Thing 23

I signed up for 23 Things because I wanted to become more familiar with Web 2.0 tools that I was already using and learn how to use the ones that I wasn't using. I can say that I have been able to reach those goals.

I do plan to continue to use this blog to go back and refresh my memory in the tools that I have been using this summer. My hope is to incorporate a few tools at a time into my classroom. I do plan on sharing these ideas with other teachers and hope that they will learn to use them with their students. My thoughts now are to work with some of the newer teachers to get them started with one or two tools and then branch out from there. I will also be using the same tools with my elementary students, 4th and 5th graders mostly, while the HS teachers are working with their students and I collaborate with them. I don't want to overwhelm them with all of these ideas and have them not use any. We'll focus on the ones that will benefit them most.

The ones that I see my teachers understanding and being willing to use most will be blogging, RSS feeds, and Google Docs. All can be used very easily and academically. From there, we might enter the world of wikis for collaboration between teachers and students or just student/student. Baby steps for now. I do see podcasting becoming a great way for students to enhance their learning both in listening to them and in making them. I have recorded podcasts before and feel pretty comfortable in showing students how to do it. It's getting the teachers to want to explore that as an option. The good thing is that we are all looking for ways in which to differentiate our instruction and what better way that with Web 2.0 tools!

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Thing 22

Here is my latest creation, my wiki. I am hoping to keep it up, but with so many new tools, I am going to have to choose which ones to use the most and which ones others will find helpful.

In general, I like to blog or use Facebook better than use the wiki. However, I can see the many possibilities with a wiki. I hesitate to use a wiki with high schoolers, even though they would love it. There is the chance that they will erase what others write just out of spite or like I said in my earlier post, to be "funny." For my elementary kids, I could find it quite useful, but I would need to make sure they all could remember the password, etc for editing purposes. Keeping parents involved is of course essential, as with all technology.

With my blog, I am the one writing and editing. With a wiki, anyone that is invited to share, may edit it. That's OK as long as the use is not lost in the writing. It would be more appropriate to use a wiki when collaborating on a project. It is better to use a blog when just wanting a discussion situation. I prefer for students to use the blog because they can't edit what someone else has said. The wiki would work well for projects as long as students were using it in a positive way. Students, in general, will like both using a blog and a wiki. It's using technology in the classroom and they are all for that.

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Thing 21

Wiki is a term that I first heard during graduate school. I remember joining a pbwiki site through a class, but never really getting the hang of it. I found it to be confusing. I'm not sure if that was me, the professor, or pbwiki.

In looking at the examples, these are some very comprehensive wiki sites. I was impressed with them all, really. Many people have spent quite a bit of time working on them. The one that I like the best was the educational wiki site. I was able to dig through some and this is a wiki that I could recommend to other teachers to use as a reference when trying to figure out the wiki world.

Some hurdles that I can think of off hand would be access to students. If I were to create a wiki for my students to add to and work on, I would need to trust them. Also, there would be the chance that others who shouldn't have access, would gain access from students. It would need to be monitored very closely. There is also the fact that many wiki sites are blocked at school and that is a hurdle that I may not be able to jump. I would need to prove its necessity and I don't know that I could justify a wiki over another tool.

There is also the problem of students posting inappropriate things on a wiki, more monitoring. It just seems very time constraining. Absolutely, guide lines would be set up, but there are always those kids who like to be "funny."

Under the best of situations, this could work, but I'm not sure that the hassles are worth the fight when there are other tools to use.

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Thing 20

Education Podcast Network and Podcast Alley are very good tools to be using to look up podcasts. In iTunes, I have really enjoyed Lit2Go put together by the University of South Florida in iTunesU. There are so many podcasts of fables, short stories, full classic novels, plays, etc, all by grade level. It is such a great resource for teachers to use. I do think that so many teachers are under the impression that they cannot get podcasts without an iPod. That will need to be made clear to them so that they can get going on this. Kids love a change and one way to do that is to introduce them to podcasting, etc. I am hoping to have more and more students creating podcasts not just listening to them.

I subscribe to several things from iTunes, but Car Talk and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR are my favorites. I just signed up for The Onion, a little change of pace. We'll see how that goes. I couldn't listen to too much today with little ears present. Plus, I downloaded all tracks for Kindergarten and Grade 1 from Lit2Go for my daughter. She is in a generation that will be using these tools more and more. The more I know, the more I can teach her as well as my students.

