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.