Thing 23-The beginning

This has been a great experience. I've become a huge fan of RSS. I always knew it would be helpful but never really took the time to learn how it could work for me. Bringing information to me instead of me going out and having to search for it gives me more time. Time is crucial in this job.
I've also enjoyed playing around with mashups and teachertube. Again, this forced me to take the time to see how these things worked. I really think the mashups would be a good way to have students demonstrate their understanding of concepts by using images and manipulating them. I'm going to play with them more this summer and figure out how to work them into projects.
I've always been a huge fan of working with web 2.0 tools. This program has just helped me identify more things to use and also shown me ways they are already being used. I plan to share this with the teachers in my building.
I think my biggest take away from the project is the confidence to continue looking for new ways to affect student learning and new ways to help teachers find ways for students to demonstrate their mastery of content.
I really hope you offer another project like this one focusing on other web 2.0 tools. It was the perfect way to learn. Thanks for your help and encouragement.

Thing 22-Embedding Video

Here's a great video that a group of FIRST graders made. I sent it to a teacher friend who thinks you can't use technology with K-2!



This was easy to do! I picked this video because it was promoting technology for girls. I've seen girls shy away from it and consider technology to be a guy thing! I really want to change young women's minds on that idea. I just thought it was a good message (and the teacher who made it is a guy!) :-)

I tried to use Zamzar but it kept telling me that the video had no file extension. I'm going to play with this a bit more.

Thing 21-YouTube

I loved it! The videos you linked to were great. I especially loved the laughing baby and the free hugs. However, there is some very inappropriate material in YouTube which shows up even when you aren't looking. I understand why it is blocked at school. However, teachertube isn't blocked at my school. I haven't had the chance to work with studenttube but I think it will be a great way to display the movies my kids were making with our new FlipVideo.
The concept is great, we just need to be careful of the forum we make available in schools.

I found a video on how to make an interactive whiteboard with a wii for $100! There are some extraordinary people out there and their work is now available to everyone!

Thing 20

I have to admit that I am using bloglines daily now. I've found many uses for work. It helps keep me organized and brings info to ME instead of me going to look for it. I love it!

Thing 19

I've been playing with delicious a while and actually have a number of accounts for different reasons. Here's the first one I set up for just myself: http://del.icio.us/morrisonmm77/website
I set this up during a training at REMC council meeting. I've had problems editing and bundling the tags on this account. It's strange because I've been able to edit the other accounts but haven't had success with this one. This one I've been working on from home and I have Vista. I wonder if that has anything to do with it?
I also have used delcious accounts in training when I working with teachers. I set one up for the math and science teachers that had recently been given smartboards. The account had three tags. One for science and math and one for the smartboard. The science and math tags had specific content area websites where the teachers could find smartboard resources for their content area. The smartboard tag had websites that had to do with using the smartboard itself. I conducted the training and gave them all the password and they have begun saving sites for each other.
I also have an all staff delicious account set up through the media center. All the teachers that attended a training session on delicious have access to the password. I'd like to see the teachers share what they find in their content area with each other to enhance producitivity and promote community.

Thing 18-Tagging

As a media specialist, I highly endorse tagging. It's what we do~we assign tags (subject headings) to books to make them easier to access in our OPAC. Tags are a great way to group like websites together to make them easier to locate when you next need to find them. This is one of the advantages. A disadvantage is you need to think carefully about how you will tag. Will you use singular and plural (smartboard and smartboards are different catagories); will you use acronyms? (ELA or english). You really have to think what you are doing before you do it otherwise you have to go back and reorganize everything (I speak from experience!)
I like to look at other people's delicious accounts and see what websites they are visiting and how they are tagging their sites, also. It gives me an idea of how to tag things myself.

Thing 17-SlideShare

This is cool! My students are always wanting to bring powerpoint presentations from home to use in class. If they had an account, they could upload their powerpoint to the account and present from this site. The problem is (I'm home now....so I'm not sure) that this is going to be blocked. I already saw a powerpoint that would be considered inappropriate in an educational setting so I assume there are more. That's disappointing because this could really make life much easier!

Check out Death by Powerpoint. That was a great slideshow that demonstrates what is bad about slideshows. It would be an excellent visual to use with students.

Thing 16-New Stuff!

I played with 30 boxes. I've used goggle calendar for 2 years to schedule my media center and my equipment with my staff but it I've had a hard time embedding into my website so I was looking for something different. This is easier to embed but I can't use multiple calendars like I can with goggle calendar.

I also played with Knowtes. I plan on showing this to my special education teachers tomorrow. This could be a great tool to help students study because it uses both text and pictures. Very cool!

