Thing #23

OK...took the online survey, but it wouldn't submit.

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
There were several favorite discoveries from this course, but to narrow it down I like learning
Nings and Rollyo.

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
I can utilize a lot of the sites into my lesson.

3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
No, nothing surprised me about this program. I new it could be overwhelming if you let it get
it get to you, but I knew it would all be very beneficial to teachers/librarians.

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
Overall, the program was great. The only problem I had was not having the instant feedback
when I had a question about something. Recommendation - maybe someone can be assigned
"help desk" role to chat online to help solve problems.

5 . If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to
participate?
Yes, it is great getting PD hours on-line and not having to go after work hours to hear district
reps doing PD. I actually learned something from this and can transfer it to my classroom.

6. How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so
we could use your words to promote 23 Things learning activities?
Easy - read comment to question # 5.

Thing # 22 Nings

Nings are another great way to form a social network. It is a way for teachers/students to communicate with others who share the same interests. My students can benefit from Nings by having individual assignments or group projects.

I reviewed all links of the Nings, but the one that I found most interesting was Nings for Teachers. This is a fabulous resource for new and veteran teachers. There were so many great features on this site - teacher blogs, message board, lesson plans, etc. Using the lesson plans will allow you to network with others and is a great resource that helps bounce ideas if you are stuck planning a lesson. Another benefit is dealing with certain issues and having an open discussion. I was really impressed with teacher lingo... I register as a user and plan on using it in a few weeks.

Thing #21 Podcast and Audio Books

This was really fun to learn. Audio Books are great for student who have a learning disability in addition to students creating audio books for a group projects. My students love doing projects that they can use technology. Powerpoint is the old way of doing projects and audio book and Photo Story are the new ways. I was impressed with Photo Story. It is very user friendly and can be incorporated into my lessons as well as having students do individual or group projects.

I was unable to register for Switchpod - site wasn't working. So I created a Photo Story of scenic view of lovely USVIs...hope you enjoy it.



OK...maybe it's not working. I've been trying to link it for over an hour...can anyone help me figure out how to link it to my post...thanks in advance.

Thing #20 YouTube, TeacherTube, Zamzar

YouTube is a great site for educational learning. It's a shame it is blocked. Students love this site because you can become an instant celebrity!! YouTube contains anything from movie videos to music videos and much more. There is a lot of information from YouTube that I could have incorporated into my teaching over the past several years. I learned about TeacherTube at the end of the school year. This is a great site to incorporate educational things into your teaching. I will be using a lot of information from TeacherTube into my lessons. Using videos is a great way to hook students into the lesson.

Thing #19 Web 2.0 Award List

This is an great list. I love how it is organized because it saves me time...it is broken down into categories. Libraries and school can benefit from this site by using Lulu, Docstoc, Google Docs, etc.

The one that I got carried away w/ was last.com. If you are into music this is a great site. It allows you to create artists in your library and listen to the full song -not just 30 seconds. Also, while you are listening to an artist, it will pull up numerous similar artist to listen to in case you want to add it to your library. Another neat feature is that you can search for an upcoming event that an artist will be at. Last.com describes in detail a full biography about the artists, shows videos, in addition to shows how many people are listening to the same song you are playing...pretty neat!

Another favorite was revolutionhealth.com. You can have group disscussions on various topics (medications, diseases, treatments, etc.). There is a lot of health benefits on this site. I reresearch webmd.com daily and I found information on this site that I did not find on WebMD...may start researching this site instead...

Thing #18 Online Productivity Tools

Open Office in amazing!!! I can't believe it's free and very useful. Open Office is an better than Microsoft Office. It has so many advantages. For example, when using text document an awesome feature is auto complete. Auto complete will suggest common words or phrases to complete the sentence when you are typing. That is neat! The Presentations (version of PowerPoint) allows you to have 2D and 3D art clip, special effects and high impact drawing tools. I can not draw - in fact I'm terrible, but with Drawing I can manipulate and arrange objects at my disposal, organize charts, etc. Those are just a few of the advantages that this program offers, the only drawback that I can see it that you have to download it, but who cares when you are getting all of these perks...

Thing #17 Rollyo

Watching the video was very beneficial in learning about Rollyo. I created an account w/ Rollyo and can't wait to use it next year!!! I was able to organize my site by topics (health, business and economy, etc). It is very user friendly and my co-workers will enjoy learning about it.

