Thing #23

Okay...I've got to hurry. I'm almost out of time. There were really so many amazing things that it's hard to come up with just one...or even just a few that were my favorite. I liked Big Huge Labs and all that they had to offer. I think some of them will be great to use with younger students. And, I do like the podcast/vidcast thing...even though I'm having trouble with it.

One word to sum it all up??? Awesome!

I think I'd like to try the 11.5 things next summer. I did enjoy learning....but I think I shouldn't have procrastinated!

Thing #22

Nings! I did look at this site and floated around. I just couldn't bring myself to register for another site! I do think it has a lot to offer....when the time permits. There was a discussion on RtI....which was good. I also found a post about a collaborative early childhood site that offers activeboard lessons. That's something I'll go back and find to share with primary teachers on my campus. Do Nings have value...yes....I just don't think I can put the time into it right now :(

And....Blogger has decided that it thinks I am a bot....so I am now having to verify for every post that I create!

Thing #21

Okay......I've done the audio...don't like it .... again! And the video....I'm having trouble with! I've been working on this for the last six hours (with the exception of nicotine breaks to deal with my frustration) with no luck! I'm going to do the audio one more time and then post it...good or bad. I don't know what to do about the video. I've taken video of my screens but can't seem to get it together.

I'll be back to drop in the audio...gotta take care of the other things before time runs out!

Juggling and the center of mass

Juggling and the center of mass

Shared via AddThis

Thing #20

Way too many things to see here! But, I decided to try and post this video on juggling and the center of mass...it just looked fun!


Okay....I'm having major trouble getting my chosen video into my blog without covering up items in my sidebar. I can't seem to change the size. I tried converting through zamzar, but keep getting a message that the file is not compatible with wmv, flv, wav, or avi. So, can anyone help me on this one???

Thanks!

I've posted the video in a separate posting titled Thing #20 B above. Thanks, Vaughn!

Thing #19

I checked out a few sites but was most interested in the TuDiabetes. I've been looking for sites that focus on this particular health issue and have found some good ones. But this you can actually become part of a group by state - which is nice. The layout was easy for me to follow - and they actually had several topics listed that are current and active (which I've been looking for). So, I know this isn't educational for the classroom...but it will be a good move for me personally.

Thing #18

GoogleDoc is what I chose to explore. I like the fact that I can collaborate with people using this feature. Rather than going back and forth with emails, we can all access one document and make changes.

Thing #17

Rollyo....rolling away! This was a great site. I can see how using this site will save students much time and lessen confusion. It's a nice way to narrow down the sites by ensuring that students only access 'safe' sites. Bruce's video was a great tool to watch. He covered things in a way that was simple to understand and took me step by step on how to create my search roll:

http://rollyo.com/vengar/venegas_trial/

I like the fact that I can explore other rolls and edit them to fit my specific needs.

Thing #16

Amazing! Talk about making life easier. There are some times when emails really get out of control. I think that using a wiki would make it a lot easier to have an ongoing collaboration. It's really hard sometimes to set up a meeting time...I'm cc-ing everyone and they're cc-ing me....and ten of us are cc-ing each other....totally out of control.

Setting up the wiki to 'hold' these conversations makes a lot more sense. I looked at the PBwiki...which now comes up as PBworks.com . I'd really like to see how their classroom wiki works. They mention that students don't need to have an email account.

Thing #15

I remember walking downtown to the library as a young adult and spending hours there...sometimes leaving with a book, album, or sometimes with nothing at all. But it was a fun afternoon for me. This doesn't seem to be the case anymore....if I'm looking for information, I just get online and search the web for it. Music? I log on to iTunes and download what I want. So, what do school libraries have to offer today's students?

A lot. As Rick Anderson, in "Away from the Icebergs" mentions, libraries have to make the move from 'come to me' to "let me show you what I have." But, where does that start? With the teacher asking? With the campus librarian offering? What if neither of the two occur? Then what? Who gets the short end of the stick on that one?

That it needs to happen is not the question...nor do I think that anyone would disagree with that. The bigger issue is who's going to start making it happen?

Thing #14

Tag! I claimed my blog. I think that technorati can help me sift through all the info that's out there. I've done searches before and found sites that had information that I was looking for - but I never really knew whether the source was reputable. Technorati will allow me to search for entire blogs about a topic, but more importantly will let me see how much of an authority the site is.

I just hope my blog can hit the magic middle number of 20! LOL

Thing #13

Del.icio.us What a great site! How out of touch am I, really. I never knew anything like this existed. Who would have thought that I could have all of my bookmarks on any computer that I would ever use...anywhere! The entire organization of the sites is cool. I go back to an earlier post about Glogster and my conversation with B. Foye. I had thought about saving several examples to my flashdrive to share with students; now I can just save them to my del.icio.us account and tag them as 'examples' or 'projects' or whatever. I can pull them up and have them grouped by licking on the tag. I think this will save me quite a bit of time.

I'm wondering if registering as a classroom and making sure that del.icio.us is on each computer would make it easier to make sites available to students - as opposed to sitting at each computer and entering in the url.

I like the fact that I can opt to keep bookmarks private and share only those that I want to share. This would be useful if I create a classroom account.

