Thing 23

All I can say is "WOW". I thought I knew quite a bit about computers and the Internet, but 23 Things taught me so much. I wish I had know about some of the tools a LONG time ago! Between things 1 and 23, I feel like I tasted the future - and it could be a little scary. As the video mentioned, a lot of things need to be rethought. But I feel the good of the Internet could certainly outweigh the bad. A global community could be created, is being created for the new generations. Students can write to audiences, have their voice be heard and maybe make more constructive choices in the future. A whole new set of appropriate conduct rules will have to be taught to them as Web 2.0 evolves.

As for teachers, I wish that every one not only know about the potential, but acted upon it. Sometimes I feel like I am reinventing the wheel as I try to adapt to the needs of my students. I know there are better ways out there already, and with blogs, tagging and wikis, maybe I can find them now more easily instead of wading through pages and pages of non-useful Internet content.

As for what I will use in and out of the classroom, let me look back.

I'm not too sure about blogs yet. I love the information out there, but simply don't have the time to keep up with it, even with Bloglines. I need to find more content specific ones, and I think I could possibly become obsessed with it.

Love FlickR for my home life. I have taken so many digital pictures and they are stored mishmash EVERYWHERE, many times multiple times. I can't wait to start downloading them, organizing them and sharing them with family. I also loved the online image generators. I will will use that for sure to create personalized gifts. I will have to further explore the use of FlickR in the classroom. I'm pretty comfortable using Google Images at this point and haven't bought into the differences between it yet.

Also loved YouTube. I had already spent way too much time on it! For the classroom, I like the idea of TeacherTube and SchoolTube, but find the content a little lacking. Videostreaming seemed to have more content-specific topics and tagged well, but if our school's subscription is not renewed, I know where to go for videos. It also might be a good idea to have a "Help Page" with videos on my website, to assist parents at home with helping their children on specific topics.

Delicious is wonderful. Not only to put the huge amount of bookmarks I make in one spot to be accessed on any computer, but also the tagging aspect of it. Not only can I find what I thought was valuable, I can see what others thought was good. That will be a huge time-saver.

I may or may not use Google Docs. I can see the value of it, but would love it so much more if other formats were accepted, like Publisher.

And just when I thought I was overwhelmed enough with information, along came podcasts. I am looking forward to using them to get more ideas on teaching. I think I could also use it in the classroom for students to learn about a topic and get exposure to another kind of technology. As I get more comfortable with that, I can see myself teaching students how to do one.

Wikis are interesting, and I will explore them more for my own use. I think there is a huge potential for collaboration with other teachers with my same interests/needs, but not sure yet if wikis are a common practice with teachers. My students are pretty young, so not sure if they would be able to use them, due to logins. It might be neat to have a student-only wiki website, where students could use it to enter what they learned about a topic.

There was so much in this course. I need to make it a point to continue to practice, practice, practice and explore, explore, explore. Like many inservices, my fear is that what I have learned stays in the corner of my brain and I don't make a point to use/practice it. Or, when I want to use/apply it, I don't remember how. I am so glad I have a new computer I love to fiddle around on - this will be fun!

My big "take-aways" from this experience would be FlickR and delicious. I know I will be using that, due to a need that already existed and a level of comfort with it. As for the other 18-19 things, I look forward to creating a level of comfort there. I owe that to my students and myself.

Thanks for the great learning experience!

Thing 22

My wiki is at http://secondgradeideasthatwork.wikispaces.com/.

It was fun, but I had a hard time finding any videos to fit my topic that I saw an embed code for. The Two Sisters website had embedded videos and I couldn't figure out how to copy or download them. Then when I finally found one I thought would work on YouTube, it seemed like the embedding code wasn't working, since it wasn't showing up like in the tutorial video or in preview. I moved onto another video on a different topic, and it did the same. I finally tried saving it, and there it was. I then went back and inserted the first video. If you can get a well-visited wiki, you could get some awesome collaborative ideas, with resources right there for you to use it in your classroom.

I'm still a little unclear on some of the terminology, but I think a wiki differs from a blog because in a wiki, contributors can change the original post, but in a blog, contributors just add on ideas (which can also be done in a wiki). A wiki would be better used for an editable item, while a blog would be more useful to share ideas only.

Thing 21

Most of the wikis you had to sign up for. I did sign up for wikiHow and tried to add pictures to an article. Couldn't get it to work - will have to look at again later. This type of wiki could be used in the classroom for a student to write a story/page in a story and another student (in the class or across the world) to add a picture to it. Students would need a login at a secure sight, which makes me a little nervous. I was a little concerned about a 2nd grade wiki. The students had their own individual pages, sort of like a journal, and some of the students posted, in my opinion, way too much personal information. Not addresses, but things like family members and interests. Some pedophile could use that information to entice a child. While I monitor students in my class, they could go home and try things on their computer at home. Maybe I could just log in as myself and throughout the year students could do the task one student at a time. Not sure if that would be worth the effort/tracking and the ability level of students are vastly different as the year progresses. I would rather do this toward the end of the year as they not only increase their writing skills, but also their technology skills. Also would have to find another collaborator for the project. Could be fun though.

Thing 20

I subscribed to several podcasts at I-Tunes.

Prufrock Press Gifted Education - I have had gifted students in my class and spent hours online trying to find enrichment activities for them. I'm hoping this podcast will address that and other issues with gifted children.

Kidspiration - we have that program at school and I'm looking forward to the podcasts providing more activities to do with it.

ScienceCastle science experiments - I'm anxious for new ideas for experiments to teach my inquiry GLCEs.

I was not happy with the search on EPN, but Podcast Alley was beneficial. I-Tunes seemed a little confusing for me. I know how to work the music portion, but will have to explore more around with the podcasts. It looked like there was a TON of them! I think I will prefer I-Tunes when I can figure it out better, because of the wide variety, testing out aspect, clear description and ease of subscribing.

Thing 19

I loved the one at http://salem.k12.va.us/gwc/podcasts/batpodcast.mp3 by second graders. I teach second grade and we (as I'm pretty sure that class does) read several non-fiction selections about bats in our reading book. I'm pretty tempted to try my own, but am worried about how long it may take for students to compile/prepare the information and to practice it. I plan on looking into it and exactly how to do it in my classroom. I was sure to bookmark it on delicious for more examination as to how that class structured theirs. I know they would love it and get a real kick out of listening to themselves on the Internet!

I also listened to the second grade science podcast from resa at http://blackboard.resa.net/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_59_1 . The GLCE changed a couple of years ago and this video was a great review of the new GLCE to help in cementing them in my mind. I liked also how he mentioned what students learned about that topic in first grade, so I know what background knowledge they should have and I can build on that. WHen I clicked on the bar at the bottom, I saw that I could even go to each science area to relisten, instead of having to go through the whole podcast again. I noticed that there is a long companion document podcast that I am eager to look at in the future to get more ideas how to teach these GLCE. As a side note, it was sort of annoying when I was listening on my laptop with headphones, the speaker's voice was only on one side. The ending music was on both sides, so I know it wasn't my headphones or laptop.

Thing 18

I love that slide show. It reminds us (teachers) how we are presenters in the classroom and things we could do better. I went to the website and bookmarked it on delicious to look at later (it's getting late). In the classroom, Slideshare could be very useful in the teaching of any concept. I made a slideshow on Light (when it was one of our GLCE) and I could post that there for other teachers/classes to use. Outside of the classroom, one could create a slideshow on a holiday celebration and post it for others to view who were unable to be there.

SlideShare Post

This is a great slide show.

Brain Rules for Presenters

View more documents from garr.

I want to know the other rules (since they only really show you three).