Thing #23

I am finished! I have really learned a lot and can't wait to share with my teammates and students this year. My favorite new items were Rollyo and Delicious. They will really help my students do research in a much more streamlined and practical way. Nothing really surprised me- a lot of things I had seen, but not done on my own before. I like the format. You can work at your own pace. This was a great way for me to get professional development hours while spending time with my family. I would absolutely participate in more professional developments like this! I would describe this experience as practical! It was a practical way for me to reach my students and a practical way for me to be professionally developed!

I can't wait to share many of these things with my students. My 4th graders love doing projects on the computer and I am going to focus on using the computer appropriately this year. They need to develop good netiquette at a young age. We use a lot of technology in science, and now I can have my students do more in depth research using some of the "things."

Thing #22

I looked at a couple of the Nings. They were very interesting and had a lot of relevant educational information. I do think I'll use them as a resource in the future. I do wish things were more streamlined. A lot of people don't want to use too many different networking websites.

Thing #21

I created a photostory of pictures of my family. I was having a little trouble with the background music. I'll tweak it later. I need to get a microphone to add voice to the video. I want students to use this to share what they have learned in math and science. I want my students to teach each other.

Thing #20

Students love watching videos! I use a lot of discovery education videos. I plan on adding some of our science videos to our grade level blog so students can share what they learn with their families. Here is a great video about long division, something we spend a lot of time on.



Here is a teachertube video on multiplication.




Here is a video I created and posted on youTube a few years ago. It's of my son, who is now almost 4.

Thing #19

There were many sites that I have explored. I plan on using Delicious, Googlemaps, Craigslist, Rollyo, Facebook. I cannot wait to use all of these resources. My favorite 2 that I plan on using are Rollyo and Delicious to help direct my students to appropriate information and resouces on the web.

Thing #18

I plan on using GoogleDocs to create links in blogger. It is very seemless. Openoffice works well for students. We have a lot of versions of Office floating around our campus, and openoffice will take that confusion away. Can you add special fonts to openoffice? I feel like that is the disadvantage. I'm sure that the cost savings far outweigh that disadvantage. Students do not need to have access to all the bells and whistles of MS office.

Thing #17

Bruce Goodner's Rollyo video is very helpful! I plan on using this when we research Science. If will help keep students on task instead of trying to find appropriate websites.

Here is my rollyo.

Rollyo will really help my students research next year!

Thing #16

I posted a comment to the Sandbox. I agree with someone else's comment that it's hard to see where the current information is. Maybe there should be some guidelines put in place when you create. I created a private wiki to share with my 5 other teammates. That way we can collaborate with out emailing so much back and forth. I had a cadre meeting today and I was so confused by the large number of emails that went out in planning on when and where we were to meet. Maybe a wiki will cut down on that. I do want to look more at examples of how teachers are using wikis to communicate with parents. Is there a way you can be notified when the wiki changes, or do you have to monitor it yourself? I may also use wikis for students to work on collaborative projects.

Thing #15

I enjoyed Rick Anderson's article "Away from the Icebergs." Libraries are changing dramatically at a very fast pace. For many years, your knowledge was only as good as your local library. One of my favorite movies, "Good Will Hunting" talked about utilizing your local library for learning rather than paying for a Harvard education. While, many people prefer education in a more traditional setting, that too is changing- getting a little off topic now! People in big cities and near universities were able to utilize a more sophisticated collection of books than people in rural towns. Prior to the internet, many people relied solely on TV and newspapers to get information. There was a slow trickle across the United States of information. With the increase of technology and Library 2.0 resouces, everyone has the same opportunities! Students can access the same journals and articles no matter where they live. This has led to an increase in web-based degree programs. Library 2.0 means to me that students need to utilize more digital learning. Today's students will grow up with a Kindle and prefer that to carrying a stack of books. Textbooks and research will all be done online and in digital formats. Our libraries will still be a hub for information, but the information can be accessed from all over the school. It is nice that I can seemlessly use the library 2.0 resources from my classroom, computer lab, and library. In the future, I see a lot non-fiction resouces being put on the web or readers.

Thing #14

I was not able to find anything on School Library Learning 2.0. The popular blogs search from #2 was not available. Technorati is not as user friendly as I would like it to be. I'll keep playing around with it. I like how I can create the tags in blogger, delicious, and flickr. That way I can search for what I am looking for. I am going to use a blog to send information to parents this year. The tags will help the parents find important information.

Thing #13

Social Bookmarking sites are great. An important aspect of education is collaboration and social bookmarking makes sharing and collaborating about different websites easier. In delicious, I found some great math teacher websites that I plan on using this year. I can share my bookmarks with my students when I give them the website address. I wonder if I can only share a few bookmarked sites or if my students can see all of them? I'd like to create lists pertaining to certain topics. I guess that's where the tags come in. I'll probably create another list that I share with students as well as the one I use and share with other teachers. It really simplifies sharing websites with others.