Thing 15

Google docs is a great way to work with other people. The Commoncraft video gave me the idea of showing this to our yearbook/newspaper teacher. She has been struggling with a way for her students to save their work online and reach it from any computer. The student editors could then log in and edit (as could she) and the writer could then make changes. She had been struggling with papers missing and disappearing.

I think the concept is great but have personally had difficulties with finding what I'm looking for and logging into the document. I'm hoping this will all be resolved.

I did try to use this with a committee that was working on a school policy but one teacher refused to use google docs because she felt learning the technology would take to much time. I do think it will be valuable to use in this way.

Thing 14

I've been podcasting for a while now. I began with poetry. Students had an assignment to write a number of poems for a unit and those that completed the assignment and received a passing grade were given the opportunity to podcast their work. At first there wasn't a lot of interest but after the teacher played the podcast to the rest of the class they became very excited. Students who hadn't been doing their work, completed the assignment so they could podcast. It was a good first experience for both the new teacher and myself.

The next year, I began working with three teachers on doing commercials. Students read books and then working in groups wrote a commercial to sell the book to the other students. This was a great project because everyone was able to participate and we saw students who normally didn't work well in groups, actually leading the groups.

I would really like to involve other teachers in the podcasting. I'd like to see our teen living teacher have students podcast their positive message assignment. These podcasts could then be played to the entire school at annoucement time.

In addition, I would really like to see teachers using the podcasting as a tool for their students to review for quizzes and tests. Students that are auditory learners would have the advantage of having both their notes and a verbal review to listen to before the test.

Thing 13

I subscribed to the Grammar Girl podcasts. I've heard them before and always thought they would be a great thing to pass on to the english teachers in my building. I also subscribed to a podcast for Catholics; Catholic Army.

I think itunes was the easiest to use but didn't seem to have as much educational material. There were lots of language podcasts and some very strange math podcasts (rapping calculus equations!)

I kept running into broken links on the EPN. There were a number of interesting titles but the links were broken. That was frustrating.

It wasn't as easy to find podcasts as I had hoped.

Thing 12-Podcasts

This is my second year of doing student podcasts at the middle school. The first year was very limited with one teacher participating. Students working in an elective class were writing poetry. They podcast their favorite poems and we linked them to their blog in classblogmeister.

This year, I've added more teachers and we are using core curriculum. Students read the book Life as we Knew It and then working in groups made a podcast commerical to sell the book. Each time I work with the podcasting and the students I learn new things about both the technology and the type and scope of projects that students can handle.

Listening to these new podcasts, especially by elementary age students, has given me a greater understanding of the possibilities for improving the podcasts at the middle school level. I was very impressed with the St. Raphael 6th grade students. These students live in the same city in which I work and are close in age to my students. They did an excellent job of organizing their podcast before they began recording. Go here to listen: http://www.straphael-gc.org/school/school_index.html I like the way they incoporated pictures into their podcast. If students were working in groups each student could handle another part of the podcast, writing the script, illustrating or recording the podcast. It would be a great way to differentiate learning.

Another great example of your students is from Long Elementary School. Go here: http://long.dearbornschools.org/podcast/Long%20Elementary/Mr%20Lindens%20Library/312EAE78-AD8A-464B-ADA1-908B1C173725.html

Thing 11-My Wiki

I think wiki's are a great resouce for online collaboration. They are also a good way to save online information, weblinks, etc. Mine is a classroom webpage. See below:

http://gcmediacenter.wikispaces.com/

Blogging is more personally introspective where wiki's are more collaborative. People can comment on your blog but their input isn't need to have a final posting.

Thing 10-Wiki's

I have some experience using wiki's in my school. When teachers were laid off at the end of last year I held a workshop and taught them how to make a website with a wiki. We loaded their past years work onto the wiki, some photos, etc. It was a tech tool to help them show their tech skills and hopefully find another job.

I use wiki's myself with teachers still in the building. I have 2 teachers that are podcasting and I've linked their audio files to a class wiki. Once the wiki is built, the students are able to listen to the audio files and share them with family members at home. The teachers also use them as an anticipatory set for the next 10 week core class. They create quite a bit of excitement in the new students. http://englishcore.wikispaces.com/ Check out this wiki to see how it works. We haven't opened these wiki's up for collaboration and the other wiki we use is password protected. Teachers are nervous about what is on the internet connected to their name and this was a good way to help them take that first step.

I was on a committee last month formulating a plagiarism policy for the school and tried to use a collaborative wiki with the group to make it easier for everyone to share their ideas but the rest of the group refused. They felt it was to much trouble to learn the technology. If they only understood, it's not hard....it's just new.