I prefer to use iTunes because I have practice using it. The other tools require me to create yet another log in to subscribe to them. I'm not very interested in creating yet another log in. However, I do see how useful these tools are and I may subscribe to some at school or have teachers subscribe. One that I really found interesting was at EPN under Social Studies. Each podcast gives clues for the students to find where in the world the author is. Very good geography/history lesson.

The down side could be in the downloading. Our restrictions at school for downloading can be pretty tight and I'm not sure if teachers will be able to download. Teachers will just have to plan ahead and download at home and save to their files.

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Thing 19

A few years ago when one of my professors in graduate school told us about podcasting, I did not like them at all. I had a printed copy of the article that he wanted us to listen to. I could read faster than the article was read to me and I was frustrated. Then I got an iPod. I know podcasts can work with any mp3 player, but this was my first chance to actually download a podcast using iTunes. I then saw how cool it was.

Though this lesson, I was able to revisit some podcasts that I had forgotten about. I really like Grammar Girl. If I were still in the regular classroom, I would absolutely have my students listening to her. I would also be using the other English lesson podcasts, like English Idioms and Slang or the Vocab Minute. The book talk podcasts are very helpful for me to use in the future. I can use them to gather ideas on how better to do book talks with the elementary kids. It's always good to get more ideas for that.

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Thing 18

Here is a very cute slide show from Slideshare with funny cats. It must be my mood, but I was really in the mood for funny, non-educational.

Funny Cats

View more presentations from Andreas Freiman.

I hope you enjoyed Funny Cats. I did. I think I'm destined to be the cat lady in my old age.

Anyway, this could really be a valuable tool for students. They could search for presentations that they might need information about. Or they could post their own presentations. I do, however, see some of them trying to "borrow" a slide show for their own use without giving credit to the creator. Those kids sure can be sneaky.

Out of the classroom, Slideshare could be used professionally for meetings, etc. At home for personal use, I really don't see the need except for sharing things with family, but there are other ways to do that.

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Thing 17

For this lesson, I played around with 30 Boxes, online calendar creator. I decided on this particular tool because my husband has been asking me about creating calendars for free online. I have a Palm and use that as my calendar and upload one a week. He doesn't have an electronic calendar and this option really seems to be good for him.

I was able to get him started. If he chooses, he will be able to share his calendar with others. He can also create an RSS feed for it to be subscribed to by others. Not that he would to that, but he could.

I don't see myself using this at school/professionally. I might look more at Library Thing. I did create an account there, but it seems very involved and I haven't taken the time to load my bookshelf. Another to-do for me.

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Thing 16

I LOVE Google Docs.  When I first heard/learned about this last summer or so, I was hesitant to use it. However, I have shown it to a few students and they are loving it.  One student was trying to save things to his flash drive and go back and forth and everywhere.  He wasn't able to save in the correct formats on each computer and it was messing things up.  I showed him Google Docs and how he could use it anywhere and I thought he was going to hug me.

I have introduced this tool to another teacher and she and I are going to team teach a project, or several projects, next year using this tool in all formats.  We are very excited to get started.  The only problem I can see will be students creating their emails.  However, another colleague wrote in her blog, that she created generic emails all with the same password for students to get in.  She created a spreadsheet with these email addresses so that she could refer to them when they forget.   (Thanks, Karen!)  Let's face it, they will forget and if we want to use the tools, they need to remember.  It amazes me that they can text so fast, but they can't remember their log ins.

Personally, I haven't figured out how I would use Google Docs or find a need for it at home, but absolutely am planning on using it TONS at work.

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Thing 15

RSS is becoming easier to understand, however, using a Mac doesn't necessarily make it easier to use.  It took me some digging again to remember how to subscribe to a new feed.  Also, I couldn't get any of the news fees to work.  I am going to keep trying though.

I do understand the benefits of using this tool.  I have been trying to check Bloglines frequently, but I'm not addicted to it - yet.

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Thing 14

Delicious is a tool that I have been using for quite awhile now, both at work and at home.  A few years ago, during grad school, I started using it.  Then when we needed a new computer, I was able to bookmark using Delicious sites from our computer so that when we got the new one, it would all be there without the work.  Here is my account.

I have also used the LMSA Delicious site on occasion, however, I don't use that one as often.  That site is here.

Social bookmarking can be used in my teaching with students in various ways.  I have shown my students my Delicious page and explained how it works to them.  I always have students who sign in to use the same computer or get frustrated when someone is on "their" computer because they have bookmarked sites on that computer.  I tell them about Delicious, but because they are not in my class, they sometimes don't listen.  I have had a few tell me they would like to get started, but very few.  Students can use it for many things, if they would just give it a try.

