Thing 23

Wow! I am so proud of myself! Although I had several bumps along the way, overall, I enjoyed 23 Things. Some of my favorite discoveries include flickr, image generator and podcasting. I can't wait to try these and some of the other discoveries with my class. It has been a goal of my to become better with technology and I feel this program has helped me tremendously. I am by no means an expert on any of these Things but at least I have taken the first step. I didn't think I would get so excited about the activities that I would have my own children try out some of them. They loved it! I commented earlier that, personally, I would like to take this class with people in a classroom. I would feel much more comfortable being able to ask questions. I know that would defeat the whole purpose of 23 Things but it would help me. If another program like this was offered I don't think I would be able to participate. I think the "Things" would be too advanced for me and for my first graders.
To sum it all up I would have to say this learning experience was...challenging.

PS. I did the survey and a blank window came up after I clicked the submit button. I wasn't sure what that meant or if my survey actually went through but I did complete the survey.

Thing 22

I thought Nings was very interseting. You can ask for ideas on just about any subject or lesson you might be teaching and get suggestions from all over! I did read a few blogs that seem to be getting pretty personal and the tone was very heated. That is one thing I have noticed about blogging. People start getting irritated by another persons comments and then the banter starts. I plan on using Nings for Teachers throught the year and incorporate others ideas into my lessons.

Thing 21

I have attempted to upload my video multiple times on various days but Blogger just won't have it. I created a podcast on Gossamer by Lois Lowery and been anxiously awaiting the final product. It's just not happening. I will try again at a later date. Any suggestions?

Thing 20

I found this cute little video on Japanese kids cleaning their school on Teacher Tube. My class will love it when we are learning about Japan. A problem I ran across with You Tube, more so than Teacher Tube, is finding videos for primary students. Most things seem to be geared toward high school students. I guess I just need to look a little further. It seemed like when I tried to be more specific on a search it would come up with nothing. I think both of these sites are very useful to teachers and students.

Thing 19

As you can tell by the date and times of my posts, it's Thursday, July 24 and it hasn't stopped raining yet. I thought I'd sit down and do a few "Things." I checked out several of the Web 2.0 sites, some personal, like the best restaurants in Spring Branch, and some for school. I had to return to flickr because it's so cool. There are so many things to do on it. My girls have loved using it as well. I think this is my favorite tool yet because there are so many fun, educational uses.

Thing 18

I played around with Google Docs and thought it was pretty easy to navigate through. I saw that they had some new templates and tried to find a newsletter template for our grade level to use. The search found no results. I'm sure it was operator error (me.) I did not download open office to our home computer because I read that it was on our district issued laptops. For some reason, I can't get a connection on my SBISD computer at home even though we are wifi. I will definitely play around with it at school.

Thing 17

OK. I finaly "got it" after watching the video again and getting some help from California Dreamin'. I made a Rollyo search on Japan websites for my first graders to explore. After I added the second site, it disappeared and said the web page had expired. I guess I need to start all over? Or is there some way to retrieve it? I can see how this will be a great time saving tool for the students. Instead of leading them through kids.yahoo to get to the Japan sites, they can now just pull up the Rollyo engine and explore!. Too cool. I will attempt to create for other topics as well.