Thing #4

I'm not sure if I was supposed to post something for Thing #4, but I registered my blog!

Thing #3

I have just completed 23 Things and realized that I didn't post about setting up my blog. It was a lot easier than I had anticipated to set up my blog. At first I didn't know if I would like having a blog, but it's actually pretty great! I think it would be cool for all teachers to have to have one and to comment on things they learn throughout the year as part of professional development!

Thing #23

I can't believe I'm finished!!! It's been a great journey of learning. It took me a while longer than I had anticipated, but I enjoyed every minute.

I loved learning about Flickr and Photo Story. I like having a creative outlet and being able to incorporate my photos. Google Reader was also great and I got into reading blogs a lot more than I thought. I've been able to enjoy my cousin's blog as well as some good ones about recipes and education. And, I'm really excited to use a wiki during the school year to help my team plan more efficiently. There are tons of resources that I could continue to list that will greatly enhance my classroom. Rollyo will be great for narrowing searches for my students, and the photo projects like Flickr and Photo Story can be a great avenue for them to express what they've learned on a particular subject. I don't think there was anything in the 23 Things that I didn't like, that wouldn't benefit my classroom! Great job in selecting 23 pertinent and interesting things!

23 Things has allowed me to continue learning over the summer. I knew a fraction of what I do now about resources on the internet. I believe I will continue using these resources to learn more about education and news and new concepts. The internet provides so many learning opportunities that I can enjoy at my own pace at any time.

I really like the format and concept of this program. There was always enough of a tutorial to help figure out how to do things like including pictures and videos, etc. into my blog. Everything was easy to do on my own. I really liked the In Plain English explanations of things.

There are so many take-aways from this program. I can use almost everything I learned with confidence in my classroom. Before doing 23 Things, I used the Promethean Board in my classroom about 40 - 50% of the time and was hesitant to try any projects on the computer in the library. Now, I'm really excited to have computers in my classroom this coming year and will probably sign up for computer time in the library so that my students can do more of these hands-on, technology projects. I also can't wait to use the 3rd grade camera to add creativity and participation to class projects.

I would definitely take more classes like this if they were offered and am excited to share what I've learned with my teammates, my students, and my school. I really have enjoyed this program and have really liked being able to discover things on my own time with a little help from online tutorials.

23 Things is a wonderful learning experience of internet discovery and self discovery.

I plan to keep my blog going and continue to learn from the other people I have connected with through these 23 Things. Will I still be able to access 23 Things during the school year? I have kept a list of my favorite websites, but it would be great to have access to the blog for more internet insight.

Thing #22

For this "Thing" I looked at all the Nings that Library2Play had posted. I felt like they could all be very useful, but I think my favorite was Ning for Teachers. What I particularly liked about Ning for Teachers were the lesson plans and ideas for the classroom that were shared on the Ning. I love the idea of having a place to go specifically for elementary teaching resources. The Nings are great because it seems to be an extension of a blog. It puts your blog in a space with messaging forums, other similar blogs, and resources. I will definitely use Ning for Teachers this year as I search out lesson plans and ideas for my classroom. There is always so much to learn from others, especially for the classroom, and I'm excited to have a great resource. I also liked that there were featured lessons and popular topics which seemed very pertinent and interesting.

Thing # 21

I got to Thing 21 at the perfect time! My husband and I just got back from a week long trip in Costa Rica so I was able to use my pictures for my Photo Story. I found it really easy to upload the pictures and edit them as I wanted in Photo Story. After that I downloaded music through iTunes hoping I could use a specific song for the project, but I was unable to make it work. I don't know if it would have worked if I had just downloaded a song from a CD onto my computer and then used that. Maybe you can't copy iTunes songs to projects like Photo Story? I'm not sure. I may try to do a test Photo Story with a song saved on the computer from a CD to see if that will work. I really like Photo Story. It's great to be able to make a movie of pictures and add music and narration. When I tried to upload the video to my blog I wasn't sure if it worked because in this mode as I type, it doesn't show the actual video. However, once I published it, the video showed up. I then edited the post to add this commentary. I really think that Photo Story could be great for a project for my students especially because they could take pictures or select pictures from Flickr and then add their own commentary to show what they have learned about a particular subject. I have now downloaded Photo Story to my personal computer in hopes of using it for more collections of pictures.

