One Last Thing

I am exhausted, but THANK YOU! What an amazing course! I have been challenged, frustrated, and completely enthralled!! I will never be the same! Well, that might be a little dramatic, but my technology skills will certainly never be the same. I have laughed and cried over this class, but the learning is priceless.

I was fascinated with Flickr, various Web 2.0 tools, and Google Reader. These are things I will come back to. I am hoping I can come back to the 23 Things page so that I can use the direct links while I revisit the things I have learned.

I was surprised by the fun I am having with Facebook. I never really wanted anything to do with it, but it has been a blast finding old high school friends and peeking at pictures of their family. Their kids look just like they did when we were high school buddies.

The blogs are perfect for many things, and I want to experiment more with creating a useful wiki. We have talked about setting up a family wiki so we can better keep up with each other and all add to the page. I am part of a book study group that has met about 3 years, and we have tried to keep up with each other through emails. This has been difficult and last night I worked with another member to set up a book study blog! It is set up so we are all authors and any of us can begin a new post. An immediate application of new learning!!!!!!

I have already created several things with ImageChef and imported one into an online wedding book I am making for my son and daughter-in-law. I also think it might be fun to play around with some of the options when we create our Christmas card this year. We will see if I follow up on that one!

I think Classroom 2.0 and Teacher 2.0 will help me keep up with new developments as well as our fabulous school district who is always right on top of things. If another course like this was offered, I would give it a shot. I will also encourage others to take this course but I will warn them to be ready to give up part of their lives!!!! It DID take a lot of time to really do everything available.

My goal, of course, is to actually use this stuff throughout the year and model the tools. I would love to have teachers coming to me and saying, "How did you do that and will you show me?!?!??"

I probably won't maintain this blog, but hope to start a new one for the Tosch Staff. I will also continue to follow some of the blogs I found through this class.

Whew......the fun is just beginning!!!!

Thing #23

I think this course is making me more social. The more aware I am of the variety of options, the more social I become. In fact, it was very difficult to move on to Thing 23 because I was having so much fun connecting with old friends on Facebook.

The discussions, comments, information, articles, videos, etc. in this lesson are amazing. When you take the time to search and review what is out there, a whole new world is opened. There are so MANY ideas with which to share and collaborate. This is something I will return to and pursue regularly.

I like that Ning as offered "ad-free" networks for educators. The ads have bothered me on several sites. I also like that it can be set to private or public. Again, the site coordinator has "control" and I certainly do like control!!

I used Ning/Teacher 2.0 and found a cool conversation on how to use Twitter in the classroom. This is a great way to share ideas! Another forum also discussed using Twitter during class. They gave many reasons as to why this encourage more students to be involved and the video clip embedded in the article interviewed students who share their thoughts on Twitter in the classroom. This was a college class, but it won't be long before this is used more regularly with other students.

Yes, I will spend more time here. As questions come up during the year regarding certain issues, I will hit Classroom 2.0 and see if there is any information out there that will help us make our decisions. It is always good to see and hear how others are doing things.

Thing #22

I love the way this Thing started with the quote, "When one of us gets smarter, we all do." I have seen and felt this throughout my 23 Things Adventure! I also felt it was important to become familiar with these tools because our students already are. We have to keep up with them, and we need to understand what they are talking about. Facebook is huge among the kids, and it is time for me to jump in. I have been reluctant, to say the least. Throughout my blog you have heard my hesitation to put myself out there. However, I believe in the learning community and the social community, and I do believe in modeling appropriate uses for the students. Hence, my interest in Facebook. It was certainly easy to join and fun to add friends. I can see this as being a great way to connect with old high school friends. I am not much for talking on the phone and like this type of interface because I can communicate in my leisure, which is often after midnight. The format is easy to manipulate, but I will continue to play with the different parts of Facebook. I have not added any pictures, but know it will be easy to do. This is one tool my kids can help me with. You can find me and join me in this adventure if you like!

I am not sure about educational uses yet. Making connections with other teachers might give me an opportunity to share ideas, but I see other tools as a better format than Facebook. I do like the control over your settings and the ability to keep some things private or make some things public. Insights---you can tell a lot about a person by what they are willing to display publicly!!! Basically, this is one more communication tool. The benefits include the accessibility to others, the casual format, the ability to post pictures, quotes, thoughts, and the ability to update anytime, anywhere. It is just fun to keep up with others! I think that is what I have enjoyed about most of the social networking tools. I can keep up with them on my terms---in my time frame. Can you tell I tend to like to have control? The limitations include lack of access at school, the way it sucks you in and snatches snippets of your life away, and the comments you sometimes end up seeing because of someone else's insensitivity.

Sometimes there is just TMI out there!!!

