I'm done!

WOW! What a journey. I had so much fun learning all the 2.0 stuff out there. My favorite discovery has to be just becoming more tech savvy. I can embed, tag, and blog now. I have always been a "static" user of the internet. Never getting involved in putting anything out there for sharing. This class has made me realize that internet learning is a two-way street. I will continue to search for blogs that I want to participate in and click on all the links that take you to some great resources to share with others. A few things that surprised me were the time I spent getting off track. I sat down each time and said, "I am only going to stay on long enough to complete this one THING and then I am going to do something else." A few hours later, and many sidetracks, I am still engrossed in my adventure. My husband says I am addicted. It is true! If you are a lifelong learner, you can get so absorbed you lose track of time. I think the format of this class is great. I wish the bookmarking tool (delicious) could have been introduced earlier so that I could have started bookmarking sites from the beginning. I would absolutely take another course like this one if it was offered. I am planning to take what I have learned here and incorporate some into my teaching. I would like to set up a blog for my students and create slideshows. I will also use teachertube.com for resources.

Overall, I am very pleased with this course. I was looking for something to do over the summer and this was perfect. I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much during the school year just because of time constraints. I had lots of free time to get lost! Thank you to Mary for all the support and great feedback.

Thing #23

My overall impression of Classroom 2.0 was great! If you want to get in on an educational discussion that is the place to go. People are very generous to share their links to great educational materials. I found some great links for Math resources and several great ideas about using podcasts in the classroom. Social networking is a great place to bounce ideas and find out what other educators are doing. I enjoyed reading the discussions and think for my own personal learning, I have found some new and valuable resources to use instead of doing a google search for everything. I do think social networking has a place in learning. I think with clear expectations and very careful monitoring it could be used with students as a means to communicate outside the classroom. I liked the Ning network as well. I signed up to become a member of passionate teachers. Their network is private so i am waiting on approval. I will continue to use these tools to further my own knowledge about 2.0 and plan to try to incorporate it in my teaching.

Thing #22 revised

Try this link to my facebook page.

Thing #22

Well, I have finally been forced to create a Facebook account. I have held out so long because I guess I just don't have the time to spend telling everyone I know what I do every second of my life. I think social networking has its benefits...finding your lost love from high school (which I did), finding out you aren't the only one that has gotten old and fat since high school, or just chatting with friends. I am still a pick-up-the-phone kinda girl. I think as teachers we should know that almost every kid has a myspace or facebook account and we should learn how to get around in it. They are using it day and night and it is the new generation's communication tool, I just haven't really gotten into it. As for educational purposes, it is a useful tool for teachers to have discussion and it is a good networking site if you have a purpose for locating someone or something you need, however, as far as myself communicating with students via facebook, I am uneasy.

What I liked: finding people I haven't seen in forever. Reading friends chats about things going on in their lives. Easy to set up.
What I didn't like: Sending friend requests and having to type those difficult to read texts. There is not enough identifier info to locate some people.

Here is mine. Request to be my friend. It is too sad to have a sight that says I have no friends!!!

Thing #7B

First, let me apologize for the length of this blog. However, I have to share this with those of you who wonder if we, as teachers, make a difference in the lives of the kids we come into contact with.

I am teaching 5th grade acceleration this summer to a group of 8 students who scored between 1800 and 2000 on both administrations of the Reading TAKS. Needless to say, there are as demotivated as they can be in their third week of having to spend 4 grueling hours a day doing the thing they all told me they hated on the first day: READING!

