Thursday, July 23, 2009
Thing 23
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
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
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.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Thing 19
Friday, July 17, 2009
Thing 18
Thing 17
http://rollyo.com/vstones/bird_sites_for_kids/
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Thing 16
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
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Thing 15
Monday, July 13, 2009
Thing 14
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
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Thing 12
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
Saturday, July 4, 2009
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!).
Friday, July 3, 2009
Thing 9
Thing 8
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.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Thing 7
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.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Thing 6
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
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.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Thing 3
Thing 2
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.