Thing #7B

I haven't really been pleased with the sites that I subscribed to with Google Reader. Once things settle down, I will search for more relevant sites. I do like being able to open Google Reader and see the updates of all the sites. I like skimming the brief blips to see which ones I want to spend more time on. I know when I have sites that are more in tune with my needs, I will greatly benefit from Google Reader.

One article I found caught my eye because of the craziness of the summer. It made some suggestions on improving your time management skills and I have really needed that. I feel like I have done 23 Things all summer rather than manage my time properly in order to accomplish more. One of the ideas was to make lists. This is always a great thing to have so you can check thing OFF!!!! I also liked the suggestion in the article to make sure I find time for reflection and relaxation. I can't force myself to "do the impossible." I need to set goals and work toward them in a steady, consistent manner. It also talked about focusing. "The human mind works more efficiently when it is focused." (Tim Bridge of PersonaDev.com.)

This article did come from one of the sites that I have found informative.

Thing #21

Well it is always exciting to find new tools to use. Google Alert is awesome and was so easy! As things come up during the year, I will be able to set up any alert that I need. For now I set it up for Mesquite Weather and it will send me a daily email to let me know what the weather is in Mesquite. The cool thing about this is that I shared something new with my daughter. Yipee!!! I knew something she didn't. She immediately went to Google Alert and set it up to notify her of any pertinent soccer news.

I tried Google Notebook and it said that they are no longer taking new users.

I played around with Google Calendar some but am not sure it will help me yet. I didn't like that it wouldn't show everything I typed in the box. I was limited on what I could put in there, unless I just am not using it correctly. I can see how it would be good to do some basic calendar sharing with office staff if I didn't have to type too much. We might could keep up with ARD's, PTA Programs, grade level programs or other things like this. I guess if I needed to say more, I could put it in the comment section, but that is just more clicking. I like to see everything I can at once. That is why I use a Month-at-a-Glance rather than a Week-at-a-Glance calendar. As with anything, it may just mean practicing and using it. I would have to get others at school to get signed on and get used to using it, too.

Google Sites looked like fun, too. We have talked about setting up a family site and most of the family members spend a lot of time at the computer. I am not sure if the grandparents would use the site too much, but we could teach them.

I worked with Picasa some and uploaded some pictures for you to view. However, when I linked the word "pictures" to the pictures, I think that link also gave you access to my gmail and everything else. So....I unlinked.

Thing #20

GoogleDocs will become a tool I use regularly, I hope. I love that you can create a document and never lose it, and that it can be changed online so that you don't have to keep up with the most recent copy of something. Another great feature is that you can view previous copies to see exactly what changes were made or who actually made the changes. I also like that documents can be public or private. This is still one of my concerns with some of the Web 2.0 tools----that anyone can see anything. I am looking for better ways to communicate with my staff and gather information, but there are times or discussions that need to remain confidential within our circle. I believe this tool can help me with some of that.

I created an Acceleration Form as a way to keep up with which students are in Acceleration. It will help me monitor what subject they are receiving tutoring in, who the teacher is, what days of the week they participate, when they enter and when they exit Acceleration. If I allow the classroom teachers and the testing coordinator access, then we can keep up with and formally document which students we need to monitor.

I believe this might also be a good tool to keep up with emergency staff information. At the beginnning of the year, teachers fill out a form with important information like: birthdate, children's names and ages, emergency numbers, cell numbers etc. This could be information they enter themselves and change when needed. Also, the entire staff could have access to the information. We would need to make sure it was information everyone was comfortable sharing or they could leave some sections blank. We are forever trying to find phone numbers for teachers to let them know something at the last minute.

I created a word document with upcoming dates for my staff. If I could send this to the whole staff, then I would not have to run it off and they could receive information at home during the summer or at night. I could also do this with the weekly newsletter.

Another idea is to use the form tool in order to ask a question and receive information back from teachers. It seems to work like a survey or poll. I have created one and sent it out to a few people so I can see how the information comes back and what it looks like.

I am excited about looking for more ways to incorportate this "thing" and will definitely be talking to others to see how they are using it.

Thing #19

VoiceThread looks like an awesome classroom tool. This is another great way to motivated students and to differentiate products. I explored a variety of sites and found some fun ways to use VoiceThread. I can certainly see my teachers enjoying this tool and taking advantage of its potential. I liked the way students could present science fair projects with VoiceThread. The teachers could give feedback to the presentation as could other students. I also liked the idea of presenting a picture, piece of art, or presentation and asking students to reflect and respond. The class was asked to view this picture and give responses on where carbon is found. What a great way for teacher to see if the kids "get it!"

I loved the example where a student's picture was posted and others could share about why they liked the picture. What a great way to build a student's confidence and to give them insight into what others appreciate!

This VoiceThread gave a review of a book that had been read. This would be a fun project option for students to create. Other students could then listen to different reviews and pick the next book they wanted to read.