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/

Thing Sixteen

I am working on a WIKI for my classroom where I would post all the homework assignments. The goal would be to create paperless homework!! (I only have so many numbers on that copy machine!) Each subject would have a page with internet connections for assignments. Let's face it-- sending home a math worksheet every night is not helping my students learn their math facts! Now that I found out about the Sandbox, I can use that too as a way to communicate about the assignments. My only glich would be a student who does not have internet access. Do you have any ideas how to take care of that problem?

Thing Fifteen

After reading all the postings, I was reminded of a video I saw on YouTube. The video showed in numbers where we have been and where we are going in technology. It drives home the idea that we(libraries, educators, administrators, board members) need to be thinking about where we are going in education. The video is a little long, but well worth watching.

Thing Fourteen

I am not too impressed with Technorati... it does not seem to meet my needs. Everything I was searching for came up zero or articles geared more to the public versus teaching. The most interesting section was popular tags. I looked through the list and realized I am not using a single one of those tags! Also, interesting was the number of articles for each tag. You could spend all day on this webpage!!
However, I switched to Google search (because another Library2Play participant blogged about it)and found an interesting third grade blog that offers two new ways to narrow the search on Google. Great information - http://totally3rdgrade.com/wordpress/
Tagging is certainly serving a purpose for me in my de.licio.us account. I have found it to be very practical in my two weeks of using it! I just added the aforementioned blog to de.licio.us and to my Google Reader.

Thing Thirteen

At first, I was a little leery with delicious... what was the purpose? Once I started exploring and creating my own delicious account I started to see multiple uses! Number one - it will certainly save me time transferring favorite websites from home to school. (school computers are way to slow to consider surfing the web) Usually, I would email them to my school email, open and save in favorites. Now I don't have to. Number two - I am visualizing a delicious page for my classroom to list the sites that I would like the students to go to. They always seem to find the sites where people are shooting each other!!

Thing Twelve

I assumed (shame on me) that individuals would know how to write appropriate comments on blogs. I did not know that there were so many blogs blogging about the ways to do it. Interesting. I guess I would have to consider how meaningful it is for me to comment. I definitely comment on friends blogs, but have never bothered on others. For Library2Play purposes I have been viewing and attempting comments- always positive. I would never consider leaving a critical comment. I liked the idea of hyperlinking my blog to the comment... I never thought of that before. Good idea! I will have to say that an author commented on one of my classroom postings and it was very powerful for my students to see the impact of their writing.

Five Blogs I have commented on: http://secondtimer2.blogspot.com/
http://mrsphillipsatmarktwain.blogspot.com/ http://www.babyseberger.blogspot.com/
http://camillem23things.blogspot.com/ http://michelerawson.blogspot.com/

New blogs that I recently discovered: http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/
http://katenarita.blogspot.com/2010/06/place-for-frogs.html (Reviews and lesson plans for classroom books) http://www.kerismith.com/blog (author and illustrator)

Thing Eleven

While I love to keep lists of what books I have read (seems to be a family tradition) I do not care to much for Library Thing. I am not one to read the reviews of others before choosing books. It seems like this is something for when you have absolutely nothing else to do! I usually do not have that problem. I have to admit I am a paper and pen kinda of girl and I still enjoy the old fashioned way of cataloging the books I have read. However, I am open to giving it a go. I did sign up and choose a few favorites both classroom and personal.

Thing Ten

Love Love Love the image generators!! Found some amazing stuff on several sites... Jellymuffin was great for creating signs, but I am having difficulty transferring to the header. I tried to delete current header, but I couldn't make it happen. My new favorite is GLOGSTER!! This site is amazing. You can put videos and hotlink connections and make the collage come to life. I will definitely be using this in the classroom. My students will be making Glogsters about themselves and then presenting to the class. So excited about this new find!

Thing Nine

I would have to say that I did not care for the search tools. I found myself glancing very quickly and if the information is not there-I move on. The easiest was the google blog search because the page setup is familiar and linear and easy on the eyes. I opened Syndic8 and quickly decided this is not the page for me!! I did find some useful sites that I posted to my google reader. The most unusual find was a teacher blog who found a baby hummingbird in her backyard this summer. While the blog was interesting I was more fascinated with the videos and updates on Birdy and wanted to know if he would make it. I had to read all entries to discover that in the end not only did Birdy survive, but he was reunited with his mother!

Thing Eight

I have been wondering what a RSS feed was... Lucky me I just found out. Don't know if I need another way to surf through the web for information. I will be compelled to read every entry on my subscriptions!! Is that a good thing? I am not sure. However, I did discover a great blog for teachers through one of the blogs on my subscriptions so maybe that's what it is all about. It is a great way to keep track of what is happening in other classrooms. You can quickly scan the posts to see if a topic intersts you. I am thinking of getting a subscription to the scholastic book club page that always has articles of interest for my students. Personally, I would use it to keep up with friends blogs. (Easier than looking at my blogger account to see who updated!)It would work in the classroom by creating a reader page for a specific topic for kids to view.

Thing Seven

What I liked most about Google!
1. igoogle page - I liked Glenn's idea of using it as part of our morning routine at school. I love the Art of the Day and could use it for a writing activity. I want to tie in somehow someway to writing. Make a list of colors used. Make a list of adjectives to describe the picture etc...
2. Google Earth - I don't think I can say enough about GoogleEarth in this short post!! It is a never ending tool that can be used in so many ways. For my architecture planner we can go to visit the buildings... look at 3D representations so much better than a picture in a book. We can visit the tallest building in the world and look at the curvature of the Earth from the top. How amazing is that? That is just one idea... I have six planners and Google Earth will be used for all of them!
3. Google Docs is my new favorite!! What a great way for teachers to share and edit information. Instead of pasting and copying etc... just share the document. Love it. I will also use this with my writing group. We can share our work and the other writers can offer comments, edits and suggestions. I will be googling for some time.