My kids are very savvy and know how to stray away from appropriate sites that I recommend. They love Google, Yahoo, etc and it gets them off topic. So with Rollyo, I can control the sites and there are no excuses about being on a website that I did not recommend. Plus it's a huge time saver. The kids will still enjoy using Rollyo because it will give them choices (I just narrowed those choices down :-)) I love it because it gives specific research sites!!!

Thing #16 Wikis

The only thing close to wikis that I am familiar w/ is wikipedia. I'm planning on using wikis for a group project. My students will love it b/c they can coordinate w/ all group members and be able to gather facts quickly. The best part about wikis is that if a student thinks a fact or statement is incorrect, then they are able to edit the paper. This is an easy way to see that all team members are contributing to the project.
I do have concerns w/ having little control over editing. I can see some of my students getting into "editing wars" and making derogatory comments. Same thing with the content that is being discussed. How do I manage that? Do I include myself to the wikis page so I can manage what is being written???

Thing #15 Library 2.0 and the future

As society changes so does education. This is another example of how education is changing. If we as teachers are going to stay abreast in our teaching then this is another tool that we need to adjust to. Technology is our future. Since I've graduated from college -which wasn't too long ago- technology has changed rapidly and will continue to change. During my high school research paper I had to do it the old way (going to the school/public library, pulling books, using note cards, etc.). This took a lot of time and frequent trips to the library. It would have made my life a lot easier if there was Library 2.0 back then. Library 2.0 is the library of the future. Students are already technologically advanced and this will keep students engaged in their learning/research. My favorite thing about Library 2.0 is that it eliminates trips to the library.

Thing #14 Technorati

Technorati has cool features. I love the fact that it covers almost every topic of my interests (business, politics, sports and medical). Even though there wasn't a "medical tag", I could simply choose a topic in the search engine and varies topics would pop up (articles, blogs, etc). That allowed me to skim through headings that appealed to me. The best part is that I can see blogs that I can either lurk or chime into to get information needed or even leave my opinion about the topic. It is nice to read comments from everyday people and not critics who get paid to write reports. Tagging will still help me organize all of the information that I need to refer back to at a later date...

Thing #13 Tagging

At first I thought tagging was the same as a bookmark, but now that I understand it, it is better than a bookmark. Just like it is described social bookmarking. Bookmarks get too messy and tagging you can socialize w/ a group. del.icio.us is a user-friendly site. This can easily be introduced to high school students who have a lot of research to do. I will use this when my students have projects to do...

Thing #12 Creating Community Through Blogging

Blogging can be very overwhelming and intimidating if you have never done it. Once you learn it, it is like riding a bike...really easy and can be fun...all you have to do is have an area of interest! I agree w/ the articles...make it meaningful. You want to sound sincere and in return have polite comments on your blog. Last thing you want is a "know it all" commenting...so keep comments real, polite and open-ended. It's just like our classrooms, we want a community dialogue going not one student dominating the entire discussion.

I too am a "lurker" unless I have something genuine and polite to say about the conversation. I view a ton of medical, sports and news blogs. Most of the time when I'm lurking it's b/c I want to quickly read "updates" on a topic. Having said that, when I do respond - which is quite often - I am very polite and sincere about my comments. The comments that I had to respond to were over 3 different medical issues and 2 were sports.

Thing # 11 LibraryThing

This is a neat way to get connected with other teachers teaching the same books as you. LibraryThing can be used to compare notes about a novel and other interests. It was easy to create and account. Once that is done you can add titles, reviews, and connect w/ other users regarding the same interests in books. The group forum is neat. You can talk in the groups forum or oversee conversations taking place in the forum.

Thing # 10 Image Generators

This was a simple and fun process. You can do so much with these image generators it almost scary. This can be used in all content areas.

http://www.imagechef.com/ - You can make a photo frame by adding your own photos into fun/cute picture frames. It allows you to add text to the photo/frame.

http://www.smilebannergenerator.org/ This site allows you to fill in a personal caption into a cartoon speech bubble above a happy face, write your name to a happy face styled font and write a personalized message right into a clipart image of a smilie face character holding a sign.

http://www.bighugelabs.com/ With this site you can put someone's face or whatever you choose on their very own collectible trading card or make a whole deck of cards and create a card game.