Summarization

This class was fabulous! I learned so much. A few times I was ready to give up from frustration but my son always came to my rescue. I love the idea of blogging and intend to use it with my kids. I really had fun doing my video and also building my myspace page. Some of the things were fun to play with but I probably won't use them in class and some things I will for sure use in class. I am really appreciative to have just been given the knowledge that I was given in these 23 things. I feel much more comfortable using these things and intend to stay up on new things. I think it is our responsibility as teachers to keep up with new technology to be able to enrich our students lives in every way possible.
I really started feeling pressed for time trying to finish the class. My weeks vacation in California without internet access was responsible for that. I think the class had just the right amount of things and just the right amount of time. I will definately take any future discovery programs. This class has influenced what I will teach this year. It has enriched my computer knowledge which helps me to help my students.

Thing #23

I think ALL teachers should watch the YouTube Disney copywrite video. It was very informative! I have always had questions about copywrite and thank goodness we have a very smart librarian that can answer my questions. When I first started teaching we hung posters in our room from Disney and didn't think twice about it. Now you can't do that. I am really careful what I post and what I show. The Copywrite Comic Book was a great idea and a brilliant piece of work. Those kids should be proud of themselves. The Creative Commons website helped also. It answered some unanswered questions. Now I know where to go when I can't locate the librarian. The Disney video clip The Fair(y) Use was an example of Creative Commons. Small snippets of movies were pulled out to say exactly what Creative Commons was all about. At the very beginning it told you that it had nothing to do with Disney but used the Disney symbol. The Creative Commons symbol for misd 23 things is in the side bar.
This information will be very useful to me as a teacher. I can feel comfortable using snippets of films to teach my students and not be scared. There was always an uneasiness before where now I can use it with more confidence.

Thing #22

Podcasts, wow, what a concept. I buy audio books all the time and listen to them while I clean or lay in my pool. I love listening to audio books. I also like teaching with books on audio so that my ESL students can follow what is being read without me having to read it. I found some things I could use for my kids on Educational Podcast Directory. I found some easy books for my beginning ESL kids and some poetry for my advanced kids.
I found some things I liked to listen to on Learn Out Loud. I started listening to Washington Irvings, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The guy that was reading the story was really good. I made myself quit listening so that I could blog. I am going to go back and finish listening when I get finished.
The Educational Podcast site was really easy to use. I found it more user friendly than the other ones. I got confused when I tried to do the RSS feed but after browsing around a minute I figured out what I was doing. With so many accounts going on from this class I have to look back in my notes to figure out all my passwords and things. You really have to make sure you write all of your information down or you can get lost quickly.
I think making a podcast of my advanced kids reading books and letting my beginning kids listen to the book will inspire them to become better readers. These kids don't have the advantage of having parents that read stories to them in English before bedtime or grandparents that read them nursery rhymes as toddlers. They need a little more motivation to become fluent readers and this just might be it.

Thing #21

Animato was fun to play with. I just got back from California where my son and I visited my brother for a week. It was neat deciding which pictures to put in my video. I did have a problem getting it to run from my laptop. I made the video just fine and embedded it in my blog with no problem. But... when I tried to play it on the laptop it just kept spinning the loading thing and wouldn't play. I freaked when I thought it hadn't worked. My son told me it was probably the lap top and not the video. I moved to our big desktop computer and it played fine. I was really relieved. I am going to take pictures in my class this year and let the kids each make an animato to present to the class. I think they will love it.

Vacation

Thing #20

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbnE2-l6NxU

I love utube. I love watching the cute animal videos and I like the funny music videos. My sons introduced me to utube. Just like all things you have to be careful when you are searching. Some of the things are inappropriate but alot of them are great fun. This is a great way for kids to make and share videos for fun or for school. I know that high school students and college students use utube for assignments. Making videos are great fun and can be very educational.

Thing #19

I wasn't a member of any other social networking community until tonight. I had a blast with fuzzster looking at all of the pets. I am an animal lover and will have a blast playing with fuzzster. I joined tonight and will continue to play on this for a long time to come. I also got on bake space and had fun reading recipes. I am going to look into this site more and probably join it. I can definately see where this type of social networking would be fun. If I were single or had extra time on my hands I could really get into this. I love doing crafts and saw a site for that also that I am going to check out. I have a lot of friends that get on all of these sites and tell me about it. This could turn into a lot of fun!

Thing #18

I never in a million years would have thought I would actually have a myspace. I am not into social networking at all. I have heard horror stories about myspace and swore I would stay away forever. Never say never! I officially have a myspace page. It was really fun picking just the right picture and adding a picture of my puppy. It was humbling filling out that I like oldies rock and am a 45 year old married woman. Some of the things like putting a song on my page were difficult. My 17 year old son helped me with that.
I realized during this whole process how smart this generation must be in order to do all the things that they do on computers every day. It takes me 30 minutes to do what my son can do in 5 minutes. I liked making a myspace but I don't know that I will do anything else with it. I am a little old fashioned and don't really spend much down time on the computer.
I looked at myspace and facebook and decided that myspace looked more user friendly. I am sure that they are both equally as easy to use. Although none of them are easy for me.
I don't think social networking has as much place in school as the other things we have learned in this class. I know that most schools won't let kids get on their myspace in the computer lab or in the classroom. I probably won't use social networking at all, but it was fun to play with.