I have found that Delicious does help me be productive.  I'm not redoing my searches all the time.  I can look at my Delicious page and find what I need.  I have also pointed co-workers to it so they can see what it does.  I hope to share with more.

Tagging is very useful for me to use.  I know my tags and can find things easily, however, others may not know my system.  In one of the articles it said to stick with the common tags, but there are some things that are special and don't fit into those tags.  It's just a matter of sharing and having others look them over.  I know this may take time, but when the searching is lessened to begin with, they may take the time to do it.  It is important to try to use common lingo, but that isn't always possible.

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Thing 13

There are many things about Facebook that I enjoy.  I have been a member for about one year and have many "friends."  The funny thing is, I originally signed up because of my husband and now I'm the one online all the time.

I really enjoy being able to search for family that I had lost touch with.  It's also fun to see what my high school classmates have been up to over the years.  Emailing each other through Facebook is so much easier than trying to remember what everyone's email address is.  Facebook has changed its look and, at first, it was not liked by the users.  There was this big uprising in Facebook world that they wanted the old way back.  However, the new look has stayed and I have become used to it.  I like that I can see the most recent updates by friends quickly.  I do forget to check out my friends is they haven't posted new things for all to see.  Also, inviting people to take the quizzes or sending flair or posting pictures and videos can be fun.  I post both pictures and videos for my "friends" to see.  I make sure that only those who are networked with me can view them.  This is a safety thing for me.  In the long run, I'm a Facebook addict now and love it.  I'm even getting my husband to check it more often.

Twitter on the other hand, is not something that I find useful for me.  It's like posting very short emails to the world.  In order to keep up, one must post frequently and that can be a pain.  I don't text or instant message well because the English teacher in me is very bothered by the lingo.

Students do use these tools on a very frequent basis.  If there could be a safe way to incorporate this into the classroom setting, I know they would LOVE it.  One of the biggest safety things that I would tell my students is to be careful about what they post.  They truly believe that bad things can't happen to them, when that just isn't true.  We as educators, quite frankly, need to use scare tactics to get them to understand that once it's out there, it's out there.  Some people are out there to find victims and we must teach our students to be aware and safe.  Getting parents involved, again, is essential.

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Thing 12

I hope this works. It looks like a fun tool.  I got it from Widgetbox.  Since I was adding a widget, I also decided to add a gadget to my blog to see what they were.  I added the Sudoku puzzle.

The widget that I added is fun and people will be able to find a band they like to listen to.  It is very easy to embed the code, especially using Widgetbox.  

The only other social networking site that I use is Facebook and I do find that I like it.  At first, I didn't think I would, but I have been able to reconnect with friends and family that I haven't spoken to in years.  I do not use MySpace and never plan to.  Online communities can be very good and very bad.  It depends on what the purpose of being in one is.  I like that I have found people, however, there are some people who have found me that I don't really think being "friends" with would be appropriate.  For me, face-to-face would be better, but many of the people that I communicate with are not close by so this is the next best thing.

Kids are social butterflies and using MySpace and Facebook, among others, are what they do.  They are communicating in more ways all the time.  I believe that they find it to be safer than actually saying things to someone in person.  It's easy to take on a persona online and not have to face someone.  It's easier to let someone down in an email that confronting them in person.  It's easier to because they don't have to face them.  It is taking out some of the social skills that they will need when they get into the job world.

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Thing 11

I don't mind commenting on other's blogs and I do enjoy getting comments. However, I think I mentioned this before, there are people out there who are a bit on the weird side and look for people to comment on. They don't like to follow the "rules" and some can simply be dangerous. In an online community, comments are a part of the fun. It's fun to see what someone thinks about what you have posted. Without comments in the online community, what would be the point of posting? If no one says anything to us about what we post, it would be very boring and it would no longer be a community. It would just be a website.

I know my students would enjoy using comments in the classroom setting. There would be a strong emphasis on the rules and etiquette of being online and in that community. They would need to be careful and parents must consent, especially at the elementary level.

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Thing 10

Here is one of my absolute favorite YouTube videos.  It's called the Mom Overture by Anita Renfroe.

I hope you enjoyed it. I saw this video long ago and just laughed out loud at all of the things that I heard growing up and the things that I already say to my daughter. It's just great.

Yes, I was able to download a video using KeepVid with no problems.