Today something happened that rocked my world. I have gone home every night and talked to my husband about these kids. I have wondered if what I am doing in these few short weeks is really going to make a difference for their TAKS test. I am not spending our time together drilling them on how to answer TAKS questions or teaching them how to write a summary in the margin for each paragraph. No, I am sharing my love for reading with them. We begin each day with a Read Aloud. (I often think they are still asleep, but surprisingly they really are listening). We end each day talking about books they might like to read. I bring in books from the library and my own collection and show them what I like to read and what my former students have told me is good. On Tuesday this week, I shared one of my favorite read alouds, Roald Dahl's Witches. If you have not read it, it is worth picking up and at least reading the first few pages out loud. After I read them the first few pages, the next day we went to the library. Almost every single one of them checked it out and one kid even went to the public library and checked it out. I tell you all this because today during out 15 minute snack time, several students started talking about the book. They were laughing and comparing anecdotes from the book. I was amazed! I let them continue on, just listening to their excitement. As the conversation began to end, they all looked at me and I had tears in my eyes. I told them this was the reason I was a teacher. They all looked at me weird and then I explained to them that just 14 days ago they HATED reading and now they were actually loving it. They walked out of my room today, believing they have changed. I would love for them to all pass the TAKS next Wednesday. But even if they don't, I have taught them something far better than passing a standardized test, I have taught them that Reading is worthwhile, something they can enjoy, and fun!

Read this blog entry that talks about reflecting on what you want to improve about yourself or your teaching. I agree, when we stop doing what we love, it is time to walk out the door!

Thing #21

Ok, igoogle has lots of cool toys & games, but I was trying to make it educational. I did find a gadget for recording the daily moon phases. Love it! Also, I found word-of-the-day and an art of the day gadget. I was thinking about using these tools in my classroom next year for writing and discussion anyway, so having it all in one place is nice. My igoogle is a work in progress. I also liked google calendar. I can see this as a useful tool for sharing with other teachers, students, and parents. It is cool that I can put it on my igoogle also. Students can go there to check out due dates for projects, etc.

Thing #20

I was already familiar with google docs before this class. I have used it several times to create documents. I was not using it as a collaboration piece, but several applications come to mind. 1) I am going to create a progress report for for our special area teachers to input their grades so that they don't have to send me a hard copy of each students grade. 2)Also, we are required to give our CMC teacher grades each six weeks. I am going to create a form that I can share with her that will save us all time. I can see this as a great collaboration for my grade level as well. 3) We can create our tutoring lists, share our lesson plans, create our weekly calendar, etc. This would also be a great application for the students. 4)I can see creating surveys and polls and having students graph the responses. Here is a link to a document I created for my weekly conduct sheet. I wanted to upload something so I just put this out there. Check it out. If you have any more ideas for google docs uses, please share.

Thing #19

I think this is one of the best classroom tools I have seen so far. I can't wait to get started. This takes project presentations to a whole new level. The one I am posting is a Science Fair discussion which will be beneficial to my students when we start working on Science Fair projects. I can see using this for literature (story retellings). You could have the children illustrate the story, scan their pics and photos and then have them put their voice into it. I can see this used in Science and Social Studies projects. Anyone have any suggestions on how we could use it for Math? I can see myself using this more than anything else.

Thing #18

This could be a great tool for the classroom. I didn't realize there was so much out there for educational purposes. This video has kids explaining their roles in lit circles. This would be great to show my students to teach them what literature circles should look like.



This one is cool. I will use this when we study the solar system.


This one is not school related, but it is a great scrapbooking lesson.




Here is one that I get the biggest laugh from. If you are a mom, you can really appreciate this!

Thing #17

Podcasting...not that interesting to me. I would rather watch video podcasting than audio. I searched through all the directories listed on 23things and really didn't find anything I couldn't live without a subscription to. I did subscribe to Tech Teachers just to say I subscribed to one. I also downloaded a podcast of the book Ann of Green Gables to my ipod. This is something a friend said I had to read this summer. I think podcasting could be used in the classroom as a valuable tool if students had access to mp3 or mp4 players. It could be used to listen to audio versions of books for struggling readers. It could be used to review for tests and quizzes. It could be used by the teacher for absent students, parents to find out what is going on in the classroom, posting to a blog to review the day's lessons, etc. I think teachers can use podcasting to learn new things, gain insight into other teachers pedagogy, or to develop new teaching ideas and strategies. I am sure there are podcasts out there that will grab me, but as of the date of this post....not so much.

