Summary

Well, I got kind of scared that I wouldn’t finish, but it feels really good and exciting to know that I finally am!! A few of my favorite discoveries from 23 things were Image Chef, learning about RSS feeds, iGoogle, and animoto. These were all things I just did not know anything about. This program has affected my learning goals as far as spurring me on to learn about as much as I can and learning about a whole new area—the internet. It’s kind of like that saying “The more you learn the more you realize how little you know”. I would really like to continue learning about wiki’s and try to set one up at least for the Kindergarten team at my school. There were a lot of things that surprised me. I’ve gotten a lot of friends back through facebook, I’ve started a blog and learned how to put fun images in it, and I’ve learned about all these cool organizational tools for me and the internet.
The only thing I would improve upon for the format is to make certain things due at certain times. However, I would want that mostly because I am bad about procrastinating, and I did a lot of the things at the very end. I think I would have gone into more depth on some of the things if I had spread out my time a little better. I would definitely participate if there was another discovery exercise like this. It’s really good and fun for me to learn through exploration and do it at my own speed. This class will influence my teaching in a lot of ways especially in the area of communication and collaboration. The more I put out there for the students, the parents of my students, and the people I work with the more things will develop and improve. I have already gained a whole lot of ideas, and I haven’t even gotten to share with my team and get their feedback yet. It will also help me to be more organized. Like I said above, from here I want to continue learning about wikis and all of the tools used for wikis, and I would really like to continue my blog. In the beginning of our learning, one idea I found was to write down cool ideas you find in your blog, so you can go back and use them. I think I am going to be able to do that now, but I would like to continue adding to my ideas in the future. I also plan on keeping up with my rss feeds and I want to find even more that I can add to my feed. I see a whole lot of good coming from this class—not just 23 things but infinite possibilities.

Thing 4

I totally agree that commenting creates a sense of community. My first comment made me so excited to know that someone had seen my blog. I also agreed with some of the blog articles about adding ideas and thoughts to people's blogs to make them better and thanking people for commenting on your blog. Another point I agreed with wholeheartedly was that I don't want to comment if I have to log in, join something, or give a bunch of information. I want to do the commenting quickly. That is why I liked commenting on the blogs from our class. I commented on teachartiscool, mimiswordsofwisdom, boog-phil, readandgiggle, and Kimberly's Corner. I decided to comment on these because they were either finished with the whole assignment or I thought their blogs had interesting names. I also commented on two blogs I found on the "outside". They were clutter cubed and Kim's Kindergarten Kaleidoscope. These had some good ideas for organization and teaching Kindergarten.
The comments I made were mostly admiring some aspect of their blog and thanking them for their ideas. I also asked a couple of people how they got some features on their blog.

Thing 23

This example was on the page that lists the 23 things.

Learning 2.0 is a discovery learning program created by Helene Blowers and adapted by the California School Library Association and others. Content and style for Learning 2.0 - 23 Things has been borrowed and duplicated with permission, under a Creative Commons License.

I know that I need to be better about giving credit, but I usually only use small clips of things if I show them to my students.  Starting all this blogging, though, and with my hope to start a wiki, I need to be careful about giving credit where credit is due.

Thing 22

I listened to a podcast called TechChicks.  It was about different technology tips and it was given by two moms.  I did not like this assignment at all.  I did not find any of the directories very useful, and I don't really like just listening to something.  I would rather read it.  I kept trying to find some good ones that I could play for my students, and none of them were what I was really looking for.  I wanted some kind of storytelling podcast.  I feel like this would have to be like Cool Cat Teacher talked about with blogs.  You have to find good podcasts through recommendations or something.   This frustrated me because I was aimlessly looking through tons of things trying to figure out what would be good.  I did subscribe to Podcasts for Educators on my bloglines account.  Hopefully that way I can sift through those and see if there are some I would like to listen to.

