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!