Thing -#23- Summarize

I am very happy to have completed "23 Things". I worried about completing this task and felt like a thunder cloud was following me around until I completed the assignments. It was not easy to complete. Mary and I worked on 23 Things for many days and many many hours. Mary was great and helped me get through the swamp and quicksand.

What are some favorite discoveries or exercises you experienced?

Flickr was a favorite because it can very useful and easy to use. Access to photographs will be useful for teachers and students in all areas of the curriculum. Flickr offers the opportunity to obtain the pictures and then incorporate the shots into your own computer collection and use them when needed. The procedure for getting the pictures and shaving them is easy to do which makes Flickr more valuable.

Even though Podcast was filled with earthquakes and volcanoes, I enjoyed making a photo story.
This was not really difficutl to do but there were so many steps it was easy to get confused and not know where to next. Getting the music, was fustrating because there were so many irrelant questions to answer, blanks to type in your address, and e mail, and school information. The final product even though it was not perfect was complete and that spells success.

How has this progress assisted or affected you?

23 Things has really broadened my computer knowledge. Some "Things" will continue to be useful and become part of my computer repitore other "Things "will be stored. It will be so very nice to know and understand the topic when someone is discussing one of the "23 Things that are not part of my daily life.


I completed the survery but it would not allow me to submit.

Thing #22 -Nings

This is another site for teachers who need to collaborate with other professionals about a special project or event. I like the ability to plan and prepare for an event with people who share common goals but who are not in the same physical environment. It's just another way to get the job done in an efficient manner using modern day technology to accomplish your goals.

Thing - #20 Explore You Tube & Teacher Tube

A picture is worth a thousand words and that's why both of these are great sites for general users and especially for teachers. I love to search through these looking for subjects that I like to read about. Teachers will have to be careful when using these because language is just not proper.

The videos and information on Teacher Tube are made by teachers and for classroom instruction. It's so helpful to be able to use video information as part of teacher. There are many ways to do it, but using the video in its entirety or using video segments that are important to the classroom instruction are both easily done. Students will be able to hear and see the information presented in a creditable, sequential, and timely manner. Often the students will be able to watch and and hear emotional reactions to actual historical and cu rent events. The video can be stopped, (while ideas or events are discussed) started, and replayed depending on what the needs of the instruction requires.

www.google.com/s2/sharing/stuff?user=105496526559508809757 is a link for a video which was filmed during the actual hurricane. The narrator says a few sentences at the beginning to set up the time, setting, and what is happening. Teachers can integrate this into their lesson about hurricanes and the students will love this video.

Thing - #19 -Web Awards 2.0

There are so many interesting and informative sites on Thing # 19. This is one where
you want to spend some extra-curricular timelearning about the many sites.

Teachers, students, and librarians will find the Google.Maps and Live Maps useful. It has all of the basics, and is very easy for the students to use. The Live maps offers a collection which features brief annotation about the site. This will be asset when teaching geography in all grades.
The Birds Eye view offers many ways of looking at neighborhoods, streets, high rise buildings, Minate Maid Park and sky high views of the city. The best part is that using the compass & tools on the left hand margin the user can rotate the map in any direction and even look down from a building. Can't be afraid of heights! Find the Houston Public Library! Use the tilt tool for fun.
Use the rotate tool and see the back.

Two other sites that will be useful to all educators are the LuLu and Biblio. LuLu features information about all of books but also allows users to create books on line. Books can be created and then to LuLu for publishing. Our school has a book writing event annually, so this allow a nice place for our students to visit and realize that publishing can be discovered in many ways, not just through a conventional publisher. This is such a great place for people who love to write can publish their work and get comments from readers. Barnes and Nobles must be checking out this site. Biblio is a good source for finding out of date or rare books. The search is divided into categories such as binding in good condition, by country, author,title, or language. Again, teachers and librarians will be able to use this to purchase books, or just to show students where
to locate books that are difficult to find.

Thing # 18 -Open Source

Free! Free! What a nice concept? And so easy to use! Google. Docs is a great option and is perfect for beginners. Because of the simplicity, teachers will like using Google.Docs to familiarize students with learning how to develop document. There are not as many choices regarding font, size, lines, and bullets. I could not locate a thesaurus but spell check is available. Actually, most items that we are accustom to using on word are available, we just have to browse Google.Doc for their location. The bottom line is that this on line source is free and most of the tools that we need are available.

Open Office is another one of those great free on line productivity tools. It is a very nice program which has more options to offer than Google. Docs but not as much as Microsoft Word. Of course Microsoft Word has a fee so you're paying for the increase choices.. Open Office quality falls between Microsoft Word and Google.Doc. Users can create nice documents using on line productivity tools, however if accustom to using Microsoft Word, some fustration will develop when using the other two because of options that are missing and not being familiar with the programs. Open Office has the ability to develop a power point but the program on Microsoft is more expansive.

Thing - #17 Rollyo

Rollyo is really a tool for teachers and librarians. The rollyo is a means of pulling all the web sites together about a particular subject and making the information more accessible for both the students and teachers. In this case the teacher or librarian will create the rollyo and the students are the ones who will use the rollyo to pull up the web site and view the information. All the web sites about birds will be together and the student uses a search term to pull out the information he needs from the rollyo. A great spot for students to collect information in a efficient manner.

My rollyo is private so I posted the one I created about New Orleans.

Thing - #16 -Wikis

This is a very nice skill to learn and use. I can see lots of use of wikis in business and schools.
It will be especially wonderful for teachers as they road map. Students can use the wiki for commenting on a novel which the class has shared. Students can use the wiki for voting for government offices and also for Bluebonet Award books. The students can also have fun listing their favorite books and authors.