Thing 21

Using animoto was really cool and from what I've heard, you can do even more if you pay.  The only thing that was frustrating to me is that it made me use 10 messages but no matter how many times I remixed the video it would not use all 10 images.  I think it's really cool because it does some neat effects, but I think that I will probably use imovie more often because you can have more control on it.  For a quick little movie though, it's really neat.  I also think that it is cool that you can use the stuff you've loaded on Flickr.  I didn't do it that way for this, but I might try it that way when I've loaded more on Flickr.

Thing 20

I love You Tube. The bad thing about it is that I watch one video and see the other videos that are like it and keep on watching more and more videos. The good thing about it is stuff like the video I'm posting. It's about a cat and how he wakes up his owner. I've watched it several times and it always makes me smile because the artist captures the essence of a cat. He has some other videos that made me laugh too. For school, you tube can house school videos, how to videos, etc., and like so many things we've looked at, these videos can be viewed anywhere.

Thing 19

View my page on 23 Thingsters

I joined the 23 Thingsters group and posted a badge and the clock for the end of class. Ning is another cool thing for schools!!

Thing 18

I have used myspace before to look musicians I like, but I have been scared to set up an account because of some of the things I heard about it.  In exploring it I found out that it is a bit more complicated to use than facebook and seems a little less private.  I could be wrong about the privacy--I'm not sure.  I LOVE facebook though!!  I went ahead and signed up for this back in June and have been somewhat addicted ever since.  It is very easy to use, and I have been amazed at the people I have been able to get in touch with that I thought I might never see again.  We even had a big get together with some people from my old church that we planned and orchestrated on Facebook.  I even found some people from my school, so that was a nice way to get to know them a little better.  I don't know that I would use it with students especially since I only have 5 year olds, but it is something that is very popular right now so we should know how it works.

Get to know me at my Facebook profile.  :)

Thing 17

Ok, I feel like I sound like a broken record here, but I think this would be so good for my Kindergarten team to use.  If we set up a delicious account for the team we could tag all kinds of good educational resources instead of e-mailing each other with different sites and then having to bookmark those only to find out that I bookmarked it at school and I'm looking for it at home.  It's also cool that people can make comments on sites because they might find something in the site that I didn't.  I think I also might start using this for my wedding planning.  My fiance and I are always finding websites and our bookmark file is so big that you can't even see all of the sites on it.  Plus, like I mentioned earlier, we don't have all of the bookmarks once we leave our home computer and look up things elsewhere.

Thing 16

I chose the igoogle start page because I had already done it for the google tools assignment.  I will definitely use it as my homepage.  I had done the google calendar as well.  I love the igoogle because of all the little tools you can add to your page.  Since I was already on google calendar I added that to my igoogle page.  The calendar will be really nice because I can access it and igoogle anywhere and hopefully I can recommend the google calendar with my teammates so we can keep a school calendar for ourselves.  I also signed up for Remember the Milk.  Then I added it to my igoogle page because it can sync with my google calendar.  I would like to use it to organize my contacts.  I am horrible about keeping track of that stuff.  I'm not sure about using it for to do lists.  I seem to do best with old fashioned pen and paper to do lists.

Thing 15

The whole time I've been doing this classwork I have wondered what a wiki was. I think the most very basic description of it is that it is like a bulletin board for whatever you want. I had a little trouble posting to the misd23 things one at first, but it was just because I was using Safari. As soon as I switched to Firefox it was a piece of cake. This would be awesome for our school faculty to take advantage of. Each team could have a section and we could post lesson plans and ideas and we could include calendars and things like that. It would also be good to have for your own class, so that you could keep parents informed and they could post suggestions and ideas as well.

