Thing 23: reflections

This has been quite a journey! I have to say that I was a bit apprehensive about starting the 23 things. I love reading about changes in technology, but I am worried that I will make mistakes, so I don’t always try new things. But, I jumped in and began. When I made a mistake, I tried again. I learned a lot of useful skills that I will use in both my professional and personal life.

Here are my thoughts on some of the topic we covered:

I enjoyed creating this blog. I will be looking into creating a blog for next year to communicate with my parents. I am unclear on the district rules as for how much student work I can post, and how much parental involvement I can have, but I will research this over the summer and decide how to proceed

Many of my friends from Darien are using blogs to support their classroom instruction. They are linked directly to the school’s website. Some are as basic as posting daily homework while others post student work and link you to useful websites. I also explored other teachers’ websites and the age groups that they were directed at. When I mentioned what I was doing to my fourth graders, I was amazed at their response. They asked, “When can we post?”

In exploring Google Reader, I was astonished by what Google had to offer besides g-mail. Although I still find this function overwhelming, I can see myself editing the number that I subscribe to and deleting the content that I don’t need. One of the great things was exposure to new terms. I now know what the RSS symbol is and how to use it as well as many other previously unfamiliar symbols.

I have to say that the most useful blog was Mr. Skip’s. Thank you for encouraging me and showing me that this can work. Even though I have not met you, your blog has encouraged me to continue when I wasn’t sure I could finish.

I am already a member of Picassa (through Google) and Shutterfly, so I’m not sure that I will use Flickr as much because it is linked through a yahoo account. I don’t know if I will maintain all of these e-mail accounts, and I think the yahoo account will be the first one to be neglected. I have also created a family share site through Shutterfly, so this is interesting. I do, however, like the use of tags in Flickr, so that might be worth exploring. I also like the number of pictures I was able to find that other people shared. This is not possible through the other sites. I was even able to find my favorite beach.

I like the mashup function, and I think my students would enjoy exploring it even more than me.

I was familiar with YouTube in the past through Facebook posts from friends, but I had not spent a lot of time exploring it on my own. I thought it was mostly for silly videos that may have been funny, but were not appropriate for elementary school students. I was amazed at the number of posts that were educational! Not only have I found several that I could show students, but I have even found ones that are appropriate for my three year old. I also talked with my mother in law who is a big fan of classical music. She was able to watch opera pieces on YouTube performed by different singers.

I am still working on embedding video and getting past the ads when sharing these to students.




I enjoyed exploring Delicious, but I haven’t used it a lot yet. Maybe in the future?

Google Docs, slideshare, and some of the online productivity tools are a few of the things I introduced my husband to. I think it would be useful for his company because it is such an international company. I’m not sure how much I will use these in my classroom, though.

I did like exploring the Power Point presentations, and I am going to use some of them for social studies instruction. They were much more professional than the ones I am able to create with tools in my classroom, so I will try to create a few of these over the summer.

My husband introduced me to podcasts through our itouch. Some of them are offered directly through the itouch, so I started by exploring these. Then, I heard about a podcast from the International Reading Association and I joined that. These were the starting point, and then I explored many different educational offerings.

I wanted to know where this was going, so I asked around. I already knew what my students wanted: more technology and more ways to communicate with each other through the computer. I asked the high school intern if her teachers used podcasts or blogs, and she said it varied. One teacher recorded all of his lectures for students to listen to, but she said that few did. She said one teacher was very good at using technology while others didn’t even use the Smart Board except to post assignments.

I want to be one of those teachers who is innovative and allows students to express themselves in a variety of ways. I have already seen the difference it can make in small ways with special education students. I want to continue to increase these opportunities.

Thank you for this opportunity and I look forward to learning more with the Wilton technology community in the future.

Thinks 21 and 22: Wiki

I think wikis are something that I would like more staff development on. I created a site where you could look at pictures and post comments as well as adding your own. But I think this would be similar to flickr, so I want to try other options with this. How are wikis similar and different to blogs? It's great to see all of the new options that we have on the internet, but I wonder which ones will be next. I will continue to take the staff development offered, and I thank Matt for offering so many new options. This has been a good experience for me because it is self guided.

