Thing 23 - I hear the fat lady singing! Must be over!

I did it! I had doubts that I could finish once school started, but I did it! I really enjoyed this! I am constantly trying to get the teachers in my school more aware of the technology available. Many of the other TLTs in our district are somewhat shy of exploring the possibilities. I am just grateful for having the opportunity to try out so many new things. Some were not useful to me, but most were useful in one way or another, either for work or home. And a few will be very very useful and, hopefully, used to excite teachers and students in our school.

The best for students? Where to start ... Blogging - Great stuff. It really helped to put my thoughts and words on "paper" so to speak. It's great to look back on now, as a reminder, of the many new things I've tried. A lot in a short time to take in and blogging it helps sort it all out. I intend to show my students my blog while explaining the technology and Internet safety. I am a fan of the wiki too. I hope to use that with some of my classes. It may have to be as a "whole class" project rather than individual, but at least they'll be exposed and know what blogs and wikis are (unlike their teacher who didn't have much of a clue at the start off all this.) Flikr is great, didn't know it could do so much. And I always wanted to know more about podcasting. I may try to add a podcast or two to my webpage.

My very favorite and most useful to me is the social bookmarking. I will be using this a lot for both school and home. I can't wait to get my very favorite favorites onto delicious! I'm not importing them because it's time to weed them out anyway. I hope to introduce it to other TLTs too.

It's been a great experience. I appreciate it being made available to me. I love learning about technology, and know that this is one subject where the learning will never end. Join me! Awww, come on in, the water's fine!

Thing 22 - Video to go

I like watching the videos on YouTube. There are some fun ones on there. I don't think there's much there for elementary school use, however. At least I couldn't find any that I could use. YouTube is blocked at our school at any rate. TeacherTube had some good videos though. I found 3 right off the bat that either I can use or that I'll share with other teachers. Good for elementary school. I'll have to check when I'm back at school to see if it's blocked for teacher or for student viewing. SchoolTube seems to be more for High School use. There were some educational ones, some like the student math rap, that might be useful. Other than that it was more students making reports or projects there. My biggest problem with both TeacherTube and SchoolTube was that the videos took forever to download. YouTube and http://www.ted.com/ downloaded much faster.

Thing 21 - Be still my twittering heart!

I was not terribly impressed by any of the microblogging sites. Pownce "looked" the nicest and Twitter seemed to have the most traffic. I see no real use for me at all, either at home or work. Using an instant message program seems to serve the purpose that these would for me. To do a blog to share opinions and ideas or to get or dispense help is fine, but other forms of "permanent" dialog on the web bothers me. Then again I am not into Facebook or anything like that either. My college kids are into Facebook and that makes me nervous. I hope things posted don't come back to bite them. Some stuff I read on these spaces, without even being a member, and the pictures! wow! Some stuff was pretty personal. I don't think I'd ever use this form of technology. It's just not for me.

Thing 20 was delicious!

I LOVE this! My user name is adacutandpaste . I still have a few bugs to work out but I love the idea. I tried adding the buttons to my other computer too, I signed in and they added, it says my user name, shows up in my del.icio.us tab, but aren't added to my page. I know I can add them separately, but the buttons are much easier. Hope I can work it out so I can use the buttons in both places. Maybe I have to reboot, I'll see. Once I get set up with buttons in both places, I'll be able to do things so much better and faster!

I don't think it will be used in the classroom, but between home and school, definitely. I'd like to get the other TLTs in our district to use this and we can network and share websites so much easier. We can tag with a common name and use the name+topic in the search. It will be great if we can get people to do this. Sharing is so much fun! Thanks for showing us how to do this!

Thing 19 - TAG - You're it!

I think that tagging is a wonderful way to organize things. I wish we could tag saved emails or documents on my computer! I can't tell you how much time I've spent trying to find a document that I put in a folder (I made folders to organize, right?) only to find out that I can't remember WHICH folder. It could be one of many! Same with saved emails, I have them organized in folders in my cabinet, just have trouble figuring out which folder. Being a computer lab teacher, I'm always looking for websites to use in class. I end up bookmarking them into several folders, because they could go lots of places, and then I still can't find them. I am so excited to try this! I can add as many tags as I want and it's still only one bookmark. I think it's important to think about what tags you want for the item. Stop and think ... "If I come back next month, what would I put in a search if I wanted to find this site?" Then use that as tags and then ask, "what else" and not worry so much about the "proper title" of the item, more about how YOU would describe it and look for it. If you are sharing the items (such as the case with social bookmarking) then think in broad terms about what other may search for.