Thing #20

I looked up a YouTube video about educational technology and found this video which I have embedded here. I think it captures a lot of the message of 23Things and shows that the educational world is changing dramatically as the amount of technology increases.




I'm also really excited how easily I figured out how to embed a video. I anticipated having problems figuring it out, but it seems to be easy!

I also checked out Teacher Tube as I hadn't really explored it before. I liked what I found, but wished that some of the descriptions were better. I always feel rushed for time when I am searching things for my classroom becuase there are so many subjects to cover and so little time. I felt like I looked at several Teacher Tube videos on one subject before I could find one that would have been suitable for my class. I'm not giving up on Teacher Tube though.

Thing #19

From the Web 2.0 Awards I chose to check out Wetpaint. I created a page in hopes that my 3rd grade team would get on board once school starts and use my site as a medium for sharing ideas, websites, promethean board flip charts, pictures, calendars, upcoming events, important team leader tidbits, etc. I think I was hoping that Wetpaint or any of the other wikis would be more like iGoogle where you can have a calendar, weblinks, and constant updates. I think I'm looking for a cross between iGoogle and a wiki where we could have weblinks on the side, a calendar, and a place to post and discuss things. Wetpaint has a ton of ads that are pretty annoying, but I'm not really wanting to pay to get rid of them. I'm hoping that my team will at least look at my Wetpaint site and try to post some ideas on it. My thought is that 1) everyone can see what's going on at the same time instead of emails being sent out, 2) changes can easily be made, 3) everyone can post, comment, add links and ideas at their own convenience, so it's effective even when we aren't physically together during planning. We could even add links and sites as we find them instead of having to say, "I'll get you that link," and forgetting to bring it to planning. I like the community feel of it and the sharing. I think it could be very beneficial for my team.

Thing #18

I downloaded Open Office on my personal computer and played around with it today. I had already used Google Docs in one of the previous "things", but I revisited it and searched around some more. I loved the sounds, backgrounds, rulers, and bullets that were readily accessible when I opened a new document. I also liked that I could make drawings, presentations, spreadsheets all in the same program instead of having to go to Excell, or Access or Word. Both Google Docs and Open Office seem to be a little more user friendly that Microsoft Office's applications. I did however have trouble saving my Open Office document to the correct format, and I'm not sure how easy it would be for someone not using Open Office to open a document not saved .doc. As I begin each of these modules, my biggest hurdle seems to be my unwillingness to change. When I first thought about using Open Office or Google Docs instead of Microsoft Office I thought, why would I want to use something else? Why wouldn't Microsoft Office be the best? Why change? The same happened when the librarian at our school suggested that the number of books in circulation might be cut by a huge percentage. I thought why would that be neccessary? Books are always the best source of information. However, 23 Things has opened my eyes to the wealth of information at my fingertips. Information that is different, acquired differently, used differently, and I'm learning that that's ok.

Thing # 17

Rollyo! I created an account on Rollyo and added it to my browser. I also added sites that I might want my students to use when doing research projects. I've included the link to my Rollyo Search Engine. http://rollyo.com/rknapp/my_rknapp/
Rollyo is somewhat similar to Delicious, but I might like it even better. I love the idea of my students having certain websites to choose between. It makes their research so much easier, a lot more efficient, and keeps them from wasting a lot of time. I was thinking that Rollyo would be difficult for me because I don't have that many ideas for good websites, but as I got to thinking, there were plenty I could add. Also, our librarian has a page full of good websites. I could easily look through those and choose pertinent ones to add. I also like the fact that I can create different Search Engines for different projects and can add good websites from other users, editing what I don't want, but including what I do.

