thing 8

Well I have been messing around with these photos for awhile. I like how you can add from your facebook the photos so I didn't have to upload all of them from the Flickr account so that was a nice bonus. You can definitely get lost with all of the options to play around with. It was fun but some of them seemed a little confusing and took a long time. I think this would be a great was to do different collages for classroom photos and the memory game would be fun from kids too. Overall, I think I learned a lot about different ways to make your photos come alive.

Thing 7

Using Flickr and uploading seems pretty easy. I had an easy time uploading and describing the photos. It would be nice to upload all of my photos but that would take quite awhile. I am thinking that I would be able to use this to share photos with parents with the work that we are doing in class, this might be a good way to keep them involved with their childs education and teaching kids how to use this as well.

Thing 6

As I was browsing I loved looking at others photos on Flickr. I can see how I could become addicted to searching for photots though. I would also like to add my photos on Flickr to protect and share my memories. I also love this photo of the tree during a sunset.

Thing 5

I have been searching for awhile finding blogs to my taste. I had a hard time figuring out how to add the links to my page so I just decided that it would be easier to copy and paste the website in to add blogs to my account. I was able to do this easily by copy and pasting. I added some of my favorite television shows like TMZ (LOL!) and my favorite cause animals. I am still figuring out how I can use this in my classroom beside for my book clubs. I really like using my website to inform my parents and am not sure if I would use this for parent usage. Hopefully, I will determine how I can use this in an effective way. I have already spoken to teachers at my school and we are going to form Book Clubs and have a blog site for students to respond to each other. One of the teachers started this with another school and they weren't so great with responding to the kids. We decided that maybe the kids would be more invested to learn this if they did this within their own building. I am excited to see how this will all work out!

Thing 4

I can definately see how things can be easier to keep up with if you blog a lot or are into it. I guess I am a little confused exactly what all I can still do with this. I still find it difficult to make time to visit various websites, etc... so I can see how it would save time if you have only one page. I guess I need to play around with all of this more to understand the benefits of using bloglines. Hopefully the next thing will show me a little more to help me wrap my head around it all.

Thing 3

As I looked through the different blogs I kept thinking to myself how can I use this in my classroom. Using it with parents is one way, however, I already have a website which is quite functional so I feel it may be of better use with my students. I would like to get started using this with my book clubs in class. Maybe have my students find another group of students who are reading the same book or even studying the same content in class to respond to. This could actually be done as a homework assignment for some or during our computer lab time. Constructing a class blog page would be interesting to start to have communication with students from home about various topics throughout the year. I actually think a lot of my students would really enjoy blogging their teacher from home :)

Thing 1 and 2

Well I have recently just signed up for this course and am amazed at all of the things that you can do with portions of technology. I guess my problem is access to computers for students and having the capability of using these forms of technology for students use. I am often told that our network can not handle specific programs and was told that I wasn't able to do podcasting so I am hoping to find ways to use this through another source. I am looking forward to bringing my teaching alive and having students create more hands on sources of their learning using technology in the classroom.