Thing #12

1. The most important point that was made about commenting was contributing to the general discussion. I can not stand when people attach each other's views and say hurtful, insulting things. I have seen this with an alias and a real name. You can give a different perspective on a topic without attack the views or philosophy of others. I do see the point of sometimes using an alias and sometimes using your real name. I just participated in an educational blog about G/T math. I felt comfortable using my real name since it was all SBISD teachers. If I'm commenting on a blog/website where I do not know the people, I'm more comfortable using an alias. I do that more for security, not because I am willing to say more without my "real" name.
2. I have been making comments on blogs all summer. I have made comments on Becoming Mary Poppings, Linda's 23 Things, Laurie's "All My Things", Mrs. Hamilton's Blog, and Mrs. Winegar's Blog. Commenting is great collaboration.
3. I participated in G/T math blog. We have to post answers to questions and comment and respond to other people's answers. We were able to share a lot of good, useful classroom ideas through our comments and discussion back and forth. I also found a parenting blog that are commented on that was discussing issues about children my kids' ages.

Thing #11

I love LibraryThing. If I taught Language Arts, I would have my students keep track of the different books that they read and have them add reviews of books and use the suggestions to help them select other books. I added some personal and professional books that I have read. It was interesting to read other people's reviews. I will play around with this more in the future. Look for my screen name carrieag01.

Thing #10

I had fun creating a comic strip. I also made a wordle, but I'll have to paste it from another computer since this computer wouldn't cooperate. I would like to use the sign creator, motivational posters, wordle, comic strip creator, and trading cards in the classroom. Last year my students struggled with vocabulary in math and science. I want them to use these tools to visulaize the words that they need to learn.

Thing #9

Which Search tool was the easiest for you?

Edublogs was the easiest to search through. Google Blog will be easier if I can find the right search words.

Which was more confusing?

The Google Blog search didn't help me that much. When I searched for SBISD or Spring Branch ISD, I found mostly political ramblings from different bloggers. There is definitely a need for more teachers to collaborate through educational blogs. I am interested in blogs and different collaboration tools to help teachers share ideas. I didn't like how you had to register to access Bloglines search.

What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find?

I am still searching for some great blogs! I will post them in the comments! I haven't found many math teacher blogs... surprisingly!

Thing #8

What do you like about RSS and readers?

I like how I can log into one place to get all of my updated blog entries and news articles.

How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your school or personal life?

Personally, I will use it to streamline my web browsing of news. Schoolwise, I can make a feed reader that I can link through my blog to include science and math information. I can also create one for other childcare parents on important early childhood articles.

How can libraries/teachers/administrators use readers or take advantage of this new technology?

We can create Feeds for students to read up about current information in different academic disciplines.

Thing #7

Google Docs
I want to use this for collaborating with my co-workers, as well as sharing information with other parents at Bendwood. I would love to include information on our grade level blog and link to PDF or documents. Here is my sample.

Google Calendar
I absolutely love google calendar. I have created different calendars and I like how you can color code and overlay them on top of each other. I set the daily agenda reminders so I get an email every morning letting me know what is going on that day. I created a SBISD calendar to use with my grade level blog. I will post it on the bottom of my team blog. I also like how you can copy events from one calendar to another. Here is my SBISD Calendar. I'll add TAKS dates later.

Thing #6

The mashups are really neat. I plan on using the Trading Card Maker this year in science. The students can make trading cards about various concepts and share them with the class. I also want to make some motivational posters. Using my own pictures should be fun! I want my students to learn about Flickr and how to appropriately use the site to save pictures. Students are not very clear about copyright laws and we need to start early to educate them on correct use of internet resources.

Thing #5

I enjoyed searching Flickr. I plan on using this to search for Science images to integrate with my science units. I love this picture of the clouds. We do learn about different types of clouds. Also, with all the rain and cloudy days recently, my son and I have been talking about different clouds.


Photo by Kevindooley

Thing #4.5

My mom finished her blog too!!! Check it out!!

Thing #4

I emailed my blog information and now I'm official!!!

I love looking at other people's blogs and learning about what they are discovering! What an awesome learning experience.

Thing #3

Fortunately I am familiar with Blogger since I have 3 other blogs that I am currently managing. One of the things that I am NEVER satisfied with is the "skin." I just can't get the right look that I am looking for. I will continue to experiment with that in the coming weeks. I had fun creating my avatar. I really tried to focus on something that represented me.

Thing #2

I have always considered myself a "lifelong learner." I was quite intrigued with the 7 1/2 habits of Lifelong Learners. I feel that the easiest habit for me is "Use Technology to your advantage." I always use technology whenever possible in my personal and professional life. My most difficult habit is "Begin with the end in mind- goals." I tend to do, not plan and set goals before I do.