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!