Thing 23!!!!!

I made it!!!!! What an amazing journey! One major way I have changed from Thing 1 to 23 is how I view the Internet.  In the beginning, I felt as if the Internet was merely a place to gather information or send an e-mail .  Now I realize how much we can communicate with others via the Internet.  I view the digital world as a new frontier of communication and learning about others.  My plans in my classroom for the following school year are to create a classroom blog as a communication tool with parents and students, I plan to utilize my wiki with my fellow grade level teachers and I am going to attempt a blog or wiki with a literature circle book.  I will continue to learn about Web 2.0 by looking for staff development opportunities.  My big take away from this course is that our world is changing rapidly and we need to stay current with these changes to help prepare our students for adulthood. 

Thing 22

I created a wiki for myself and the members of the CMA Creativity House.  The purpose of my wiki is to provide a common place for our group to collaborate and plan our curriculum for the upcoming school year.  You can find my wiki at http://cma-creativity-house.wikispaces.com/ .  On my wiki I provided links to Curriculum Crafter and GLCE websites.  With these tools, we are going to be well on our way to a great school year.

I think a wiki is a great tool, especially if it is difficult for a large group of people to meet at the same time.  One concern I have is since group members can edit material that is posted, someone's feelings might be hurt if they didn't agree with the change.  Overall, I think it is going to be a valuable planning tool. 

A wiki is different from a blog because members can alter the original content of the post, where as in blogs, members can only comment on post.  I think wikis are appropriate when working with a group of people on a common task and blogs are for sharing thoughts, opinions and information.  Blogs tend to be more conversational where as wikis are more interactive.

Thing 21

The Hanalee Wiki has inspired me to create my own wiki for novel studies. I was impressed with the amount of information posted on the wiki. I think the students really dove into this book and walked away with a clear understanding of what it was like during the civil war.

The biggest hurdle for me would be to only do this with one book and the entire class. I do not feel confident in trying to create 4 different wikis, based on 4 different books, for 4 different groups, at the same time. I would have to have my class read the same book at the same time. I would have the book available on tape for my students who struggle with reading and I could also break my class into partners so one could help the other. I think this is the spark my Literature Circles need. I am going to try this in the fall. Wish me luck!

Thing 20

I subscribed to Suze Orman's podcast relating to finances. I feel that she gives good advice and I try to follow it. (I still have a long way to go.) If anything, her podcast has shown me what I do and do not know about finances.

I chose to use Itunes for my subscription to my pod cast. I felt it was very easy to search through the most popular podcast and then make my selcetion. At first, I was overwhelmed, but now I think it's easy to navigate and choose podcast that are interesting to me.

Thing 19

I found Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips for better writing to be very useful.

The URL is: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com

I like how the author breaks grammar down and makes it easy to understand. Although, this podcast holds my interest, I don't think it would keep my students attention for very long. I would listen to this prior to grammar lessons, then I would use the main idea of the podcast in my lesson.

Thing 18

Solar System Facts Slideshow

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What I liked about this slide show presentation is the large colorful pictures followed by facts of each planet in our solar system and the sun. I think my students will find this interesting and they will pay attention during a classroom presentation. I would also hope that it would be a good model for our class to create a Power Point of our own to share on Slideshare.

Out of the classroom, I could use Slideshare to create photo shows to share with family and friends. I think I will come to rely on this site in the future.

Thing 17

The tool that grabbed my attention right away was 30 boxes; an online calendar that you can share with friends. I had a little trouble with the set up wizard, so I ended up skipping some of those features. The calendar itself was user friendly. You simply click on a day and add an event.

This calendar would be great in the classroom. It's an easy way to communicate with parents and students about upcoming events, assignments and projects. Personally, this calendar will help me keep my children's activities in order. Since my friends would have access to my calendar, planning would become simpler.

Thing 16

I tried to use the shared spreadsheet on Google Docs, but I could not find it. I did use my Blogger account information, but again I had no luck finding the spreadsheet.

I think Google Docs could be useful both personally and professionally. Personally, it would come in handy in any situation where I was planning an event with a group of people. Instead of meeting face to face, we could use Google Docs as a place to collaborate. Professionally, Google Docs seems to have endless possibilities. For example, students could collaborate on a writing piece or data collection. Teachers would be able to view who contributed and who did not. I feel that giving students access to Google Docs would increase motivation and learning.

A potential problem with using Google Docs is that everyone would have to have an e-mail account. Some parents might not feel comfortable allowing their child to have one. Hopefully, if the parents had the e-mail address and password for their child to monitor the account, we would be able to try something like this in the classroom.

Thing 15

RSS is becoming easy to understand. RSS allows you to subscribe to blogs and tags in various subject areas. The main benefit to RSS is access to a vast amount of information. I check my Bloglines account once every two days or so. The amount of information can be overwhelming, but I skim through and choose the information that holds my interest.

Thing 14

My Delicious user name is Sunfire_48146, it is my Yahoo e-mail I created over 13 years ago. I think social bookmarking can be very useful in the classroom. First of all, all the bookmarks are saved to the Internet, meaning they can be accessed from any computer. I also like that you can see bookmarks that were saved by others. For example, if your co-worker found a great site for math, they can now share it with everyone. It will also come in handy when I want my students to go to a particular website, they will now have access instead of having to type the URL, which doesn't always go the way you want it to.

Thing 13

Tagging sounds like it will be a very useful tool to organize "bookmarked" websites. When I need to search for a particular site, it sounds like I have to simply type in the tag and it should appear.

One disadvantage might be having to remember which tags I assigned to which sites. For example, if I am looking for a particular lesson on angles and I tagged it as geometry, it might not come up when I search for it. Other than that, I think online tagging will be very useful.