Thing #12

I never really thought about how comments affect a blog. But, I must admit they really are nice to get! :) I just signed on to my blog and found a comment from B. Foye on my site. It was a nice surprise! Thanks B!
So, leaving comments is important. I see that now. B. had a question about the use of Glogster (because some of the content is quite mature) and that allowed me to comment back and talk out my thinking process about how I plan to get around it. Of course, it all works our well in my head. But, I'm hoping that B. or someone else will read through my thinking process and bring up some of the pitfalls that I haven't thought about. In the end, making my plan to use Glogster a more positive experience. All in all, commenting is important because it allows us to have a professional learning community where we can help, encourage, or just listen to each other.

Another point that I liked from various sites on Thing 12 was setting up parameters about the kind of comments that are acceptable. Though I haven't done that here (maybe because I'm still niave enough to believe that I won't have a DC show up) I do think that it's important for me to do when I'm working on a campus or classroom blog. I need to take the time to set up those expectations for my studnets; the same way that I would set up the whole community expectations of my classroom.

So, what are your thoughts?

Thing #11

LibraryThing. Extremely helpful! I've got a ton of books and have often contemplated getting them into a spreadsheet to keep track of them. This tool would really help me get my library organized. Now, it'll just be a matter of time....lol.

Thing #10

WOW! I spent way too much time playing with these. I used image chef (www.imagechef.com) for my self portrait. But what I really spend a lot of time with was Glogster (www.glogster.com) and wordle (www.wordle.net). Those were just fantastic! I think of items on image chef (cartoon cell, trading card, etc) as a single media tool. But, on Gloster you've got the ability to use multimedia (pics, video, audio). It was amazing to see what people have done. I can see this as a fantastic tool to use with students as an ongoing book report/reader response. Wordle was a single media tool, but it was just fun. I can see that working well also for younger students and character's traits.

Thing #9

Okay. Technorati was the easiest for me to navigate through. I found Syndic8.com more confusing to deal with. I've recently been diagnosed with Diabetes and have been contemplating going on a pump. I was able to find a few good sites that gave me a lot of background information on various brands of pumps and put me in touch with an entire network of 'pumpers.' So, it's been very useful to me in a personal aspect.

Thanks for giving me the experience with this....it's helped me tremendously!

Thing #8

RSS...I never knew it exisited! I like the fact that the information merged into one place - allowing me to see updates in one primary location. This is a major time saving device! I've recently begun to follow news on a medication that a family member is taking. RSS has enabled me to follow that info without have to re-read the same information over and over. Keeping up with the changing teaching standards is important; RSS would make it easier to keep up with that new information on a regular basis.

Thing # 7

What fun! All of these were fun; I made my igoogle page - but, I really liked the Google Scholor and the Google Doc. I've been looking for info on professional learning communities; Google Scholor let me do that search...and narrow down the research by year! I really liked that feature because it allowed my to look only at information that was really current. If that wasn't fun enough, when I got to Google Doc I took the tour and got hooked! Last year I had the idea of polling students by grade level to see which books they were most interested in. But, I couldn't find a way to do that other than pencil and paper (and then I'd have to calculate it by hand!). So, I let the idea float away. When I wanted anonymous feedback from teachers, I'd leave the ol' school survey in the mailboxes. Tonight I learned that I can use a spreadsheet from Google Doc, and create a form (from within the spreadsheet) with questions. Google Doc will calculate it all as responses come in. I even created a survey and sent it to myself to test it out. It worked! The other cool thing is that once the survey is answered, Google Doc will let the respondent see a summary of the survey. And, I've got to be honest.....I went back and played some more with the mashups! I'm looking forward to using both Google Scholor and Google Doc!

Thing # 6

This was a fun morning! I really enjoyed playing with the mashups! Here's what I'm thinking...the mosaic maker would be GREAT for an author's study, or a unit on a specific theme. Students would be able to select the books that they enjoyed the most and then create the mosaic. Then, they would write about what they liked about them, or how the books are related, etc. Finally, they would present that to other students. The trading cards are awesome for that too! I can see that working for a book review, research end-product, etc. I'm excited about trying this out with students from various grades. Has anyone tried the comic captions? I played with them but couldn't get them to fit onto my picture. I couldn't find a way to minimize the; anyone know how to do that?

Thing #5

Amazing! I'd never heard of Flickr. I took the tour, to check it all out, and then played on the site for a while....I lost track of time! The best thing for me was watching a few videos by Captain Hook! It was amazing to see how he produced some of the pictures that he posted!

Thing #4

Well, I've made it to number 4! I tried to go back and add my avitar using the picture gadget, but it didn't seem to go through. But, when I signed in for this post, my avitar was there (still with the yahoo link underneath). Does anyone know what I can do to get rid of that address??

Thing # 3

Well, I've done it! The exporting of my avitar was a little confusing for me...but I got through it. I'm thinking that I may have done something wrong because my avitar address appears under my avitar. Is that the way it's supposed to be?? Other than that, it wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it would be!

Thing #2

Okay, I know this may sound weird, but I think that habit number 7 1/2 is the hardest for me to do. I know - how can 'play' be hard!? But, it is. I tend to be grounded and guarded which for me means that I don't let myself 'go.' That is..unless I really know a person :).

Thing #2

I believe that habit number 2 (accept responsibility for your own learning) is the easiest for me. If I need information I tend to look for it (books, net, people) to get a rounded out base of knowledge.