Thing #16

OMG! This was a very easy post because I am already way crazy about Librarything.com. Last summer I cataloged all my books here. It is so cool. I have 1,000 books in my personal library and I still need to add al the ones I purchased this year. My kids used it all the time to look for books in my classroom. What I want to do next year is have students write reviews on the books they read and post them to my librarything account. Even more cool, I put a search on my blog that allows people to search my library for any of my books. Can this stuff get any better?????

Thing #15

Ok, I played in the sandbox and it was a little tricky. It took me a while to figure out how to load things and get things where I wanted them, but I feel like I am getting more confident at trying to figure things out on my own. I think kids will need explicit instructions on how to upload things to their wiki. I had a blast with blabberize.com. It is hilarious. If you listen to my lion, you will hear my voice and my daughter's. She had to contribute! Check out my sandbox page!

Thing #14

Prior to this class I had taken the intel class and had already developed a project in which my students were to create a page on the class wiki. I see wiki's being used in the classroom for "projects". They are a great way to share information on topics from Literature to Science. It is a place where students can work together to create a final product and coordinate their communication. I checked out 3 wikis for this thing. The first was codeblue. One thing I really liked about this wiki is the teacher had included a section on "online safety" for the students. It was divided up into classes and each class had their own page. What I would do differently is create an overview page on the homepage of the wiki that explained the project. The second wiki is discovery utopias. I really like this site because the teacher seems very organized and there is no ambiguity in what he wants the students to do. I also like the section for clean-up and help crew. He actually has student links for people who need help with the assignment or the wiki. Very cool idea. The third wiki is Salute to Suess What I like about the wiki is that the project isn't just for her classroom, but a sharing of many classrooms all over the world. She has links to all participating schools. I also liked that she had the Creative Commons license on her site. What I would have done different is added more graphics to the wiki to spice it up. I am sure there is tons of Dr. Suess stuff out there.

Thing #13

Delicious has saved me! I was on page #4 of lists of websites, blogs, etc. I even had a spiral I had written all my bookmarks down from school because my teacher computer was being re-imaged. I am now able to tag all those and the ones from this course. I am not that great at tagging. I ended up having tags for photo, photos, photographs, etc. I guess it really doesn't matter. I like the idea of adding people to your network so you can see all their bookmarks too. What a great resource. I think this is a great way for teachers to share information. I do have a question though...is their a place to keep all your logins and passwords for the multitude of accounts I have created recently? Four pages of websites also includes 4 pages of logins. My delicious account is funteacher1 if you want to set me up on your network.

Thing #7A

The further along I get into this course, I realize that I have lived a sheltered "techno" life. I just can't fathom how much there is out there and the cool stuff I have been missing. Taking it a step farther, one of my feeds Betty's Blog has a post that contains a YouTube video on new technology from Mcrosoft". No more mouse, no more keyboard! Everything is on a touchscreen tabletop. Eventually, we could even have one on our kitchen counter. I feel like the Jetsons! (A cartoon throwback for you older folks).

Thing #12

There are too many applications to list that would be awesome tools for the classroom. I especially liked Quizlet for a study tool for students. I can see creating vocabulary cards, math flash cards, and Science review questions. The features include 6 different learning applications including testing yourself and playing games for review. I also liked the on-line discussion students can have with each other about the studying. You can give access to everyone or you can create a group of just your classmates to share the flashcards with.

Also, 30 boxes is a great calendar maker. You can share it with your friends, or you can link it to your blog. You could post student assignments and send reminders when items are due. Great organizational tool for students.