Thing #16

I love wikis! I have heard the term several times and even through 23 Things have seen it, but never knew what it was. I wrote in SANDBOX what I'll write here.....I'm really excited to share my knowledge of wikis with my 3rd grade team. I keep thinking about how much it could enhance our planning. If we had one, everyone could add links, videos, cool websites, you name it, at their leisure and then we could easily access the information instead of having to look stuff up on our own. Our team leader could post information that we need to know about. Our librarian could also be linked to it and add links and information as she saw fit. I'm really excited about this, and definitely think it could make our planning more efficient and meaningful. Planning could be a continuous discussion between us even when we aren't phisically in the same room discussing ideas.
I'm not sure how well wikis would work in a 3rd grade classroom. I really like what I saw in the middle school and high school ones, but I'm sure my 3rd graders would surprise me!

Thing #15

For this assignment I read "Away from Icebergs", "Into a new World of Librarianship", and "To More Powerful Ways to Cooperate." The video of the students from Kansas State University along with these readings really brought awareness to how much education and libraries are changing. Students don't have to just sit back and absorb information, but can be active participants in their learning. Books aren't necessarily the best medium for information any more. The librarian at the school I teach at mentioned at the end of last year that libraries were cutting their book numbers drastically because of the increased popularity and usefulness of technology. At the time I thought she was crazy. After reading these blogs and watching the video, I think maybe she is right.
Of the perspectives I read, the most interesting to me was "Into a New World of Librarianship." I had no idea how flexible, current, and changing the job of a librarian must be today. I still ascribe to the thought of the traditional librarian who helps a school or library keep books in order, looks for new books to share, checks books in and out. I never thought about how technologically savvy today's librarian must be (although the librarian where I teach is very much technologically savvy). I like the notion that the librarian's job is to make everything very accessible to the patrons and must bring the library to the patrons. At the end of last year, our librarian introduced us to multiple websites and technologies that could enhance our classrooms. At the time, I thought these are great, but really are they THAT great? Are we really going to use them? Through my journey of 23 Things, I'm realizing that those websites, tagging and sharing, blogs, etc. can be very valuable to my classroom by not only expanding the information that can be found, but also by putting my students in the driver's seat. I am anxious as we return to school in August to sign my class up for time on the computers in the library for research and projects. The library is no longer just a place to come and look for books to check out, it is a technology haven that can truly enhance research and learning. I still love the feel of a good book in my hand, and question the quality of information that often comes from the internet, but I'm letting go. The role of the librarian is a powerful one and the possibilities of information in the new Library 2.0 is astonishing.

Thing #14

Technorati and tags wasn't so successful for me today. I tried searching for School Library Learning 2.0 in blog posts, tags, and in the blog directory, but nothing came up. I then tried to look at popular blogs on Technorati, but that was "currently unavailable." Hmmmm, not sure why this isn't working. I'll come back to this assignment tomorrow and see if I can get these searches to work. I feel like Technorati takes so long to load because of all the advertisement on it, it sometimes doesn't seem worthwhile. But, I'll keep trying.
As for the tags, in Technorati, I could only find the most popular tags. I'm not sure if there's a way to search specific tags, or if you just see what's most popular. I was expecting there to be a search bar in the tags, but if it's there, I haven't found it.
I like the idea that consumers make the tags more popular and that the more popular things have more prominent tags. Also the community aspect of tagging is interesting. I think that could be very valuable to teaching.....one could get connected with other teachers who are searching and using similar content in their classrooms and could share ideas and sites. There is so much that can be learned from other people, and tagging and all of these sharing sites really foster that.
I also claimed my blog on Technorati which was a big sucess for me today!

Thing #13

Today I explored Delicious and created an account. One of the other teacher on my team last year had a delicious account that we could use, so I was already pretty familiar with it. I love Delicious. It makes getting to my favorite websites so easy. Last year we used it all the time. It was a collaborative 3rd grade account so to speak and we all accessed what C would put on it. Now I have my own account that I can share with her and others. I was also thinking it would be great for my students, because instead of having to write out all of the websites they should go to for a particular research project, they could just use the links on my Delicious account. Tags would also help during research if they were to go beyond the links that I had on my account. For my personal life, I love being able to quickly get to my favorite sites. I keep thinking that it's not much different than My Favorites, but the tags on Delicious make it so much easier to search for things. I'm not very creative with my tags though. I think that as I use delicious during the school year and really know what I'm looking for/using all the time, it will be easier to create better tags. As far as sharing my Delicious account, I'm not sure what to do about that because I don't really know who to share with. Once school starts again, there will definintely be teachers who will be great resources to share with.