Podcasts#2

I enjoyed listening to the different options of podcasts for educators. But, even more than that, I enjoyed seeing what students had created. At first, I wondered if this tool would be useful for me because my students are so young. But, then I explored several classes that were 5th graders, including my former coworkers in Darien. They had their students record personal memoirs as a way to share their writing on their teacher's blog.

I like the idea of taking a podcast with you on an iPod or mp3 player so I can listen to it in the car or on the train. I like the idea of listening to books on CD/ ipod, so this would be very similar to that. I think the idea of podcasts with power point presentations is very helpful when you are using a computer instead of the mp3 player. On a computer, students might have a harder time just listening to the podcast because we live in such a visual world. But, if a student is visually impaired, what a great way to have them participate in lessons!

Is there a way to get past the ads that are at the beginning of the podcasts when listening to these with students?

slide share

Here's a brief one on the revolutionary war that I could see using in the classroom. For my computer savvy students, I could see several of them wanting to try this on their own as a final presentation.

Events Leading Up To The Revolutionary War

View more presentations from Michael Doody.

This year, I have had two really struggling special education students who have been pulled out of the classroom for almost every subject. They are only in my classroom for social studies and writing. Because I have been focusing on learning technology and helping students apply it, we have been using Power Point for a lot of our research projects. It has been wonderful to see these 2 boys excel on technology. They have even helped some of the stronger writers improve their technology skills!

Thing 18: Slide Share

I started looking at the information on slideshare and I viewed the "Shift Happens" slide show. Then I remembered Dr. Richard's beginning of the year presentation (was it last year?) where is used virtual software to present from his daughter's college to the faculty. This was part of his presentation. I always wondered where he got the information from!

Now, time to explore. I typed in "historical fiction" because this is what my students are currently working on. I was amazed with the graphic that you could use on slideshare. It looks much more professional than any of the presentations that I have done with Power Point. I could see using many of these that people have already created in my classroom, but maybe I'll be ambitious and create some of my own!

Historical Fiction Kate Messner

View more presentations from tkmess.

Thing 17: online productivity

I have started exploring the different online productivity tools:

1. bubbl.us looks a little like some of the tools we use in the classroom such as Kidspiration/Inspiration except that it is online. I wonder if it is also similar to draft builder, a new special education program that we were introduced to at my school this year. I played around with the mapping without becoming a member. I would be interested in seeing what else it has to offer.

2. zoho show looks like a great way to share power point presentations I think it would be a great use for my husband's international education company. It would be good to use in my classroom if we had international, or even national pen pals. I wonder if there is a way to have schools connect through pen pals, and what the district's rules would be about communication?

3. Dabbleboard, skrbl and scriblink look very similar to what you can do with smartboards. Could it be used as a part of smart technology?

4. I LOVE the idea behind rememberthemilk.com! Right now, I have a very basic phone service with verizon. But, I have an iTouch and I love the functions on it. This summer, Verizon is supposed to have access to the iPhone, and I would like to try many of these applications when it become available. I use a calendar at school and at home, but I would like to start using a reminder system in my phone so I don't forget anything! I have already started using the birthday reminder function on Facebook. My only problem is that I worry about becoming too dependent on others services to remember things for me. I guess I'll have to practice memory tricks elsewhere!

5. I have explored librarything.com for book recommendations in the past. It was nice to revisit this and look for new book recommendations for my book group.

Thing 16: google docs

I just created my first one to share, so I will continue to try this as an option. It looks like it has a lot of potential! Right now, students often ask me to e-mail their school work home. Then, they e-mail it back and I re-save it into their classroom folder. It's a lot of extra work! Or, they bring a flash drive and do exactly the same thing. I also do a lot of group research in school, but it is hard to get everyone on the computers at the same time because lab time is limited. I think google docs could help with this, but I would have to play with it a bit more. I'm still a little confused about what the final document looks like and how others can change it around.

podcasts

While exploring US News and World report, I explored some of the podcasts. and I was reminded of others I should re-explore. For example, the International Reading Association now has a weekly podcast. One was on how to excited young male readers, a topic I am constantly exploring. I think this will be a new area to explore in technology for me! If we only had more time in the day...

Thing15 RSS revisited

I think Google reader is a great idea, but I'm not sure that I have the time to check it throughout the day. I think I should think of one or two sites that I am the most interested in and keep to those. For example, I should choose one news source that I like to check and stick with it. I guess I would compare this to Facebook except with real news. I have friends that are constantly updating their "status" or posting videos/ pictures. I'm lucky to check one a day, or to post an update once a week!

