Summary

The favorite thing to me was the voice thread. I can't wait to get to use that in the classroom. Second, would be Picasa since I like working with pictures. This course made me dig deeper into my learning by figuring everything out myself with some frustration I can remember how to do it. I really plan to work with my librarian who has also taken the class and come up with a blog for the students to use after reading books.
I would definitely be interested in another course. My downfall was teaching an Intel class at the same time I took this one.
Thanks for your leadership in this class.

Thing #23

I really liked the Ning that was for educators. I actually read some blogs and discussions on teaching reading strategies which is what my recent blogging has been about. I will definitely go back and visit the Ning regularly.
I do use the social networking which connects me to people from church, work and old high school friends. That is the best part to me. It is easy to keep in touch which is really hard for me to do with such a busy life.

Thing #22

I have been a member of myspace and facebook. As an educator I think having a social site might be good in the upper grades to help see where a student might be coming from possibly. I see a lot of danger in that some educators might try to be their friends like we did at our school. Not a good idea. Myspace to me is for the younger bunch of kids and I hate the profanity that goes along with it. I do think it is a good way to commnicate and a great way for parents to see what is going on. If they don't monitor their myspace they should.
Facebook is my preference. It has an older crowd and not as much vulgaity goes on in the circle of people I am friends with. It also has fun flairs and such and doesn't take so much time to decorate.
I am not sure this could be used in an educational setting without some way to monitor what was being said between students.

Thing #7c

I am always drawn in my Google reader to what others are doing in the classroom. Right now I am focused in my classroom on reading strategies. Mrs. Thorpe has a great blog about helping your child be a sharp reader. I am going to pass this on in my weekly newsletter to parents and give them the information.

Thing #21

I really had fun playing with the Google tools. Above I made a slide show with Picasa. This was easier to me that Flickr. The pictures uploaded alot quicker and you just push a button and they are in a slide show. I wanted to make a collage but I kept cutting peoples heads off. I believe this could be used in the classroom by uploading pictures from different animal habitats and making a slide show.
The other tool I used was the calendar. I made a tutoring calendar that I can email to my principal instead of the paper work. We will see how she likes it.

Thing #20

I am very interested in Google Docs. I am covered up with paper work and documentation. What a way to simplify my life by putting all of these things online. My first thought as I explored the Google Docs was of coarse with all of the data and documentation I have with TAKS. Right now we are in the crunch of getting our students plugged into acceleration groups and making sure each group is just right. AAAAhhh! I have already lost my documentation from our first grade level meeting where we placed each student where we thought they needed to be. So I made a new list and now I put it on google.docs in a spreadsheet so that I can share it with my colleagues and principal. Then after the next benchmark we will revise the list depending on how the students perform.
I played with google.maps and typed in Northpark Mall, thinking I might venture out this afternoon. How cool, you can see the traffic and I think I will stay home.:)
I think I will use the Google Maps in the classroom when we read Flat Stanley and send him on different adventures. We can then look up where Flat Stanley visits. Yea for MISD unblocking Google!

Thing #19

This has got to be my favorite on this journey so far. I got the idea from the bellwork thread. I thought I would down load a picture and comment it so the students could use it as a prompt during writing time. This was awesome!

Thing #18

I found two really good videos on Youtube to use for parents who want to help their children with reading comprehension at home. They are http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZobdcwO_c8 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZobdcwO_c8.

The how-to video can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhGX0-1TeVc. This is about importing a video to a powerpoint. I am still working on it!

Finally, here is my favorite video from Teachertube. We used this in staff development for a little back to school humor. I hope you enjoy it.

Thing #17

I look at the Jamestown Elementary School Podcasts. I have made podcasts in my classroom before. What I did like about the podcast was the students went to Kidpix and made pictures to go along with their podcast and mad them into a slideshow. That is one thing I would like to incorporate into my classroom. Another thing I would like to use podcasting for is to measure fluency. I think this would be a great way for students to hear themselves and how they change throughout the year.
I have subscribed to a podcast through my church and listen to the sermon if I miss it or if I just want to hear it again. Tim Rysinski also has a podcast on building fluency. It is a great way to learn new as an adult and students who need a different way to learn can also listen to a book a teacher read on a podcast. If you had the time to record lessons for those who were absent would be great also.

Thing #16

The LibraryThing has become a great organizational tool for me. I have put my read alouds for the classroom tagged in a group. But the most important aspect for me is to put books into groups to use when teaching certain strategies such as inferring, cause and effect and main idea. It is so nice to add books as I come across them and what area I can use them to teach with.

Thing #15

I already have a delicious bookmarking account. I have had a lot of trouble knowing how to treat my students who have dyslexic tendencies. There is a six month wait for these students to be tested and they are drowning. So I went to some bookmarking sites for teaching strategies to help me learn how to meet these students needs. With the bookmarking site I can easily go back and refer to these strategies when I need help.

Thing #7b

I was very interested in the blog http://davekurt.blogspot.com/2008/10/like-father-like-son.html because I have quite a few students in my classroom that are ADHD. These students are just like Nate in the article. I wish they could read this article and see how treating this students ADHD made him a successful student. Maybe I will link it to my newsletter.

Thing #14

I love the http://www.wordle.net/.
Again, this could be a great get to know you activity at the beginning of the year. I also thought you would be able to take a character from a story and use words writing character traits and make a product. Love this!
Socially you could use this on a myspace to tell about yourself.