Thing #12

How to Comment Like a King or Queen definitely made me think more about commenting and made me want to comment more. However, a lot of what she said was more common sense. Only offer constructive comments. Only comment if it is meaningful and will add to the blog. Points like that made me think, yeah, I know that, I wouldn't want negative comments on my blog either. The biggest thing was that it did make me think more about blogging. Which made me laugh when I got to the podcast about lurking. I'm definitely a lurker....I like reading the information, I just don't always think to leave a comment. I sometimes feel like I don't have a good comment to add to a blog. As I comment though, I am making more of an effort to become an active reader who contributes to the blogs I read.

As I go through this "Thing" I have commented on the following blogs:
21st Centry Here I Come!
23 Tech Time
All My Things
Ladybug
Firefly Flight
I'm finding it very interesting to read about each person's journey through 23 Things. Everyone has a different perspective and a completely different experience through the things. I love getting new ideas about how to use these things in my classroom.
I have posted 2 comments now on blogs outside of the Library2Play blogs. One I posted on my cousin's blog which I have never really taken the time to read, and the other was Houston Garden Girl. When I began this adventure of 23 Things, blogs didn't really interest me. As I read them, I am amazed by the talent out there and the knowledge that can be acquired from them. I'm loving it!

Thing #11

Library Thing. http://www.librarything.com I created an account and posted book titles I had read and am currently reading. I'm pretty excited about being able to keep up with books electronically that I have read. There's also a wealth of information about the authors and titles of the same genre. I'm in a book club and am hoping that we can use this to foster discussions and for ideas for more titles. It's often hard for me to come up with good books to read, but all of the discussions and recommendations on Library Thing can be really helpful. I have read a lot of books by Philippa Gregory who writes historical fiction. I found different readers who also read a lot of historical fiction novels and am excited to try out some new titles.

Thing # 10

I love the image generators! We have used Wordle a lot at Pine Shadows to create vocabulary lists, but I had never seen any of the other sites. All of them were very easy to navigate. Here is one that I created....I'm anxious to take pictures and put them on my computer so that I can personalize some images instead of just using pictures that came on the computer. I made this sign because it reminded me of a friend who loves bison!! I made it so I could send it to him. I also made a puzzle on Image Chef http://www.imagechef.com which is probably my favorite image generator. There are so many different ways you can manipulate pictures, so many different ways my students could illustrate information they find during research. I also like the personal use I could get out of these sites. I've already been thinking about making a puzzle on Dumpr http://dumpr.net with a picture from our family trip to Marfa, and having an actual puzzle made. Again I am overwhelmed by the possibilites that are available on the internet. Every time I use these sites I think about compatible they will be with the Promethean board. On Image Chef you can create different borders for pictures. I would love to take a class picture and create a cool boarder for my students, or make them as rewards for hard work. My students are going to love what they find on these sites.

I'm hoping that somewhere there is a page that will be accessible in the fall with all of these sites on them. I've taken note of some of my favorites, like the two I have links for here, and am adding to my list every single day!

Thing #9

Searching for Blogs has turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated. I think I'm having a hard time because I'm not really sure what to search for, and don't always have time to keep up with several blogs that I'm not 100% interested in. I think it could definitely be helpful for school if I keep searching out different education related blogs. For the exercise I tried to find blogs about educational topics as well as things like Houston restaurants, healthy eating, and news. I didn't really find much worthwhile. However, the most useful site was Edublog's Award Winners. That was helpful because it was not only education related, but also helped illuminate quality blogs for me. Topix.net was pretty confusing and I thought that Technorati would be good, but it took forever to load. I wasted so much time just waiting for ads to load that I finally gave up and closed the site. I did find a feed of The Onion which was really entertaining, not useful at all so to speak, but it's hilarious. I am truly hoping that as I continue on my endeavor of 23 Things that I will become more comfortable with blogs and will become more aware of blogs that are worth my time.