Thing 14

Ok, I loved flowchart.com. I made a double bubble map on it, and I've tried to post it here, but it does not seem to working. The one I made on bubbl.us was fun too and very easy to post. However, I guess it is not all about posting on my blog. Both of these sites were very user friendly especially bubbl. I liked flowchart.com better though because it had more options. I even added clipart provided by the site to my double bubble map. I would like to make templates for all of the thinking maps on flowchart.com

Thing 13

I explored Google docs because I knew they had a lot of ready-made templates.  They have a lot for school and a lot of other miscellaneous templates that are cool.  The document I worked on was a wedding planning template.  It was a spreadsheet that included a budget form, a guest list form, even a form for minute-by-minute plans for the actual day.  Then I invited my fiance to collaborate on the document as well, so we can both add to the guest list info and other things.  The other document I played with was a wedding checklist which is also nice because it has some things on it that I might have forgotten about.  I look forward to being able to make my blogs a little more exciting by using google docs or zoho to publish entries.  Here is the link to my wedding checklist.

Thing 12

Google is so cool. I had no idea you could do so many things with it. I used igoogle first, and I set up my page to include weather, free stuff, and funny cat pictures. :) I also included a to do list which is nice. It's just a little box in the corner where I can put to do things for the day, week, whatever. I also tried icalendar out which is another nice tool. It is very easy to use and it's cool that you can share it with others. It would be nice for the Kindergarten team at school to all set up calendars, so we can keep track of what is due when and events like field trips, our lessons for the week, etc.

Thing 11

I think that my favorite way of searching for feeds is through bloglines. I could just enter in a search term and find a bunch of different feeds for it. I also like the way they have the preview feed option. I also used technorati and found some good things--in particular I found some organization blogs that help you keep your workspace and home clean and clutter free. What was weird about Technorati was that when I tried to subscribe through their site it would say it did not produce a feed. Then when I searched the name of the blog I wanted on bloglines it would show up. I'm not sure if I just wasn't clear on how to do it or what, but the important thing is that I find what I wanted. Google's search frustrated me because it pulled up a lot of things that were unrelated to my topic. All of them like to just find posts and then I would have to go back and say I wanted blogs and not posts. I also found a site about teaching Kindergarten that had some good tips. One of my favorite ways to search for feeds is through bloglines top 1000 sites. That is where I found most of my feeds from funny cat pictures to a mashables feed that teaches you about internet resources. I also like what cool cat teacher said about looking at other people's blog lists to find blogs. I want to search out more of the ones from her list because I trust her and respect her opinion.

Thing 10

Ok, I had no idea about RSS feeders, but they make so much sense. There are a lot of sites I run across that I bookmark and then forget about. There are also a lot of things I want to know about, but I never have time to scour the web looking for them. This will help me out with that so much. They are perfect for educators and students as well. I loved how one article talked about how you can subscribe to news about a particular topic you are researching. I can do that with a lot of the things I teach and share my findings with the students. If the school or teachers set up blogs, parents could also subscribe to those and find out when they were updated. An RSS feed is almost like mini-web-assistant.

Thing 9

Button created on www.imagechef.com



Made with free image tools @ TXT2PIC.com

This was one of the funnest activities yet!! It took me forever just because I wanted to see every possible thing I could do and then I had to decide on which ones to pick. All of the things are very easy to create, though. It gives you a nice template to use, you fill in the boxes and then you're done. I think these are really fun to use for my blog and for stuff like facebook. As for school, I could use it for newsletters and classroom signs and things.

Thing 8

Tucker's badge
Originally uploaded by auntsassy87

I made this badge using fd's Flickr Toys. I plan on using this tool to make badges for my students. I always have them wear nametags the first week of school, so that their specials teacher know their names and so that I remember how they get home. I also have them wear nametags for subs. These will be fun because they will look official. I still feel kind of weird putting photos on the internet, but I keep trying to remind myself that you can set photos to private. I also might delete the photos once I've used them for the badges. I also enjoyed using the spelling tool.

