Thing #23 Summarizing Thoughts

23 Things has provided me with a fun, yet productive learning experience.

1) There were many things that I really enjoyed learning about in these discovery activities. Some of my favorites were being able to create cartoons, trading cards and share documents. Wikis will also be useful. LibraryThing will be helpful for organizing books and all the different tools that Google has just blew me away.
2) I have always seen my self as a Lifelong learner and this endeavor was definitely a learning experience. This pushed me out of my comfort zone and forced me to learn new things that I doubt I would have done on my own. I will be a better teacher for it because it will help me better understand and work with my students.
3) Something that I am taking away from 23 Things is: I still have SO much to learn!
4) For the most part, I think the format and concept was good. I think that I would like to see some actual courses offered that could walk us through some of the activities that required more tech savvy - e.g. podcasting, vidcasts. It might be nice to have some shorter programs or programs that focused around a particular area: classroom management and organization tools; or hottest ideas to hook your kids, etc. In other words, we could group the activities under a particular heading and look at a variety of tools that are useful for that area.
5) I would definitely do something similar to this again in the future.
6) My experience in one word: Enlightening!
My experience in one sentence: Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

- Go for it - I am glad I did.

Thing #22 Nings

I never thought that I would be interested in social networking via computers, but I found this interesting. I know I would not use MySpace or FacePage, but I did like TeacherLingo. As a matter of fact, I was cracking up at some of the stuff I was reading. Only teachers can make this much fun of themselves. I was intrigued when I saw the words "deer in the headlights" under a blog about getting students attention. I read the blog and had to laugh. It is a strategy I will try with my 6th graders. Even if it doesn't work, I am sure I will get a chuckle out of it.

At least with a site like Teacher Lingo, I would be communicating and exchanging ideas with other professionals. I think I would be able to keep up with blogging here.

Thing #21

I have been working on a podcast and having some technical difficulties. About halfway through my recording session using Audacity, I am getting static and interference which prevents me from having a clear recording. I have tried using 2 different microphones, but with no luck as yet. If anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear from you. I will continue to try to work out the bugs, but in the meantime, I will also move onto Thing #22 & Thing #23.

Thing #20

Talk about frustrating!

I spent way too much time on this activity. All day, as a matter of fact. It took a while to find a video that I thought would be relevant and fun for my students. I found one on the Scientific Method, but it took forever to get it posted on my blog; and now it doesn't play properly. It starts and stops and won't play through smoothly. I don't know what to do. The kids will certainly lose interest trying to watch it. I know, because I have.

I am also annoyed with the SBVN link trying to connect whenever I try linking to a new site. Also, has anyone else had difficulty getting the videos to play? I thought it might just be YouTube, but even Teacher Tube videos are problematic.

I am sure some of the problems I have had are operator malfunction, but I also know that if it takes this much time to embed a video on a blog, it is not something that I would do on a regular basis.

The Scientific Method Song

Thing #19 Web 2.0 Awards

After clicking on the awards list, I spent an hour just trying to decide what I really wanted to check out. Common sense told me to get with the program and check out the Education Link. I selected the 1st place winner Docstoc to investigate. It turned out to be an 87 slide PPt presentation and it was great. It presented a ton of useful information and gave me other sites that I want to check out when I have more time. Stu.dico.us, quia, backpack, and schoopy were some that looked very promising to use with or at least introduce to my students.

Thing #18

Office Suite certainly has some quality tools to use. I can see where it would be helpful if you need to communicate with people who don't speak English. It is amazing how many different languages were listed. The presentation features are great and seem fairly easy to use.

It is nice to see some competition for Microsoft Office. I also think it is advantageous if you are working with and communicating with people who are not using Microsoft office

I have already included a document for my fellow teachers in Google Docs.