Thing #23

Oh, my goodness! I have completed the 23 Things! It was quite a journey through what once was the magical, mystical world of the internet. Some days I thought I would never finish. I was tired and/or frustrated when things would not work like I thought they should. It was a test in perserverence as much as anything. I inherently knew it would take more that the 18 hours credit we receive for this exercise, and it did! Each discovery exercise led to more accounts that I would have to register for and several steps were involved to complete each exercise. Would I do it again? Yes, absolutely! Otherwise, I don't think I would have learned so much. I also credit a fellow teacher/librarian who kept me focused as we worked together each afternoon. What one of us couldn't understand, the other would help put the pieces together and we would get through it. It was fun, as well. I will use several of the ideas that I found through the process. I loved the Trading Cards. I know I will also use the Photo Journal.

Thing #22

This "Ning Thing" is very interesting. I liked the Ning for Teachers. I found this site called Classroom Wikis that I want to investigate further. It claims to help create the "Paperless Classroom". Wouldn't that be something! It says it is created by fifth graders for kids to use. It also deals with security issues.

http://kidpedia.editme.com/

Thing #21

It was a lot of fun to make the video. I was limited with my photos but managed to put together something. However, I was unable to hear the voice over that I did. Maybe the reason is that I am on my laptop. I need to work out the sound. I have had a lot of trouble uploading this video. I will try this again later.

Thing #20

I really liked the TeacherTube. There were learning videos and Podcasts such as the one on the Smart Board. These are very informative videos and I look forward to exploring this further.

Thing #19

Google Docs is a whole different way of doing things. I liked the team component. It sounds like it is similar to instant messaging as all team members can collaborate on a project together. I am typing this in documents and hope to paste it to my blog. The tool bar is the same and easy to use.

Thing #17

Rollar Bookmarklet will allow me to narrow a search for my students and not have to worry about what they are finding. I did find it on the Library Resources Page but I am wondering how I am able to use this on computers without Firefox when district computers won't allow us to create custom search rolls without Firefox. Any ideas? I looked for sites, copied the address of each and pasted the site onto Rollyo. It was simple to do and will be great to have this information altogether.

Thing #16

So far, 23 Things has been more time consuming than I imagined when beginning this journey. Having said that, I feel like I am so much more informed in today's high-tech world. I really am glad that I took the opportunity to have an interactive experience like this one.
I love the Wiki! I think it is a great avenue to share and collect information. It seems there are many ways the Wiki can be used in the classroom. At this time, I don't know the mechanics of setting up Wikis for my students. I can see where each student, or perhaps teams of students, would have to have their own password and passwords in order to be protected. The students could then create their own understanding of a given topic. Students could create a Wiki about famous scientists and their discoveries in the field of chemistry. I would like to do that.