Thing 9

I found this to be a bit frustrating. Some of the sites didn't work and when I tried to follow the instructional video that the website gave, the buttons they said to push weren't on the page. It's all part of learning, though. It's not hard, it's just new! I just need to spend time playing with it. I think time is the biggest issue for teachers, though.

I really like this billboard one. I can see kids using this to make posters and billboards using curricular content. Why use construction paper and glue when it's all here on the intenet (and no huge mess to clean up afterwards!).

Thing 8

Who knew Flikr was so much fun? I could sit here and play with this all night long. Do my kids really need dinner tonight?
I can see this being a great tool to use with students. I've found when using technology with my classes that if you give them a writing assignment in the class blog and then a creative assignment to go with it (like creating an avatar) they become much more engaged in the whole process. I can only imagine the fabulous things they would create with spell Flikr.
The sad thing is, once again, we can't use Flikr in schools because of the content issue.

Thing 7-Uploading Pics

Flickr is simple to use. Having said that I still can't see my photos in the resa23 photostream. The help section says the problem should resolve itself in 24-48 hours. I guess I'll wait and see how that works out.

I can see putting together a stream that younger students could use for their powerpoint projects. It would also be a great way for students doing group work to share their photos. They could have access to each others photos while doing multimedia work. It's a great tool but I'm still worried about the content that can be accessed.

Thing 6-the perfect picture

I searched the librarian tag and found this awesome picture. I do spent a lot of time on technology but my head is also into books. It was the perfect picture!

I found better quality pictures by using the interesting tab instead of looking at the pictures according to the date they were uploaded.

As great a resource as this is, I can't see this ever being unblocked in schools until flickr finds a way to give educators some type of filter.

Thing 5

I struggled with this quite a bit. I'm wondering if the videos were done in XP. I have Vista on my machine and was having problems following along. The bloglines link never appeared in my toolbar (although I did find a way to access what I believe is a similar tool). I also couldn't choose a folder in bloglines to add my feed to. I had to add the feed and then modify the feed and put it in the folder. That worked in the end, just not as described in the video. The Warlick blog didn't show up with the html text either. So I just copied the URL anyway and did it that way. It appeared to work out.

I'm hoping this is going to be a good way to help me organize my information and manage my time.

Confessions of a yarn addict looks like a cool blog for anyone that might be into knitting!

Thing 4

I like the RSS feed because I do have favorite blogs that I like to read. In the past, I had them set up to my delicious account but then I would have to visit them frequently to see if anything was there. This is nice because it sends the new posts to me automatically. A huge timesaver. I can add more blogs to the list!

I do need to add all of this to my delicious account so I can easily access all of the web 2.0 technology I'm learning.

Thing 3

Well, I'm obviously having some issues with my blogging set up skills because my blog isn't listed on the main page of 23 Things. I'm still not sure why that is but hopefully my email tonight will straighten that out.

I think blogging would be a great way to work with other committee's in the school. It is often so difficult to meet and exchange ideas on projects. A committee blog would make it easy to collect and store information, exchange ideas and comments, and work together at inbetween committee meetings. The biggest hurdle is getting teachers to use the technology. I think if they invested some time learning some of the web 2.0 technology they could see how it can really help them effectively use their time.

I'm working with one of our 7th grade ELA teachers as her core class blogs. It's been a lot of fun and the students have responded very enthusiastically. They are blogging about reading. We started with blogging and then added avatars to the blogs. Then we added podcasting. The students enjoy the technology and after the 10 week class is over often comment on how much they miss the class.

The biggest concern at this age is posting inappropriately. For this reason, we use David Warlick's Classblogmeister. Students posts (even their avatars) have to be approved by a teacher before they are posted on the blog. I wouldn't use any other blogging site with students.

Thing 1 and Thing 2

I have to admit to being a David Warlick groupie so I had already read his article. Our students already learn the way he envisions; we are the ones that are behind!



This year I have been blogging and podcasting with different classes that come into my media center. I have seen some very cool things happen during these sessions. Students who normally have a difficult time staying on task are actually leading their peers in podcasting. Students who find writing boring are blogging and happy to do it because they don't have to do work! :-) That's one of the coolest things about technology; they have fun using the technology and don't even realize they are learning curricular content.

I am hoping that 23 things gives me more ideas to take back to my school and use with my students. I am also hoping to share ideas and strategies with this group of professionals!

Writing on the internet is a daunting prospect. Everything we post is available for the world to see. It definitely makes me realize I need to think carefully and edit my work before posting. However, I think students feel the same way. They are more careful with their work when they know it will be published for everyone to read so they do reread and edit their work.