Thing 7

Well, I just posted my photos from Flickr into my blog. It's nice that they make it so easy to put on your blog. You just give Google permission, and it sends it right over. I enjoyed exploring Flickr, but I don't know that I will use it a ton. I might post my wedding pics after I get married, but it makes me nervous to post students pictures. I know you can make it private, but it still makes me nervous. I have never used another site like flickr. I do like, however, the effects and things you can do when you get switched over to picnic. I might also use the site to find images for things in my classroom. I like to put up as many picture labels in the room as I can, so I could probably find a lot on Flickr.

tuckman in the window

tuckman in the window
Originally uploaded by auntsassy87

This is my cat Tucker in the window. He loves to rattle the blinds when I want to sleep in. :)

orange flower

orange flower
Originally uploaded by auntsassy87

This is a photo I took at the arboretum.

Thing 6

I tried exploring quite a few sites and was really disappointed that Backpack was not free. It looks like a really good site, but I didn't want to pay for it. It might be a really neat thing for schools to sign up for though. The one I ended up liking was Etsy. It is a really cool way to find unique things like art, clothing, jewelry, etc. It also has a lot of ways to search for things which I liked. You could ask for help with finding a gift for someone, look at things that had recently been purchased or look at local artists. One way that I searched was through color, but that was kind of weird and hard to use. You rolled around this color screen and then clicked when you liked the color, but it was hard to keep it steady and click at just the right time. Then it would put like one or two pictures up and I wanted to see everything that was that color. The only way I can think of that a school could use this site is maybe as a fundraiser. Kids could submit art projects and sell them on the site under a school account. It's a very cool site that I will continue to explore.

Thing 5

Wow, a lot of the stuff we are exploring is overwhelming to me. It's a very good thing, but it just seems so BIG. I feel like I am really going to have to keep exploring to keep up with everything going on with Web 2.0. I do think it can be a really good thing and a really good way for the world to connect to each other. I loved what the articles said about all of us being web 2.0. There are SO many ways we can contribute and so much information we can get and add to. I love the thought of being able to talk to other educators, contribute my ideas and get their ideas. I also like the idea of students being able to do the same thing with each other. It will open the door for SO much in the future, but we will HAVE to commit to being learners ourselves. If we are not the students will be ahead of us technology wise but they will not have all the tools they need in order to communicate effectively. I really think that this is going to bring so many of us closer together on so many levels. Students can connect to people across the world and educators can connect as well.

Wendy's

Ok, I'm usually a big fan of Wendy's, but they are getting on my nerves lately. Has anyone seen the commercial they have where they play the song that is played by ice cream trucks? I have seen it probably over 100 times. Now, granted, I probably should not be watching that much TV, but do they really need to play it during EVERY commercial break? The song (the ice cream truck song) that used to be a four alarm signal to pure joy now grates on my nerves and gets stuck in my head.
How do YOU feel about it?

Thing 3

There were a lot of good ideas for using a blog for my classroom. I like the idea of writing good ideas that I get from staff development because I always get ideas and then forget them the next week. I would also like to feature students' work, share ideas for parents to try with their kids and just share about what is going on in the classroom in general. I might also put surveys and polls on the blog for students and parents to fill out. I could post stuff about classroom parties and ask students to pick the theme, what they want to eat, etc. I think everyone just needs to get more used to doing things online and with my Kindergartners I want to start right away and help their parents help them.

Thing 2

Wow, this was an involved task. Setting up the blog was so easy. Then I went to do the avatar and had a real time with it. I made the avatar ok, but I never could export it. I finally had to download it to my desktop and post it on the blog that way. This course is going to be a lot of fun--it's good for me to have to do something like this because I don't know that I would get around to it or be able to do it on my own. I feel pretty cool having my own blog and avatar. :)

Thing 1

The 7 1/2 habits surprised me. It was not all of the habits that I was expecting, but I think they are good. I think the hardest habit for me is beginning with an end in mind. I am not good at planning. My mind goes so many places at once--it is hard for me to focus on one goal at a time. I'm glad this class is broken down into tasks. :) I think that the easiest habit for me is play. I like to mess around with things (especially on the computer) until I figure them out. I'm looking forward to playing during this class and during the summer. I am excited about setting up a face book and using the image sites. I love using the computer, but there is so much more I want to learn about the internet and how to use it in my classroom.