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.