Thing #8

Readers and RSS. Today I signed up for Google Reader and checked out some of the blog spots. At first I had a hard time determining which blogs were really relevant and spent some time subscribing and unsubscribing until I was happy with my blog subscriptions. I think that as I become more familiar with Google Reader I will like this feature better, but right now it's not my favorite "thing". I found a few blogs about 3rd grade lesson plans, creative writing prompts, and one called "Totally 3rd Grade Blog". I'm hoping that these RSS's will give me good ideas that I can use in the classroom. I especially liked the writing prompts as I feel that it is very important for my students to constantly be writing, but don't always have good prompt ideas. There were a couple of blogs which I subscribed to for my personal use. One was about book clubs. The posts talk about different books coming out which I thought would enhance my personal reading. Another one I found was about the goings on of Houston, something I thought might be interesting, but only time will tell.
As educators, we can take advantage of the readers by easily staying abreast of the latest education news, or constantly receiving new ideas for how to teach things. I like the idea of incorporating these blogs into my daily reading, just for ideas that I can use in the classroom.

Thing # 7

There was so much available through Google that I didn't even know about! In Google Docs there are great templates like the one I attached above. My students can learn about the 3 levels of government and then fill the template with pictures and information they have acquired. There were also great templates for attendance, for student progress, for lesson plans. Having a template often times makes organizing information so much easier. Like I've said in posts before, I'm really excited to combine what I'm learning here with all the resources on the Promethean board!
I also created an iGoogle page and customized it. I included movies, recipes, news, weather, and a few other things I was interested in. For this project I took off my personal email, but for the future it will be great to have my own page attached to my email. As for educational uses, students could customize their own page and keep track of information they are interested in. When we do our unit on weather, they could track the weather patterns for several weeks by adding a weather gadget. There is also some great art that can be included on their pages. There are also books of the day and games they could include. I keep saying this, but I am competely amazed by the amount of free resources that are available. They will be so great for the classroom!

Thing #6

I love all the possibilities with the mashups. There are so many ways the mashups could be incorporated into my classroom! I am really excited about my students being able to make mini books with pictures and information they have found, as well as trading cards. I would love for them to make their own trading cards for a particular subject matter and then be able to play a game. There is so much technology available that I had no idea about! My creative juices are flowing. I created a mosaic and a trading card which I will try to link to this post so you can see. The Colr Pickr is pretty great too, I could have picked different colors and explored the matching pictures all day!

Thing # 5

I love Flickr! What a great resource for searching for pictures and posting and sharing pictures! I'm really excited to be able to use it in the fall with my Promethean board. It was so easy to navigate through all that Flickr has to offer.

I chose a picture of a man sorting out oranges in California. It would be a great part of our lesson on economics in third grade. This picture could be used to discuss goods and services, quality control, where our products come from.

Pictures really help facilitate discussions and writing topics, even in third grade!

I'm so excited about all I have been learning throughout the 23 Things activities!

Thing # 3

Setting up my blog was not difficult at all. I'm not completely comfortable with all the elements of my blog, but it hasn't been too bad. Nor was creating an avatar. Designing my avatar was time consuming (mainly because my computer was so slow), but entertaining. However, uploading my avatar to my blog was a little difficult. I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to go. It took numerous attempts before I figured out how to upload the avatar.

Hard Habits to Practice

Perhaps it sounds simple to turn problems into challenges which facilitate learning, but for me that seems to be the most difficult of the habits to put into practice. While I do believe I am a tenacious learner and will constantly pursue knowledge, keeping on through a challenge is often just that, a challenge. I am more easily distracted by a problem than I am likely to see that it can become a challenge I can learn from. As I continue along my way as a life long learner, I do value what can be learned from a problem and strive to not get so bogged down by them.

Easiest of the 7 1/2 Habits

As a life long learner, I find that the easiest habit for me is to "teach and mentor others." I'm a teacher, teaching is what I do and a habit that I practice every day. Learning becomes easier for me when I am able to express to others the knowledge I have acquired. The more I learn, the more I can teach, and the more I teach, the more I learn. Thoughts and knowledge are more easily flushed out when practiced. Therefore, as a life long learner, I will continually teach and learn simultaneously.