Ning 18 - I mean Thing 18

I must confess that I had no clue what you were talking about when you said "NING" and "Social Networking" I looked through the site, and was still confused. I had to look it up on Wikipedia! I took a lot of time looking through the site and forums and blogs and individual members and education sites. It's an interesting idea, but I don't think practical for students K-4 that I teach. There doesn't seem to be the controls we need to protect students. At least that's what I understand from the blogs and forum questions. Maybe for High School, but I'd bet our district wouldn't allow the NING. However, I could see it as being useful between teachers within a school or within the district. It may be that there are quicker solutions when questions are asked or ideas shared this way as opposed to calling or emailing a fellow teacher who can't answer and sends it on, etc. In fact, you would get multiple ideas shared across the board. Someone in the district is bound to have had the same problem before, or already made up a lesson you want to tackle, etc. I think I'll look into starting one for our district.

Thing 17 - Web 2.0 winners

I visited the "My Heritage" site, not expecting much, and was thoroughly delighted! It was so easy to use! Really just fill in the blanks, and you can add pictures, more than one to a person if you like. It creates reports, cool charts with fancy frames and all, and even will help search for ancestors, although I suspect you'll have to pay and join other sites to obtain information if the search results are outside of "My Heritage" (which is free). I don't know if there is much use in a classroom or library setting for this, but I'll love it at home. Things are pretty touchy nowadays with divorces, single parent homes, and grandparents raising kids so Family Trees aren't done in elementary school anymore.

Thing 16 - Teach Digital

In the first video on Digital students at Analog schools I agree with the sentiments. My daughter is in college and I have one recently graduated from college and they are facing the same problems I faced 25 years ago in college. Lectures. Professors stand and lecture for 50 minutes to 2 hours. You, as students, take notes and fall asleep. The only respite is if you have a lab. I don't know if new technology is the only answer, I just believe that more variety in teaching and learning has to happen. In grade school and Middle school they were both hands on learners. Give my daughters a choice and dioramas, making videos, or doing demonstrations was always a hands down winner. Never the written report or oral presentation. That doesn't change as they get older. Why is it that there are so few choices in High school and College? If you learn by doing as a child, what makes teachers think that you can suddenly change and learn simply by reading or listening? Yes, I know you can't do dioramas in college, but you can build webpages, make podcasts, create charts and graphs, film videos and a lot more.

The second video, the teacher movie, just made me sad. I feel that I am lucky to be in a great district where these kinds of attitudes are few and far between (although not totally missing). I think that many districts may have these attitudes in the majority rather than the minority. I do think that many of our teachers are afraid to learn new things though. Or maybe they just have to much on their plate. I know as a tech person I encourage my peers and offer to help or teach them and very few take advantage of the offer. But I'll keep plugging away at them!

The last video on "Do schools kill creativity" was entertaining. I must admit that when it started I looked at the timer and thought "19 minutes! Urrgg!" but it was OK. I realized half way through that in a way, he was teaching in the old fashioned way, lecture. He was, however, using comedy so it wasn't all bad. Overall I agree with his sentiment that we, many times, squelch the creativity of students to make them fit into a mold. I also agree with a comment on the page that a viewer said, and that was that his meds helped him focus so he could produce his creativity. I think we need to open up more to our "creative mind of a child" regardless of our age. We need to not be afraid to try new things and explore. Isn't that what we are all doing in this class?

Thing 15 - Cast your pod out there

There are some podcasts of value to middle and high school, but for teaching in the elementary, not many. The only thing I found for younger kids were storybooks. They are great, but I would want them to follow along in a book so they make the correlation of words on paper to spoken words. I was not sure where to find them, never really looked because I didn't think there would be anything of use to me. I'm glad to know that there is a wide variety of podcasts out there. As far as using them myself, as a computer lab teacher in an elementary school, it probably won't happen very often. I have thought about making my own podcasts though, to go with lessons I teach, or just to spark interest in technology with my students. Our principal is very tech minded and I think she would like the kids to have the exposure to podcasting. We wouldn't download them to ipods or anything at the school level however.

Thing 14 - It all started with a seed (POD)

Podcasts! I've listened to some before, I didn't actually realize that they were so new. I checked out several of the sites. Many were for students above the elementary level, but I found a few very good. The "storynory" site was good, lots of stories for kids to listen to. I spotted this one right away http://storynory.com/2006/05/06/the-gingerbread-man/ and listened because I know my kindergarten teachers do a unit on the gingerbread man. It's one more they can use. Another good story site is http://www.learnoutloud.com/Podcast-Directory/Literature/American-Classics/Childrens-Fun-Storytime-Podcast/23099 there are a lot of classics there, either single stories or a chapter by chapter, like "Alice in Wonderland".