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Thing 9

I have been a fan of YouTube for awhile.  I have used it mostly to find old TV shows that I liked when I was a kid.  My favorite from the list had to be the Panda sneezing.  Although I found In My Language and Taylor Mali inspiring.  I made comments on all three of them.

Things I like about YouTube: looking up old shows, learning about things from Commoncraft and others, finding funny videos for my daughter, and being able to leave positive comments.

Things I don't like about YouTube: people who leave negative comments and some videos are inappropriate.

There are loads of videos on YouTube, TeacherTube, and SchoolTube that are educational and can be used in the classroom.  I had not heard of SchoolTube, but I have tried to post to TeacherTube.  In my district, YouTube is not blocked for teachers, but I do believe that it is blocked for students.  TeacherTube is not blocked, but I cannot upload videos because I am limited on the size that I can upload.  That can be very frustrating.  As much as I know kids would look for videos on YouTube that might not be appropriate, they would like to have the privileges and with guidelines to follow, they might actually be engaged in the learning.  At some point, we need to embrace the technology that is available for the students to use and not make them shut down when the get to school.

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Thing 8

I used Mosaic Maker at Big Huge Labs and connected to my Flickr account to make my mosaic.  The pictures are of my family enjoying an early summer day at Lake Michigan.  It was very cold, but our daughter just loved to dip her toes into the freezing water.  She took off running as soon as she took her first dip, but then she couldn't get enough.

I found using this service quite easy.  It was not time consuming to make the mosaic, but I did have to upload my pics to Flickr and label them.  That takes little time, but it wasn't bad.  I tried to use the Image Generator also, but didn't find that was as user friendly.

The other tools for work mashing were fun tools to use as well.  I played around with each one.  In fact, my daughter helped me with the Flickr memry game.  I didn't realize that Flickr had so many neat tools to use to create things.  I do plan to play around with them more for personal work.  The first thing that comes to mind is making a b-day party invitation for my daughter using photos from each year to create the cover.  

Professionally, I would like to introduce teachers to these tools for their students and I can show my upper elementary students how to use them as well.  If their parents approve, they could bring in a digital card or camera and we could create accounts to create.  Or their parents could create their accounts with them at home and we could play around with the tools during class.  So many options, so little time. :-)

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Thing 7

I posted three pictures in Flickr tonight, just random pictures of myself and my family.  Personally, I would use Flickr only for personal reasons.  I know for a fact that it is blocked at my school and many others.  This is due to the image searches that the kids can do.  I know we also run into some problems with Google Images, but there are some people who use Flickr in a negative way.  Also, if I'm going to be posting to Flickr, I'm not going to share my images with the public.  It can be a scary thing to post pictures of children only to have some creep comment on it.  I have run into that before.

If I were going to have my students use this tool, I would teach them about the rules, as I would with any online tool.  I would also make sure to have their parents involved in the photo process.  Parents need to be involved because of the naivete that goes on with our students.  They always think it will never happen to them, but things can happen.  Education on the tools is key.

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Thing 6

I did a search for cats in Flickr.  I did this search because I like cats and have two of them.  The photo I found that I really like is just funny.  My 18 lb. cat sits like this by his food dish and I couldn't resist.  I try to find funny whenever I can.

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Thing 5

For about 30 minutes or so, I thought I wasn't going to be able to subscribe to any RSS feeds.  I opened the first site, Will Richardson's, only to not have the tools at the top of the screen to subscribe.  I scrolled down, went to each tab, and nothing.  I went back to 23 Things to see what I had missed and couldn't figure it out.  I went on to the next task, coping the URL into the feed with David Warlick.  Again, no luck with that either.  I then started playing around with Bloglines to see if there was something that I was missing.  It turns out that my Internet browser doesn't show the RSS feed subscription icon because there is another way.  I am on a new MacBook and I had to drag the "Sub with Bloglines" tab to my bookmark bar.  Once I did that I was able to subscribe to the first two blogs, no problem.  Here's the funny part, the third video of the lesson was on just that feature for all Internet browsers.  I was trying to do them one at a time, when all I had to do was watch the third video and I would have been all set.  That's OK, though, I had to figure it out and I did on my own.  The video just confirmed that I wasn't losing my mind.

Now to answer the questions: RSS can be a difficult concept for some to grasp right away - what questions do you have?  What didn't work or doesn't make sense?  How might you use RSS in your personal or professional life?  Find anything in your searching that you would recommend to others?