Thing #17

Social bookmarking is a great tool. For anyone doing any kind of research it will be very helpful. I think for me del.icio.us was best. It seemed easier for me to use. They all had their good points but I liked del.icio.us. After a while of going back and forth looking at the three bookmarking sites (del.icio.us, furl & magnolia) I was starting to get cross-eyed and confused. I think for something like this to be useful you need to pick one social bookmarking site and stick to it.
I am going to use this sight for my students to explore areas that they are researching. I think this will be a great tool for libraries and computer labs in our schools.

Thing #16

Wow, this one had some interesting stuff. I played with my igoogle start page. I rearranged and then got caught up in the games. I liked the things igoogle had to offer. It is fun to customize a page just for yourself. I am going to keep this page as my permanent page.
Online calendars can be very useful if you are organizing people like a team schedule. I can certainly see the benefits of an online calendar. If I could get my husband to use one we would all be better off. I loved backpack. It has everything you could ever want to keep you organized. I was introducing my husband to this and the calendar help. I think someone who has a really busy life and has to keep lots of things in order would definately benefit from something like backpack. I didn't even know things like this existed. The to-do list was great. I am very much a list person. I'm not sure I would use an online to-do list because I jot my lists as I am on the go, but someone who is planning a vacation or a presentation could benefit from an online to-do list.
I read through the Top 10 Productivity website and loved it. I also shared this one with my husband. He pulled the website up on his computer and was looking it over. It is fun to share the wealth!

Thing #15

Back to blogging after a week in "smokey" California. I already knew about wikis from teaching English last year and the ESL training I had. I think in some situations wikis are really good. I also think we have to be really careful since anyone can edit a wiki and can put wrong information in there. I like the misd Sandbox. I really enjoyed reading those. I think the students can really get into something like this. Sharing ideas with friends and whomever else wishes to read it. I am going to research wikis some more and find a way to incorporate this into some of my ESL lessons. I think students respond well to anything on the computer and will feel more free to blog or write on a wiki than writing on paper.

Thing #14

These are great! I set up accounts with Bubbl.us and Gliffy. You have to be careful with Gliffy since you only get a certain amount free. I will be using both of these in my ESL Reading classes. I can already think of some great ways to use these with things like plot, setting, theme etc. I am going to have my kids build mind maps using the stories they read. This will help them when trying to remember details. These applications make it much easier to use than the other way I was trying. Kudos to 23 Things class!

Thing #13

I didn't know anything existed like Zoho Writer that you could use to make documents that everyone could get to. I really like this feature. I typed a Keno list for my Keno group and wasn't thinking when I typed it on Printmaster. When I tried to send it to everyone, they couldn't open it because they didn't have Printmaster. I switched it to a Word document and some still couldn't open it. If I would have known about Zoho I could have used it and it would have been MUCH simpler!
I used Zoho to type a To Do List and a To Pack list since I am leaving Tuesday to go to California for a week. It is very user friendly. I love the smiley face emotion buttons. I put them all over my paper. This Zoho Writer is a great thing to have. This class is turning out to be much more beneficial than I first thought!

Thing #12

Wow, I love Google! I set up a Google Alert for Mesquite Information and Weather Alerts. I set up IGoogle for my home page and then spent 15 minutes playing the blackjack game. I spent another few minutes playing hangman. I set it up for Music, News, Entertainment and Games. I absolutely love it. This was the most fun "thing" of all for me so far. I set up a Google Notebook for all of the recipes that I love to copy, It took me some time to figure out how to use it but once I did I really had fun. I can certainly see the advantage of using the Google Calendar. With a very busy teenage son and a husband that is very much into riding with the Christian Motorcyclist Association I am going to start using the calendar to keep everyone organized. I can see where this would be a great tool for a coach who has to set schedules for teams etc. I wasn't real interested in the Picasa as I am already using Flickr. My old brain can only handle so much new stuff at once.

Thing #11

As I started checking out all of the different feed sights and search tools I got very confused. It was sort of information overload. Feedster took a really long time to load but was easy to use once it loaded. I really like Google Blog Search and added several feeds to my RSS. I am a raccoon rehabilitator and got some great information as I looked through these things. You really have to be careful what you put in as you are looking for things. I put in raccoons on one search and the first two sights it named were porn sights. Then when I put in raccoon rehabilitation I actually got what I was looking for.

Thing #10

I enjoyed learning about the RSS feeds. When I went to sign up for Bloglines I really messed up because I put in my home email instead of my school email which is what my google account is signed up under. This problem goes back to what they said at the very beginning, be sure to write down all the different passwords and email things that we sign up for during this class. I got frustrated and went to Google Reader and then figured out what I had done. I ended up liking Google Reader better than Bloglines. I subscribed to various sights on my two passions, animals and cooking. I found a lot of great stuff.

This RSS feed stuff can be very helpful in the education field. I am going to add some reading feeds for my classroom. It will be great to get the latest information at the touch of a button instead of having to search out different sights every day.