I also found the SanDiego Zoo podcasts cool. http://www.sandiegozoo.org/podcast/index.html They have information about the animals as well as a glimps into the zoo. Third grade researched animals last year and the kids loved looking up info on animals. I found some videos they could watch and I think these podcasts will be a great addition for them. The site has some video podcasts about the early years of the zoo and the animals they had there. Very interesting.

I also checked out Grammar girl http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/default.aspx it looks like it has a few things that will work for elementary, like the "Everybody: Singular or Plural" but the teachers would need to read ahead and pick a section the kids should hear as some of it is too complicated for elementary. It would be perfect for middle or high school though.

Thing 13 - the show must go on

I took a look at the options. Thumbstacks is easy and most like a standard presentation. Students could use this for classroom presentations. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of PowerPoint, but it is sufficiant for simple presentations. It can be pulled up on any computer, PC or Mac, without any particular program as long as it has internet, so that's a plus. And it's free. I made this 3 page slideshow in a few minutes, (once I made the pictures public in Flickr) http://www.thumbstacks.com/play.html?show=a7847230f1803952ab692df4b0543591

Slideshare you have to have a slideshow to download, so you need a program to begin with, but then you can open it anywhere or email the link and someone could see it on the other side of the world without the same program. I like the idea of combining a slideshow and a podcast to make a webcast. I might use that to show students or other teachers how to use some programs or websites.

Slide is super easy and very cool. Kids will like it, but it's not a school or professional slidshow. It is fun though! I made this in about 1 minute http://www.slide.com/r/zq_Nl4ds2z-u1_4GtSdPZmccT5k-K_HJ?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original
I can see using this to share pictures with family and friends.

Thing 12 - On with the show!

I tried the Zoho Show. Again I like Power Point better but it's pretty good if you don't own PPT. I made a show and published it here. http://show.zoho.com/public/adacutandpaste/Thing%2012%20-%20Zoho%20Show

I think this could be a good multi media lesson for students. I do Powerpoint presentations with 4th graders and not all of them have PPT at home. I may show them this once they've learned powerpoint as an option for those who don't have PPT and want to make shows at home for school. They would have to post it to the web publically though. I tried exporting and saving as both a powerpoint doc and a powerpoint show and I couldn't get either one to open on my computer in the powerpoint application.

I tried Library thing http://www.librarything.com/ I love that. I belong to a book club and want to use it to help remember names of books read there as well as at home. I think it's great! Teachers could easily use it to list books they suggest students read. Great product and very easy to use.

Thing 11 - More trouble than it's worth???

I think the applications are great if you don't have another option but they are no threat to MS office! Maybe, once you've gotten used to it, you can navigate it better than I can. I've made a document and made it public. I couldn't post it to my Blog. It said the Blog was unavailable (I noticed it split the name of the Blog, maybe it's too long?) If making it public worked, you can find it here.
http://writer.zoho.com/public/adacutandpaste/23-Things---Thing-11

Thing Ten - Wiki work!

Well, I jumped in that water and got all wet again! But I didn't drown! I made a wiki! It's not much to look at yet, but I added a page for the Where's Wanda Wiki that I mentioned in the last post. I hope it works well. We'll see. It was easy to make the wiki. I did mine open to the public because I want Wanda to be sent all over, but I'm thinking of making a private one that the kids can post to in computer class. Looking at the teacher help for wikispace, It should not be hard to give them access, wikispaces does it if you send them a list. I'm still concerned about it staying appropriate, but I'll just keep an eye on it and see. My space is here http://wolterswikiworld.wikispaces.com if you want to check it out! Feel free to add to the page called "23 things" and test it out.

Thing 9 - Wiki Wiki!

I think the concept of the Wiki is great, but I think security and "vandalism” must be a big issue. The sites I visited were protected and you either has to be part of a select group, or at least sign up, in order to edit and/or post. Some would allow you to post, but then it’s just a blog, isn’t it? I had trouble deciding if they were websites, wikis, or blogs. There were good ideas out there though. The “Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki”, http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Main_Page , had a lot of good information for librarians and IT people. It wasn’t as user friendly as others, but I could see it as a wiki rather than a one person website or a blog. In “Kyli and Brittney’s wiki space” and “Brittany’s Space”, http://bjordan.wikispaces.com/ , the students organized class notes to help study for English class. This would be great as a wiki for group study. Other group members can correct wrong information, fill in missing information and express opinions. It ends up being a great study guide! The “Study Hall site, http://studyhall.wikispaces.com/ , was excellent too. Homework is easily displayed and accessed. Different teachers hyperlinked subjects titles to pages where they put in helps, homework, links, and notes for students. It was easy to get around in.

