Thing #23 (The 23Things Experience)

I am very glad that I signed up to take this class. I have learned so much, and finally feel smarter than my husband about what is hip and cool!

I have gotten my family on Flickr, and learned to make photo books and online scrapbooks. I have created a class blog, and wiki, and writeboard. I have also make a wiki for my family, but being old codgers most of them don't want to do it. I have gotten a little more interested in social networking, mostly to stay in touch with family, but also reconnected with some old friends. I check my RSS several times a day, and have gotten rid of Office on my home computer for Open Office. (I also use firefox now, but that doesn't have anything to do with the 23 things.) I have armed myself with an arsenal of fun and interesting things to put on my blasted flip charts, and feel ready to wow a bunch of almost jaded 9 year olds.


Here is my one word to sum up my experience: empowering. Anyone can take control of the technology out their and fit it to their world. I may not be a total techie now, but I do feel like I am more able to keep up with the changes going on around me. If there were another class, I would definitely take it.

I will be very glad to see my name on the graduates wall! Thanks for a FUN summer!

Thing #22 (The Ning Experience)

I thought Nings were cool. I like being able to have a private social club for just your friends, family, interest group, etc. It feels more grown up than MySpace or Facebook (both of which I joined this summer, at the needling of my younger cousins) because you have a lot more control.

On a professional standpoint, I could see where folks would like to have a place to vent their frustrations and successes in the classroom. To share information/lessons, and feel like they are part of something big. Even now, with all the teamwork blah-blah, teaching can feel solitary and knowing that there are others just like you feels good now and then.

I thought it would be great to have for my class, even better than a blog. The students are already very social (I hear them trading numbers and setting up phone dates all the time), and I think the parents could feel okay about them taking part in a social network that is closed. I do worry about the ads though, and will have to keep an eye on them. I think they could use them inside the classroom too. Perhaps to facilitate chats about their book club book, or even for celebrations they have to share. I keep trying to get them involved with school as more than just the place where they get homework, without much success. Perhaps these types of activities will get them more involved with each other and the classroom.

Thing #21(The Podcast Experience)

I have been looking forward to this thing, because I have been very interested in learning how to do podcasts. I did learn that the name is not from i-pod, which I originally thought--so now I feel doubly smart.

As I do not have a mic, my photostory is not narrated. I did however find royalty free music using the library resources page. It was fun, and it was very easy.

I think that this could be really great for struggling readers. They could read their book and make it a podcast, then listen to themselves read. Or others. ESL kids would also greatly benefit, and I wouldn't be stuck trying to find one of those old tape recorders that no one has anymore.

I also think that the kids would love to make their fairy tales and pourquois into podcasts. They spend a lot of time on the illustrations, and then to scan them and have the narration would be priceless.

Without further ado, I give you:

Thing #20 (The Video Experience)

I was glad to have some instructions for bypassing the firewall. I understand that there are some things that children should not be seeing (although my kids came in every morning talking about what they had seen on You Tube) and I guess the district is worried about teachers playing online all day instead of teaching, but the firewalls are very annoying.

I found this Bill Nye video on YouTube that I plan on using in a flipchart for an introductory science lesson. The kids love Bill Nye, and he cracks me up too.




This is a video from TeacherTube about simple division. I like how it showed creating a chart and drawing a picture, and illustrated very clearly how multiplication and division are related. This would be good to put on my classroom blog too, just as Mr. Thompson used it.



I'm excited about using these, especially as I dig in to creating my flipcharts.

Thing #19 (The Web2.0 Experience)

I was very interested in "Writeboard" because I have spend a lot of time thinking about writing this summer, and how to integrate technology into my writing program. I signed up, which was the easiest sign up of any so far this summer, and got started. It was very easy to use, and very simple. Type in the space, save it and go.

What I like is that each time you edit, it saves the project as a new draft. Then you can click on 2 drafts and compare them. It shows what you changed, right next to where you changed it, so you can see exactly what is different.

I like would really like to use this with my students. Sometimes they get so carried away with revision that they actually make the paper worse! I think that if they could see what they changed, right next to what was there before, they could make a more informed decision about whether or not their revisions were any good. They can also peer edit, and then see what their peer changed. If they don't like that version, they can delete it, or just revert to an older draft.

I was quite pleased with Writeboard, even more than a wiki. This is infinitely easier to use and maneuver around, and I think that will be great when it comes to 4th graders using it. The only downside is that I cannot see all of the papers in one place, like I could if I were using a wiki. I might have to try both!

Thing #18 (The Online Productivity Tools Experience)

I had already taken a look at Google Apps, and went ahead and downloaded Open Office for the fun of it. I think that these are great, and have heard and seen a push in the district to use these types of "free" programs. It makes financial sense, but I guess it also makes sense on a community level as well. To me word processing is word processing--I'll use whatever is there and discover all of the cool things about it as I need to, but I am starting to see how important it is to have applications that everyone can use, anywhere.

I just finished reading an article in Time about the fight to be the next best platform (the article looked at Apple, Google and Facebook). Although Google has many more users, the biggest issue was they had not kept up with the social networking craze. I found it very interesting, especially after all of these "things" I have been doing. As a society we are weaving ourselves closer together, while keeping ourselves further apart. What an odd paradigm we are shifting to!

Thing #17 (The Rollyo Experience)

I love this tool. This is so much more pratical than trying to type in dozens of urls into a word document, then trying to get the kids to retype them, etc, etc. I can just set up a rollyo for whatever we are doing, and let them loose with it. No more "can I just go to Google?"

I set one up to look for lesson plans, but I don't have many sites on it yet. I did like the results from the search though, except for all of the adverts. Yipes!

Thing #16 (The Wiki Experience)

First of all, how can I post on the sandbox. I signed in, but never saw an edit button or link. I only saw the add new space.

I can see a lot of use for wiki's in the classroom. I like the idea of having one that we can build on from year to year--in social studies kids could see information about their famous Texan and then be challenged to find more information to add. In math they could use it as a homework help--students could write how they understand concepts. In science we could have the students do some research on their own (for all of those questions there just isn't time to get to--like "Isn't plasma one of the phases of matter?") and add to the wiki.

I like the idea of planning for family parties and such. I was think Christmas and birthday presents for Lu. With 5 grandparents, 4 great-grandparents and all the rest of the family--I am bombarded with questions about what to get and then forget who is getting what. A wiki could keep us all from getting the same gift.

This will be fun to work with.