Thing 23

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

Oh, I had so many faves! Setting up my blog was very exciting! Learning about Flickr, mashups and 3rd party sites, RSS feeds, on-line image generators, LibraryThing, Delicious, wikis, Livemocha, TeacherTube, and Nings were my top favorite discovery exercises.

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

This course has allowed me to see how Library 2.0 connects us and allows for better communication, support, and collaboration. I see my place now in Library 2.0 as a teacher and learner. I will continue to implement many of the 23 Things to further my learning as a person and teacher as well as supplement my students' learning.

3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

Yes, I was extremely pleased and surprised at how user-friendly this course was! I consider my technological skills to be developing so I was slightly curious as to whether I could "hang with the players." I found the 23 things to be well organized, explained well, and applicable to my second graders. Also, I felt supported by the Kickball Captain, VWB, and found the videos from the CommonCraft guys very helpful.

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program's format or concept?

I honestly can't think of any improvements. The format was low-pressure, informative, and supportive! The district should be very proud of this course. I applaud the creators!

5. If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?

Yes, yes, yes!

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?

23 Things was overwhelmingly eye-opening, informative, user-friendly, and realistic for classroom applications!

Thing 22

I belong to a ning called Projects by Jen. http://projectsbyjen.ning.com/ It is a great place to find other teachers for ideas as well as ongoing and/or upcoming collaboration projects. I have also applied for a second grade teacher ning. I love all this support and collaboration!

Thing 21

This is a Photostory I completed this past spring. It includes my students' bird artwork as well as their recordings of their bird research.

Thing 20

I have used TeacherTube before to post videos on my class wiki. The only issue I had with the videos was that they buffered a lot. Any suggestions?

My embedded video is from my classroom when our eggs hatched in the incubator. It was one of my first times recording video so it is pretty rough, but my students did not seem to mind. They watched the videos repeatedly on our class wiki.



TeacherTube has so many creative, useful, and classroom friendly videos. TeacherTube and Blinkx are fabulous resources!

Thing 19

I explored Livemocha. I signed up to learn Spanish and found the site to be very user-friendly. The lessons were well explained and I received immediate feedback once I submitted my sentences written in Spanish. A tutor even popped in to ask if any help was needed! There were resources such as flashcards and being able to chat with other users of the same lessons. I will definitely continue with this--at least until school starts. :) This would be a great tool for teachers and older students.

Thing 18

I explored Google Docs. I did not see much difference between the word processing and presentation programs compared to Mircosoft's. This was a good discovery because my upcoming students might be using Google Docs. I very much like that Google Docs users can share and collaborate on documents. This is a big-time plus! I also liked that the documents could be accessed from any computer with Internet connection. Am I correct in thinking that this would mean students could work on documents on their home computer? If so, this could have merit as well as negative aspects (such as not knowing if the student is completing the work independently).

I did have trouble using the spreadsheet on Google Docs. I was able to make a spreadsheet, but couldn't format the cells because the toolbar would not become active (don't know what to call this--the toolbar was gray, I couldn't use it despite clicking on it). The Help section did not help with my issue.

I was pleased to see Docs for Teachers, but felt like many of the documents were not geared to the elementary level. I would rather make my own as I have done in the past.

In the future, I will explore Open Office on my work laptop.

Thing 17

Loved the video on how to use Rollyo! I created a searchroll on bird facts. Rollyo was a new tool for me. Thus far, I am not sure that it is succinct enough for 2nd graders. I will continue to explore it.
http://rollyo.com/vstones/bird_sites_for_kids/

Thing 16

I created a class wiki this past spring. (Many thanks to my technology coach, Amy Markham. She rocks!) My experience with the wiki was one of my favorite in my 14 years of teaching! I started the wiki based on our bird research, but the content quickly grew due to our enthusiasm--mine and the students'. My purpose of the wiki was for the students to have a central place where content could be referenced, researched, and discussed.


I teach second grade and was concerned about security issues as well as the students having too much freedom to edit information on pages. In order to alleviate my concerns, the students were listed as members while I was the organizer and I made the page private (which means you have to be invited to join by the organizer or ask to join). Also, I locked all pages as I created them so the students posted to the Discussion tabs rather than editing information on the pages. There is an e-mail component to wiki. I could not figure out how to disable it, so I told my students it was off limits. (Of course, one of my more technologically with-it students, e-mailed a "Hi!" message to the whole class before I had the talk. Really, my second graders' lack of fear is my inspiration to try new things!) The quality of some of my students' comments was a bit lacking at times, so I will especially work on this with future classes. However, I was very pleased with my students interest and use of our wiki to explore particular content, research, and discussion.


Below are some of the page titles on my class wiki.

• Animal Cams--links to animals in zoos and the wild (very cool)
• Bird Sounds and Videos--links to aid in bird knowledge and research
• Math Practice--links to practice specific skills
• Our Bird Research--slide show of student artwork and recording of their bird research
• Our Chicks--video of our chicks hatching in the incubator
• Poetry Results--poll the students completed about poems
• Poems--students posted poems as well as commented on other students' poems

Thing 15

A Vision of Students Today was very thought provoking--scary, but informative about students' reality. I enjoyed reading Away from Icebergs by Rick Anderson and To a Temporary Place in Time by Dr. Wendy Schultz. Some of my fondest memories as I child involved being at the library. I loved looking up books in the catalog system (might be the organization that appealed to me) as well as the process of checking out books. Going to the library from elementary through high school was special to me. It was disheartening to see the changes of libraries over time because I felt that the personal element was disappearing. Computers seemed so cold and impersonal. As libraries have Incorporated technology and I have learned more about using the web, I see how well they go together. I think of the library of the past fondly, but now understand the necessity of Library 2.0. Technology has changed our world thus influencing how we do things. Library 2.0 improves our communication and collaboration with others.