On one wiki page, http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/wiki/wikiideas1.cfm , I found an idea I may try at school. It is for “Where is Wanda Wiki” an online version of Flat Stanley. The third grade teachers at my school have their students send out Flat Stanley’s and track where Stanley visits. I’d like to coordinate that with a Wanda Wiki. I’m thinking of sending her out in an email to a couple people and asking them to write on the wiki page and then forward the email to a couple more people. We can track it in computer class. I am concerned about appropriate information being added since we are an elementary school. When I make a wiki, I’ll see if I can get it to work.

Thing 8 - more RSS

These search engines made things easier. Even though I used Google Reader for my feeds I found the Bloglines search tool the friendliest and easiest to use. I think for starting to use RSS these tools are very helpful. I think from now on though, I'll just watch for the feed icons on webpages I like and visit regularly. Going through these searches I was tempted to add a lot and there's no way I'll be able to keep up with everything! I'll just watch for things that truly interest me as I browse on the web and visit favorite places. This will be very useful, though, to keep trck of news for classroom subjects. Much faster than searching for something new about a subject , for example endangered animals or current events.

Thing 7 - a wombat

wombat
Originally uploaded by adacutandpaste

Totally new to RSS. I had no clue what it was. I must say it’s pretty cool. I had a hard time finding things of interest that had feeds but I found some. Local GR news, animal conservation and news sites (thus the wombat), Olympics, and news about Yellowstone Park where we hope to go on vacation next year. I think I’ll find more as I browse the web now that I know what I’m looking for.

Thing 6 - Technology

I'm enjoying the flickr site, and an FYI, if you have sbcglobal.net, ATT.net or another AT&T internet connection, you have the flickr pro edition free. Didn't realize that it was extra special before because I hadn't explored.

The comic maker in flickr is similar to the "ComicLife" software. Or district just purchased this software and I am looking forward to using it with students. It allows you to make comic book pages using your own pictures or pictures freely shared on the web (be careful what they choose to download for this - make sure it is freely shared, but there are a lot out there) It will be a fun alternative for some reports and writting assignments. You can download a 30 day free trial of the software on the net at http://plasq.com/products/ for either Mac or Windows. It runs around $25 to buy a single copy but buying multiple copies for schools, or better yet districts, makes it VERY cheap. Give it a try. It's not hard to learn!

Thing 5 - Mashup Sea Star Card

I like all these toys!! I made a jigsaw puzzle to email to my daughter, and this trading card. I want to come back soon and play with more flickr toys! They are pretty user friendly!

Sea Star Card
Originally uploaded by adacutandpaste

thing 4

I had a flickr account but never did anything but upload pictures to share with family. I learned how to tag, discribe, group, share, edit (the auto fix works GREAT!) AND how to add it to my blog! Wow! Just an FYI ... this is a cute little Sea Dragon we saw at the Georgia Aquarium. I chose it to share with you because dragons are wonderful creatures that you can't see just every day! I hadn't even known they existed. Lifetime learning at it's best!

DSC04322
Originally uploaded by adacutandpaste

3rd Thing - Habits

Lifelong learning is kinda fun! That being said, I think my strongest habit is actually half a habit! That is, my strongest is PLAY. I love to play, especially with new technology! I'm not afraid to try things out. Probably the second/third strongest would be to teach/mentor others. Sharing is good! I love to help and get others excited about learning new things. along with that goes the "accept responsibility for my own learning". You can't very well mentor someone on something you know noting about, can you. So I make it my responsibility to learn, just so I can pass it on!


I guess my two on the bottom habits would be "View problems as challenges" because I have my fingers in so many pies that, sometimes, there are a LOT of problems. So sometimes I get overwhelmed. The other bottom one would be "Begin with the end in mind" I tend to set my bar pretty high and often the "END" seems unatainable. I have some difficulty with accepting lesser end products in myself. That's a problem, and we know I don't see problems as challenges! But, knowing these are my problems, I can try to look at them as challenges instead! Wow, lifelong learning can be confusing too! Good thing I like to play!!

Here's me with the end in mind - or under foot at least!

23 Things – The First Thing

I'm ready to get my feet wet! I know about blogs, I've read blogs, I've commented to blogs, but I've never made a blog - until now! I am hoping to learn how to improve my classes, increase communications with students and parents, and pass along the knowledge I acquire to the teachers I work with. I want to learn to podcast, wiki and blog and to figure out how to utilize all this in my class or on my web page. I also feel there are many terms I've heard, but am unsure of what they really are, for example widgets. I picture them as little tiny robots with lots of gears. Probably comes from watching too many Disney movies with my kids when they were younger. Hopefully I can learn enough to not look or sound like an idiot, especially since I am the tech person for my school!