Thing #11

OK, so I have spent way too much time on this stuff. I found a cool site for making custom signs and customizing pics from your flickr. Check it out. It is very simple to do. There are many backgrounds and signs to choose from. Be sure when you upload to your blog you select a small image of your design, otherwise you have to go all the way back and resize and upload again. Something else to note, when you embed something into a post on your blog, you are stuck with it unless you go back to the original site where you created it and change it from there. Hence the jungle music on my slideshow. Even I am annoyed with the music after a while! I wish there was a way to turn it off on the blog. Any ideas?

Thing #10 revised

Credits for 3 new pics on slide show.

Meerkat at SD Wild Animal Park by rolandojones - merekat

Wild beest by sephari - wildbeest

Masai Lion prowl by Mikee Showbiz - lion

Thing #10



Credits for my pics:

San Diego Wild Life Park by paraflyer - rhino

Zoo Animals: Panda by cooling - pandas

San Diego Wild Life Park by paraflyer - owl

Animal Kingdom by nsaplayer - gorilla

Creating the slideshow was easy but I found creating links to all the flickr pics to be not as easy. I had to open lots of windows and keep going back and forth. It was a hassle. I would rather create my own photos so I don't have to do all that. Other than that, I love creating slideshows. I found another site, voicethread.com that is even more awesome. You can go there and add voiceover to your slide show and you can even doodle on the pics. Check it out.

Thing #9 revised

I forgot to credit my pic.

Wildlife Park by paraflyer.

Thing #9

I selected this pic because I want to create a slideshow of animal adaptations for Life Science. A learning activity for this could be to use Promethean and have kids interact with the pics. After reading so many of the uses of flickr, I am so excited about what it can do for my classroom. Using pics to teach concepts is such a great learning experience for the kids. Most of the kids in my classroom have very little life experience, so bringing real life into the classroom is amazing for them. In case you are wondering, the new slideshow of pics on my website came from slide.com. It is so cool. You can add music and all kinds of backgrounds to your pics. Let me know what you think.

Thing #8

WOW! Creative Commons has the information I have been looking for on copyright. I am working with a group of teachers to create a Science resource that involves downloading images from the internet and we have been very concerned about what we could legally use and what was copyrighted. I found there are resources out there we can use as long as we don't use them for commercial use. We had originally intended to try to market and sell the product, however, in recent months we have shifted our focus to just getting a quality resource put together for our own use. There is a plethora of resources for that. I would still like to find photos, drawings, etc. that have no copyright restrictions to use if we decide later to sell the product.

Also, I wanted to share a resource for digital media for teachers you can use in your classroom. If your school is not registered, it is very easy to set up. I found so many good video clips and lesson plans. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Thing #7

I read a blog that people who only view blogs and do not comment are called "lurkers". I am guilty of being a lurker until recently. I never really felt I was "qualified" to comment on blogs of people I did not know. Actually, it is quite liberating. I am actually contributing to a community of people who are interested in the same things I am. I am not commenting on every blog I read, but if I have something to add, I am no longer afraid to speak up. I am curious to know, is it necessary, annoying, or bad manners not to respond to comments left on your own blog? I feel compelled into saying thank you every time, but is it a blogging etiquette faux pax if you don't?

Thing #6

I could spend a lifetime on the computer looking at all this information. I spent 2 hours just looking at my feed and the places it took me. You have to check out this hilarious video from Betty's Blog that I subscribed too. ( I LOVE YOUTUBE! ) This video and the posts that came after it really resonate with me. I want to be the kind of person that gets up and dances alone!

On another note, I am a very organized person and at any given time I only have a few emails in my inbox. I clean out, move, and trash. There is so much stuff in my feed that I begin to get anxiety when I look at all the stuff. I really need to take a pill for that! I had told myself that I was not going to get behind in this class and I was going to spend only an hour or so a day. HAHA I can't stop clicking. Eery blog site has links to others and I am addicted!