Thing 14

I stumbled across Technorati while looking for blogs of interest to me. This is how I found the second grade teacher blog I responded to in Thing 12.

I like the different features of Technorati. It was interesting to see different results when searching School Library Learning 2.0 via blog posts, tags, and the blog directory. Another point I noticed and liked was the difference between popular blogs rated by fans versus by authority. For instance, Boing Boing rated number 1 on the Top 100 blogs by fans while it rated number 5 on the Top 100 blogs by authority.

After exploring Flickr, LibraryThing, de.lico.us, and Technorati, I definitely see the importance of tagging information. It is a helpful and necessary organizational tool for content. I can see Joshua Schachter's point about tagging being better suited for the users of blogs rather than the publishers. On the other hand, when I was looking for a blog of interest for Thing 12, Technorati helped me locate what I wanted.

Quick clarification for me: Delicious tags are completed by the users. Technorati provides tagging services to publishers of blogs, media sites, and connects advertisers to blogs and media sites. Am I understanding this correctly?

Thing 13

Delicious was delightful once I started exploring it. I did get overwhelmed at first, but once I got going it begin to make sense. I wonder about incorporating the use of social bookmarking with my second graders. We do many research projects throughout the year. Even when it is an individual project, the students are talking to one another about what they've found and/or information needed. I will check into using the social bookmarking for next year. I am sure the students would love it! They love to share!

Thing 12

The article regarding ways to increase comments on your blog gave some great advice. Much like active participation is a key part of teaching lessons, participation on a blog is an essential element. Communication is the point to blogging, right? I also thought the concept of meaningful, well-mannered comments was important. Respect is always a good thing even if you are not face-to-face.


I have posted a couple of comments of Library2Play blogs already and will continue to do so in the future.

I posted to A Second Grade Teacher's Blog. It took a lot of searching to find a blog that fit my interests of second grade technology projects. I found this blog and though the teacher, Patti Harju, is well beyond my technological skills, I did recognize "wiki" and "skype" so I read on and found some great inspiration. I commented on Patti's blog regarding future collaboration amongst our classes, and she agreed. I put a feed to Patti's site on my blog. I will continue to look for other blogs that are of interest and relevance to me.

Thing 11

I found LibraryThing very interesting. It was great to begin a catalog of the books I have read as well as to see comments of other readers. It definitely gives me a great resource to find what I want to read next. I scratched the surface by looking at some of the groups and topics, but did not join/post to any. It was helpful to do a tag search on children's literature. This site is a keeper for me!

Thing 10

What fun!!! I especially enjoyed Custum Sign Generator, Big Huge Labs, Dumpr, and Wordle.


There seems to be a theme for me. I was pleasantly overwhelmed by the many choices there are for creating unique images. I have also noticed that I am quick to discover which sites work best for me due to the formats and my interest level. For instance, I found
Happy Face Generartor to be way too happy for me and Glogster was cool but seemed to be geared more for teenage girls.


I could see using these image sites in the classroom for activities such as reading response activities to literature and visual aides to support research. Also, these activities would be great for student technology portfolios. My second graders would eat this up! It is fun and creative and I love having all the options for my students (okay, me too!).

Thing 9

I found How to Create Your Circle of the Wise an informative text. Google Blog Search and Topix.net were the easiest search tools for me. The other resources did not appeal to me due to the formatting.

Thing 8

The reader with subscribed feeds is fabulous! I loved being able to use the Google Reader's staff suggestions as a starting place because I was a bit overwhelmed at first.

This technology simplifies the gathering of new information. The main advantages that I see are being plugged into current topics and being able to get ideas by looking at other people's readers (if they are public). It is really mind boggling to me! The amount of information that is out there is incredible, but more importantly the sharing of the information is critical for continuing our learning and experiences.

A favorite professional feed that I love is about children's literature. How refreshing it will be to keep up with current books as well as get other people's opinions and/or ideas about literature. Personally, I was thrilled to find a feed for People Magazine to keep me up to date on entertainment stories.

The use of readers by librarians, teachers, and administrators is numerous. How this is done is going to depend on individual needs, but the potential for knowledge as well as networking is too good for this to not be incorporated into our professional lives.

Thing 7

Wow! There is so much to explore!

Google Calendar is very user-friendly. My first thought was setting up a calendar per nine weeks for my teammates and I to record content lessons and TEKS by color code (for example, science=green, math=orange,...). This would put everything in a consistent format, and we could all access the document.

I will take more time to explore Google Docs since my students will probably be using this rather than Microsoft next year.

Thing 6

Wow! There are so many cool things to explore! I had so much fun playing with Mosaic Maker! Here is what I created using my photos from a recent vacation.

Thing 5

I had used Flickr before, but was very interested and glad to know about the Creative Commons site. Copyright issues have always been a concern of mine when my second graders have needed photos of their research topics (such as birds, tundra animals).

I downloaded this pic from Flickr because it would be a perfect addition to my class wiki. My students fell in love with watching the panda cam I posted on our wiki.

Thing 3

I loved setting up my blog! Playing with it was so fun! I am having trouble with my Avatar showing insconsistently so it is my current challenge.

Thing 2

The hardest habit for me is one that has been an issue all of my life: self-confidence. I have made a conscious effort to improve this over the past few years. Stepping out of my comfort zone has been the biggest step to improving my confidence.

The easiest habit for me is playing. That is why I am so interested in this course. Playing is one of the best ways that I learn! If I am playing, I don't have to worry about failure.

Newbie

I am thrilled to begin the 23 things @ Library2Play course! Blogging is new to me and I am excited to be using it as a learning and reflection tool.