Thing - #15-

I read three sites talking about this new library world, and David Warlick makes its sound so simple. His list of ways to develop into a 2.0 library is understandable and is mostly common sense. Many ideas such as delegating, scheduling meetings, experimenting in the classroom, blogging , reading books about the topics are all things that we do. We all need his vision and commitment to making the library a place where technology can be used and enjoyed and benefit worldwide education.

Thing -#14 - Technorati

Technorati is simple to use and opens up the entire world for us to meet, greet, discuss, and obtain new ideas about everything. The subjects are anything you can think of and the ideas about these subjects are reflections of people globally. It is interesting to note that the popular topics deal with politics and the world of entertaining.
Tagging is easy for most of us, and since there are not any rules mandating how to tag, anything can be entered. There will allot of overlap in tagging but as long as people can locate their information this method should work.
After looking at School Library Learning 2.0 on several different searches, it was obvious that each was different but shared a few of the same postings. The videos were all posted on each search. Two searches might share a similar posting but general each site was different.

Thing -#13 Social Bookmarking

The Common Craft video was very helpful. It presented the information in an easy to understand way with just three important steps. These steps were discussed and illustrated and then repeated at the end of the video. It's great for people who are new to this skill because it actually shows how to do the steps.

The Del.icio site was easy to use and I know that teachers will utilize and rely on this site as they grow in the use of technology in everyday teaching. There are so many web sites on every subject, Del.cio and others like it will help teachers organize their favorite sites and make them be available on demand. That's important, we all have sites that we like but frequently cannot locate them or remember their address. This bookmarking site will be a real treasure to teachers and students.

Ma.gnolia is a great spot for storing web sites. It's a very pretty nicely designed site that has special features in addition to the regular format. These include the right to have privacy, it allows for rating the web sites, it has a spot for creating an avatar (some are free) and it allows for groups and group discussions.

Teachers and students can and will enjoy using many of these features.

Thing #12- Comments on Gloogle Blog Search

Learning about American glass companies is an interesting topic. So I went through the listings and after studying the listings I selected" Early American Press Glass. " The title says it all, but upon opening the site, I discovered that there was not enough information provided about the history of American glass. I felt like this would be a good site because several companies were listed so I thought these would be discussed and examples would be included. Unfortunately, the site features only a select number of patterns and provides only a few details about these patterns. The site does permit the individual pattern to be enlarged for illustrating the small details of the glass which is nice for those patrons who are interested.

Thing #12-Comments on Google Blog Search

New Orleans is always and interesting spot to read and learn about. I looked into a blog titled Welcome to Southern Lagniappe. This is a beautifully manicured site, with beautiful photographs, legible type, and interesting informationabout a recent trip to New Orleans. The blog explores a bit of New Orleans as she prepares to leave the city. Additionally, the writer has posted other information about her favorite places to visit, her favorite books and authors, and her favorite online spots.

There are many blogs about New Orleans, but it was a combination of the blog title and her type that interested me in her blog.

Thing # 12 "Creating Community through Communicating"

An important item to remember when blogging is to have something meaningful to say about the blog and to be sure that your statement relates to the subject of the blog. It's great to share ideas but it's important to focus on the statement and to expand on the idea that was presented. After discussing the idea it is then nice to give a personal opinion or site an experience but these should be relevant to the initial idea presented in the blog. Asking questions and comments are only great if they relate to the subject being discussed.

At school, I could post a blog about a book and invite students to comment. Posting a commet would encourage the children to think about their ideas about the book, it would help them with their technology skills in commeting about the blog, and of course it would help their writing skills as they learn to write a statement about my comments about the book. It would teach students to write a meaningful passage about a narrow subject.

We can all improve our writing by following the 10 guidlines for writing blogs.

Thing #11 " Library Thing"

This library site could be considered an accessory. The site offers many luxury items for users who have time to browse and look for interesting information. There is tons of information for someone who has the time to look for specifics, like the top ten books and authors or the top ten reviews about various books. At school, students could use this for obtaining reviews about books they are going to read or for suggested books. It would also be fun for them to use for adding their own books to their own library. They can add comments about their readings, rate by stars, and add words for tags. This will be fun and educational for students plus adding to their technology skills.

Thing # 10

Using comics and their characters are fun. We can all enjoy using this tool for many different things. It would be perfect for making cards for all occasions to share with friends and family. In the classroom, it would be useful for students as they make cards for all "Red Letter Days " but especially for that very special day in May, Mothers Day. Teachers are busy in May and having this tool available will allow the students to make a special card for Mom in an easy fun way.

Social Studies teachers could use this as a means of expressing political satire by having students make cards showing political campaign slogans or expressions. Science is a great spot for students to make cartoons or signs showing save the earth slogans or encouraging everyone to go "Green" .

There is a special place for using the comics in every area of the curriculum and the best part is the students and teachers will love using this tool. I love this idea I love the trading card idea. Everyone will love learning about a particular subject, making cards, and trading the cards they have created. It will be useful in every subject.
Science teachers will love it to help with landforms, planets, and simple machines. Students can make the cards, present the information to the class, trade cards, and of course, quiz each other about the information they have learned.

In the library, students can make trading cards for the books they have read. We could make a chart showing the various cards students have made. A picture book, a non -fiction, and a easy book chart would be useful for the students as they learn about different books and authors.
These trading cards will easily convert into book markers for student and teacher use.