Thing #13

I love this. This would be a great activity to use at the beginning of the year to spell out the students name and print it and then have them make an acrostic. This was a very easy process. Go to the website http://metaatem.net/words/
type in whaever it is you would like to spell and hit the button. I saw these made into pictures at Canton. Very expensive!

Thing #12

After I finally got the hang of the slideshow I really enjoyed it and had a lot of fun. This slide show could go along with Sarah Plain and Tall giving the students visuals of prairie life. The photo of the hay was taken in Sunnyvale, Texas. I thought that was cool.
Here are the places I got my photos from:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fortphoto/1746927016/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31020247@N08/3086111850/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31020247@N08/3086111852/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31020247@N08/3086111844/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31020247@N08/3086111842/

Thing #11

I really ejoyed playing with Flickr. I think that I could use this in the classroom in so many ways. Right now we are reading Sarah Plain and Tall. The students don't have an idea about a lot of vocabulary that is in the book. Pictures really help explain this more clearly. I have chosen the picture of the prairie to download in my blog and I also think this would be helpful in the classroom.

Thing #10

I have not noticed the Creative Commons on any websites before. I think that this could impact my students when they are creating products. They can use ideas from these websites that can be a part of something they have created. I have used images and video clips from websites to aide in book comprehension and visualization. I really do not share content on the web other than a blog or a wiki which does not include photos or video. I do now understand that I must look for this symbol when creating products.

Thing #9

Okay, this is one of the activities that I enjoyed the most. It was user friendly and I loved adding images to it. It did take me a while but I was not stressed like i have been in other activities. This was fun! Here is my wiki http://barnswiki.wikispaces.com/Lovin%27+Life

Thing #8 Stretch

As I look through the wikis I could get lost and read forever. There is so much information and I could stay on the computer forever. I found a very cool website that was mentioned in one wiki called spellingcity.com. It is so great. I wish I had more time to surf.

Thing #8

I would like to start a wiki about a book that a student needs to read first and then have conversation about what happened in the book.
The first wiki that I visited was http://monsonclassroom.wikispaces.com/. This wiki was from a fifth grade classroom. It was designed to have students think about ways to help our country and climate. The instructions were very clear and concise. I enjoyed reading the students responses and I thought the questions were very well thought out. I especially liked the question that the teacher asked about what questions would they have for President Obama.
The second wiki that I looked at was http://gowest.wikispaces.com/. This was completed by third grade students. It looks like the students were studying the west and the teacher set up a timeline and then gave the students an area to research. The students used Kidspiration to make graphic organizers and also added pictures. I think the students would have to have a lot of help in producing this wiki, but a lot would be learned.
The final wiki that I observed was http://community.saugususd.org/dlindsay/page/. This was a fifth/sixth grade site that was set up like a class web page. It was divided into a classroom window and a curriculum area. There were student blogs,teacher blogs, news events and homework in this area. This wiki was very appealing to the eye as well as informative.

Thing #7

I have been reading different blogs for quite a while but I am a closet reader and never have really responded to any. My own daughter has a blog and she always asks me why I don't comment. This activity has made me comment on people's blogs that I don't know. I really enjoyed telling someone that I liked something that they had done and how I benefited from their work. Interesting!
I am doing okay in the class. Just a bit behind with a challenging class that keeps me at school until all hours of the night. But I am back on the road.

Thing #6

As the man said in the Youtube video the RSS feed is addicting. I have two favorite feeds that I really enjoy. The first is http://www.google.com/reader/view/feed/http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2Fflickr_interestingness. There are so many cool pictures to look at. I love to take pictures and this has given me lots of great ideas. The other is http://www.executivehomemaker.com . This has some great decorating ideas and gifts to make.

Thing #5

I read "Amplifying Possibilities in the K12 Online Conference. This was very interesting to me. I went to the first grade presentation first. I watched Mrs. Cassidy's presentation. I thought I would start out easy first. I got two good ideas from her presentation. One was using a blog as a sort of newsletter and then some different ways to use wikis. Then she posted some links to her blogs, wikis and other classrooms for more ideas. I would love to incorporate the blogs through my students writing and possibly blogging buddies in another state or country. If your interested here is the link http://k12onlineconference.org

Thing #4 Blogging

I really enjoyed reading some of the blogs that were written. I think about how easy it looks, yet when I think about my students I think it won't we that easy. Again, turn that problem into a challenge. Speaking of challenge, my class is a huge challenge from an autistic student to drug babies. Anyway, I think that blogging will really work with my students. I can't wait.

I enjoyed the blog titled Is this SSR 2.0? I felt as if he were looking into my classroom. Trying to get students to sit and read quietly is very hard. Mark Ahlness took a different approah by letting students read blogs during SSR. They could read the blogs that he had set up of other people and then students from his own classroom. Some of the comments were made that teachers also let students work on their blogs during SSR. Writing and reading connect so well.

Thing #2

I think that learning the 23 things will help me to meet the needs of my students who are digital learners as well as in my professional life. Using technology in my classroom helps my students to be engaged and I have far less behavior problems. Technology is an important part of their future and I must help them to be successful in that. As far as in my professional life I can't mentor and motivate my colleagues to include more technology in their classrooms by using blogs and wikis to communicate on campus activities.

Thing #1

The hardest of the habits for me is to make a problem a challenge. I have the drive to follow through and find the answer. It is just when there are time constraints on me I seem to get stressed. I guess that I do accept the problem as a challenge I just don't need to let it get to me so much. I need to relax and chill out when it comes to technology.