I guess I already answered the second question with my subscription woes.  It was frustrating, but I was able to trouble shoot my way through it.  One question that I do have is: is bloglines only to subscribe to blog RSS feeds?  Can I subscribe to other sources with that as well?  I'm going to give it a try to find out.  Also, I know that bloglines will not email to say that things have been happening on my feeds, which is both good and bad.  I would like to know if it's worth my time to go there to see the feeds, but I know that I would be inundated with too many emails.  I guess that means I better subscribe to the ones that matter so I will go check on a regular basis.

Personally, I might use an RSS feed to subscribe to things about school stuff or about my hobbies, etc.  For my husband, he's more into the news features than I am, so I might sign him up as well.  Professionally, I would use it for technology and school media related topics.  Something that I would like to do with my students is to get them subscribing to the various databases and places of information for research purposes.  I know a teacher librarian who does this with her students and she just loves it.  I am hoping to steal her idea and try that out in the classroom.

I would recommend http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/ and http://blog.schoollibrarymedia.com/.  Both are great resources of inspiration for educators and school media.

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Thing 4

I went to register at bloglines and I had already created an account.  I must have done that in grad school and TOTALLY forgot about it.  I knew that I meant to learn more about this and it has taken me two years to get back to it. :-)

I handle information overload by shutting down, literally.  It's hard to read everything and find out all of the information on each and every single topic.  I do find that I don't know much about things because I start to lose interest pretty quickly if the point isn't made.  I am also a visual person and when things are in audio only, I tend to block it out.  I need to see it in order to get it.  If I have to go get the information, chances are, I'm not going to.  I would rather it was delivered to me.  I liked the analogy in the video comparing RSS feeds to Netflix and the video store.  I LOVE Netflix and so I'm guessing I will love RSS.

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Thing 3

I have used a blog at work using Edublogs.  However, I couldn't get many people to follow.  I tried to get students and teachers alike to log in, both in secure blogs for teachers only and public blogs for students and teachers to comment.  It just didn't catch on in the library setting.  I do know that our computer literacy teacher at the high school level did have great luck with her classes and getting them to blog.  My hope is to keep trying to get more to blog.  It's really amazing how comfortable kids feel when they can express their thoughts in a blog.

In the fall I am going to set up a blog site for my book club for them to discuss the books online both before we meet and after we meet.  This will allow for their ideas and comments to be heard and for those who can't actually come to the meetings to speak about the books.

I truly believe that students will find blogging really fun.  They all do it now, it's just that they use My Space and Facebook more than anything else.

Some concerns that I have are: 1. students will not understand the how to respond, 2. teachers will not encourage their students to blog, and 3. once it's posted, it's posted.  All users need to remember the guidelines when posting so that their privacy is kept and so that they feel comfortable blogging.

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Thing 2

Blogging is not new for me, but I haven't been doing it as much lately. I am now a Facebook addict, more on that later.

I am participating in 23 Things because I want to enhance what I know and do more with the tools that I have not used. The opportunity to teach other teachers about these "things" is really my driving motivator. My hope is to be able to return in the fall refreshed on these topics and I will be able to teach students and other teachers why these things are so important. I want to learn how to do these things well to better enhance my teaching.

Writing on the Internet can be a bit scary at first. I do watch what I say, because once it's out there, it's out there. I teach that to my students every day. In fact, on a personal note, I have another blog for my friends to read. I post pictures of my daughter there and tell funny stories. Someone that I didn't know began to post comments to pictures. It freaked me out a bit and I changed my blog address. I didn't, however, quit blogging. It's important to be careful, but we can't live in caves and not embrace the new technology because of one person. We just need to know the rules/guidelines for posting and all is well.

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Thing 1

What is Web 2.0? This is a term that has become a part of every day language, at least for me. As a grad student when the term was coined, it was part of every class that I was in. We learned more and more as the program went on and I can honestly say that I feel very comfortable with many of the components of Web 2.0. There are many things that I have worked on and some yet to dive into. I can't wait to get started.

After reading the article and viewing the video, there are things in there that I do, there are things in there that I would LOVE to do, and things in there that I see logistically not working in my school district. As much as I would like to see the kids using their cellphones for their education, the truth of the matter is that one weak link will ruin that for everyone. It only takes one kid with their cellphone camera in the wrong place to make all cellphones banned. There must be some ideas that we can chat about here for us to combat the negative and focus on what will enhance learning. But I guess, that's what this is all about. Bring it on!!

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