Thing #5

The RSS feeds are all very good and I enjoyed looking over the information. There is such a vast amount of information out there on education, where do all these people have time to post all this stuff. I am just wondering how I am going to keep up with my little blog. I really liked Infinitethinking.com. Especially the Friday 5's because they give you links to online tools for your classroom. I went in and subscribed to Tikatok.com. I have wanted to publish a class book and this is a perfect website to do it. Kids can work on their writing and for about $20 I can get it professionally published in a hardbound book (with illustrations). Also, shelfari.com is a really cool website, not only because I added it to my own blog, but because kids can go in and pick the books they are reading and want to read, write book reviews, and chat with their friends about their reading. It creates a bookshelf of their personal choices. Way cool!

Thing #4

As I was reading through some of the blogs listed in thing #4, at times I felt as if I was intruding on someones personal thoughts. Blogging is about people expressing their thoughts, opinions, and feelings. Blog reading is different than other types of reading in that most are written as if they are having a conversation with one person instead of the entire blogging community. The writer is expecting feedback on the topic. When people add their comments that are validating that the writer had something of interest to say or offering a new perspective on the topic.


One of the blogs I visited was about why it is not worthwhile to assign homework. This blog really sparked my interest and I think he makes some very valid points, especially the part about the kids who don't really need the extra practice are the ones that turn in the hw and the ones who need it the most don't turn it in or do it halfway (his words were slightly different). Some of the comments to his blog were disagreements, however, I think edubloggers chose the words in banter instead of insult.

Thing #2

Summer 2.0 Thoughts

I believe that if you are not using technology to its fullest in your classroom, you are doing your students an injustice. They are much more techno-savy than we imagine, and doing things the old fashioned way (paper and pencil, powerpoint slides, overhead transparencies, books on tape, etc.) is just way too boring and they aren’t engaged.

We need to harness the type of activities they are doing outside school: myspace, facebook, twitter, blogging, texting, podcasts, streaming video, uploading, downloading, creating and exploring the vast amount of information that is now at their fingertips. We need to find ways to incorporate those uses of technology into our lessons. On a daily basis, my own children are sending text messages, twittering their friends, uploading pictures to their myspace, searching the web for anything and everything, and actually thinking! If I want to know what my 11 year old daughter is really thinking, I have to look over her shoulder as she twitters!!!

If we are preparing kids now for jobs that don’t even exist yet, how will they be technologically equipped if we aren’t giving them the opportunity to create and explore these powerful tools?

Thing #1

I have always felt that I was a lifelong learner, taking classes, attending workshops, trying new things. I think technology is one area where I learn just enough to get by and never to the point of using it to the fullest potential. I take technology classes, but going back to my classroom and creating lessons to incorporate its use seems to fail me. I am not one to sit down to write lesson plans and ask myself,"what technology can I include in my lesson?"

One habit of a lifelong learner that I enjoy and I find easy for me is to teach and mentor. I think when we mentor other people on what we have learned it solidifies our understandings. I am more likely to incorporate what I have learned into my life if I have to explain or share it with someone else.

The habit I think is most challenging for me is to view problems as challenges. I get frustrated easily and want to give up when I can't figure something out or something goes wrong. I am an emotional person, so when my feelings get hurt or I am not successful at something, I lose confidence in myself and my capabilities. Learning that problems are just stepping stones in learning valuable life lessons is something that is hard for me to accept. I am working on this in my personal and professional life. There is a new Hannah Montana song out called "The Climb". (I have an 11 year old daughter so give me a break!) In this song she says there will always be another mountain to climb and sometimes you will lose, but it is all about the climb. That is the mindset we must have in order to pick ourselves up after a "challenge and move on.

The habit I think will be most useful to me is to create a learner toolbox. If I can create a reference list that includes instructions and examples of the new technology tools that I learn, then I can use the toolbox to help me plan my instruction. I will be able to create new and exciting options for assignments and assessments. It will also help me to open communication with my students with writing assignments. Let's face it, most kids do not like to write and we get very little quality writing from them. But being able to utilize the computer to share their thoughts and ideas, now that is something I can get them excited about!!!