When tagging, we need to be mindful of how we tag. We should type in lower case and avoid using commas in our tags.

Thing 12

Internet Polyglot

I feel secure when it comes to embedding code onto my blog. I chose this widget because learning different languages has always been an interest of mine. I think my blog followers might find it interesting too. I can also share this with my students as well.

I do belong to Facebook. I only have friends on Facebook that I know personally, so I feel that being able to communicate online helps me to stay up to date with all the current events in my family and friend's lives and vice versa. I feel that I have more contact with them, via FB than I would have normally. Therefore, I think online relationships can be as meaningful as face to face relationships.

I think kids today like online communities because the Internet gives them a medium to express themselves and communicate with others in an instant. When I was a kid, I would spend hours talking on the phone to one or two people, today kids can spend hours on the computer talking to several people at the same time. I think kids enjoy feeling "connected" to the world through the Internet.

Thing 11

What I like about leaving comments is that the author of the blog is aware that someone did read and wants to contribute to the author's post. What I don't like about leaving comments is the perceived pressure to say something "wonderful" or "intriguing".

I must admit when I received my first comment, it was similar to receiving a wrapped gift.  I was so excited to click on the comment and read it. It made me feel that my opinion matters and others were interested in what I have to say.


I think in order to keep a line of communication open, comments are necessary.  If we didn't make comments, it would be the real life equivalent to a monologue.  Comments are important because they spark "conversation" and help to create and strengthen an on-line community.  Sometimes these comments can act as a bridge from the computer world into the real world.


In the classroom, I think requiring students to comment will give an opportunity for introverted/shy students to have their opinions heard.  As a teacher, it is easy to give attention to the outgoing or attention seeking students, but I always feel for the students who are quietly sitting in class, nervous to speak up.  I feel that blogging levels the playing field for all students.

Thing 10

Here is a video on reaching "consensus" in a math class. Students work in partners to compare their answers. If there is a discrepancy, the students must justify their answers to one another. I chose this video because I thought it was interesting and I am going to try it in my classroom.





I was able to download a video using KeepVid, I chose an Elmo song for my son Benjamin.

Thing 9

You can spend all day on You Tube. It seems that the amount of videos are infinite .  What I like about searching for videos on You Tube is the "endless"  list of  videos available that relate to your topic.  However, you do get some video on the suggestion list that have nothing to do with what you are looking for.  Although our students at our school cannot access You Tube, the sight has so many possibilities in the classroom.  For example, if you are studying a particular theme or unit, you can search You Tube to find video related content.  I find that videos are a great hook for our students and can get them interested in a topic of study.  If I have a projector in my classroom, I would utilize You Tube more often.

Thing 8

  I had a lot of fun with Thing 8, I tried several different pictures, film strips, and a magazine cover, just to name a few.  I found Big Huge Labs to be the most user friendly.  These websites could be useful in the classroom when we feature a student of the week.  We can create a magazine cover with the student's picture on it.  We could also take pictures of our school, local area, etc., to create photo cards from Image Generator.  Then we can become pen-pals with another classroom(s) across the country and share photos and written descriptions of our area.

Thing 7

There are so many ways you could use Flickr in the classroom.  If you students were looking for particular images, they could search the tags on the Flickr website.  If you wanted to create a virtual photo album of the things you are doing in class, you could utilize Flickr.  The great thing is that you don't have to use the same computer to gain access to these photos. I can see my students having a lot of fun with this.

The down side again for me is Internet safety.  Posting pictures online, in a public forum, causes concern for me.  If at all possible, I would enable the private feature to ensure that only parents and students could access the photos relating to my classroom.

Thing 6

Wow! Flickr is an amazing site.  I enjoyed searching and viewing all the unique pictures on this site.  I chose to post a picture of a flower on my blog because I thought it looked beautiful.  I love flowers! I thought that the bright color of the flower against the neutral background allowed the flower to stand out.  The contrast in color immediately grabs you attention.

Thing 5

 Like most of the other post I've read, I had trouble with the subscribe button.  With a little patience and motivation, I was able to figure it out.  I can use RSS in my professional life by subscribing to educational blogs.  I enjoy connecting with other educators to share ideas and solutions.  Personally, I can use the RSS to keep up with current events and entertainment.  One blog, A Geeky Momma's Blog, was one that caught my attention right away.  It's creator is a teacher and mom like myself.  She has several interesting post and over 200 followers who add some great comments.  Check it out if you get a chance!

Thing 4

By utilizing the RSS tool, I will be able to filter out vast amounts of information and focus on the blogs that are meaningful to me.  I will be able to save time since all of the blogs I subscribe to will be in the same place, and I control the number of blogs I choose to subscribe to.

Thing 3

I could use a blog in my classroom with Literature Circles.  In addition to my students meeting at the end of the week for a book discussion; I could also require my students to discuss their books through a blog.  I would have my students answer open ended questions about the book they are reading and require them to post a questions and comment on another student's blog.  I think my students would be excited to blog. It would give my timid students an opportunity to be heard and I think it would add an interesting element to Lit. Circles.  One of my concerns with blogging is parental support.  Internet safety is a big concern for parents and some parents may not feel comfortable allowing their child to participate.


***Just thought of this:  I could collaborate with another teacher and our students could read the same books.  Then the students from my class could follow the blogs of the students from the other classroom.

Thing 1 and Thing 2

I wanted to participate in 23 Things because I enjoy learning about new technology and using it in my classroom. I am just as excited and eager to work with new equipment, software, and programs as my students are. The use of technology is another medium in which to foster creativity and student learning. In my experience, I find that using technology holds the students' interest and motivates them to do their personal best. We do live in a digital world and this world engages and motivates our young people. I hope to learn about new forms of technology that I can utilize in my classroom.