Thing Twenty-Three

When the idea of Library2Play was first presented to me I was a little leery. Could I possibly complete 23 "Techno" things. Me, the one who always tries to find a way to NOT use the computer. Ahhh, and here I am at number 23!! An amazing journey. I have told collegues about the things I have learned and now they want ME to teach them!
1. My favorite discoveries were Bookr, Trading Cards, and image generators. Number one favorite: Trading Cards. I can think of many ways these can be used in the classroom, generated by me or my students.
2. I am always on a quest to find out new information and to bring new experiences into my classroom. This experience definitely helped with that!! Looking at the other blogs also helped me to visualize an end product that I can actually use in my classroom. The PhotoStory on Corrie Ten Boom will definitely be used this year during my Humans Rights Planner.
3. The most surprising thing was the amount of information on the Internet that I had no idea was there. RSS, Google Docs, IGoogle, WIKIs, Digital Storytelling and the list goes on. I may have heard the terms but I didn't really understand what they were and what purpose they served.
4. I actually love the concept and the way the blog was organized. The only thing that would help me more was to have the problems discussed previously presented with solutions. For example, TeacherTube where several people were having issues embedding the videos. I found the answer on a comment somewhere.
5. YES, she excaimed emphatically, "I would definitely participate in another program such as this!"
6. 23 Things is an extraordinary journey into the internet world where knowledge and expertise is only a click away!

Thing Twenty-Two

Another social network... I won't be able to keep up. I will be like those college students; on my computer for three hours everyday. I took a look at the Nings and found teacherlingo to be the one I would use. Looking around at the various tweets and blogs was interesting and led me to
http://www.teachhub.com/. My greatest find was a game a blogger was talking about...
http://www.lumosity.com/brain-games/problem-solving-games/raindrops. Definitely addictive but a great addition to my paperless homework wiki!!

Thing Twenty-One

There are so many uses for PhotoStory!! The teacher can use it for every topic! (If they have the time to create them!) The story can be used over again for homework assignments, discussion starters, review before tests etc. With that being said, I much prefer Windows Movie Maker. I found that Windows Movie Maker had the choices listed in bars to the left that were much easier to scroll through to see what your options were. I also feel that it will be easier for my third graders to use.

Thing Twenty

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I searched YouTube, found my video and then signed in. However, I put the wrong year on my birthday and now it won't let me do anything. That's okay because I cannot access YouTube through HISD anyway... So on to TeacherTube. Searching is a little more cumbersome than Youtube, but I found what I needed. This is a video I love to show my students. They really have no idea of the impact of Martin Luther King Jr. until they view this video. Third grade has a planner on Human rights and we study many activists and this is a great way for the students to get to know the actual person. I have plenty of books with the speech written, but hearing Martin Luther King say it is incredibly powerful. Last year I happen to have parents in the room and they were mesmerized because they had never seen the actual speech either!

Thing Nineteen

Loved Picasa! I uploaded my photos and immediately created a slide show. However, I had a little trouble with YouTube and can not post at this time. I would use the movie feature for Digital Storytelling. The students could create with titles and present using the smartboard. The collage feature was pretty interesting too. You move, delete and enlarge photos with just a click of the mouse. (click on collage to enlarge) My students would have a great time with it.

Thing Eighteen

At first I was a little skeptical about Google Docs... DO I really need to sign up for another program when MSWord does the same thing??? Then I started thinking about the last day of school when I couldn't get the laptops from the lab and my students needed to type their stories. I sent the students to different classrooms and the library - the problem was all their stories were saved on different computers.! If I had only known about Google Docs....
Also, I have a writing group that meets once a month and we will be using Google Docs to share writing to edit and make comments on in between meetings. Now, I think it is a great idea. I am also going to suggest it to our PYP coordinator to use when we update planners. Instead of opening and saving to your desktop just look on Google Docs. How easy is that??

Thing Seventeen

I found Rollyo a little frustrating. I could not see the purpose of spending so much time to create additional search engines. After reading some of the other postings and watching the video, I get how it could be helpful. I am just wondering how much time it is going to take me to create these Rollyos.

Here is a searchroll of third grade websites: http://rollyo.com/nmuster1/my_onderwijzeres/