Delicious.com

You could get lost in time playing on delicious.com! I love how this is an updated version of bookmarking. I always had trouble with bookmarking sites because they were only available on one computer. Plus, you couldn't look at what others had researched. This is a great site to look for information and to narrow your search. I think it will take a lot of time up front, but after I have set up several links, it will be more useful. If I get a smart board in my classroom, I could see linking a lot of these websites to it. For now, I might try setting it up with the LCD projector in my room for some of the videos I found on history.com (If I can get the speakers to work!)

Thing 13

I liked playing around with images in wordle. I could see students really enjoying this. Maybe I could use it as a vocabulary activity, or as spelling practice where students could post synonyms and antonyms with it.

I am glad that I tried using delicious. I am noticing that I am creating several different e-mail accounts (google, yahoo...) Is this an issue? I am assuming they will prompt me with which one I need when I go back to these sites later. I think delicious is a great idea so that teachers can share their tags. However, I'm not sure I have the time right now to research the useful teaching sites and use them this year. Maybe over the summer? I winder what the uses of these websites would be if I had a smart board in my classroom where students could work directly with these functions on the big screen.

Trying to create a Wordle

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2016115/Teach

Wikis

This one looked very interesting, especially today's picture with the ocean and the islands.

Thing 12 continued

Okay, I cut and pasted the link into my post, but I was unable to copy my specific voki. I will try again tomorrow night and add it to this post.

Thing 12

Let's see if the voki worked. I had fun playing with the different options, but I felt they were a little limited. I was also a little wary of recording my voice on the 1-800 number, so I decided to use their preprogrammed voices to start. I have a mac at home where I have been doing all of my work. I am wondering how to use microphones on the mac. Do I need a special connection/ headphones or microphones, or can I do it from the laptop? In the classroom, I would like to use students' recorded voices for fluency activities, so I will explore this a bit further with other options.


Get a Voki now!

Thing 11

Thanks to everyone for letting me post on their blogs and be a part of this journey with them. I really enjoyed reading what people have learned and checking out what they have been experimenting with. Some of the posts have energized me to finish this journey and continue exploring! How many people will still be posting after the 23 things has ended in June? I hope I will be one of those people who continues next year as well.

Thing 10: video

I looked around on youtube for videos created at my favorite beach. Here is one day from one of the residents. It doesn't show my family's house, but it does show the annual fireworks display and some of my neighbors.

Thing 9

I have mixed feelings about Youtube and its uses in the classroom. I have friends who have posted video of their children on youtube, and I enjoy being able to see my friends from other parts of the country. I also explored different videos from my Facebook account. There was a fun one posted by a friend of mine that did a parody on the song "In New York..." and changed the words to fit New Hampshire. I have also looked at some political posts through youtube.

However, I do not like some of the comments that are posted on youtube. I also don't like how anyone can see these and post anything that they want. For example, many students are taking what people say on youtube as fact instead of opinion. This scares me because I think it is getting harder for students to tell the difference between fact and fiction on the internet.

Although I had a lot of fun exploring youtube, I think the jury is still out on how I would use this with my elementary students.

Comments on Thing 8

I just played with "spell with flickr." I had fun looking at the letters and what you can play with. But, when I tried to copy them to my post, I ran into some trouble. I wanted to copy the whole word and paste it into images, but I had trouble with this. In the end, I took the long way. I saved each individual letter and cut and pasted that into the images. Then, when I previewed the image, I had pasted the letters in the wrong order, so I had to play around with the order. There must be a quicker and easier way to do this. I'll keep trying!

Thing 8: playing with images

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Thing 7

I created a Flickr account and I am excited to try it's cataloguing options. But, I already use Shutterfly and Picassa. Flickr is thorugh yahoo, so I created a new e-mail account. Do people prefer Flickr to other online photo sites, and if so, what makes you like flickr better?

Picture of the beach

I'm not sure if this will work, but I am trying to upload one of the beach pictures that I found.

Thing 6 continued

I think Flickr can be a valuable service to use with parents. We have a slide show twice a year for Celebrations at our school to celebrate students. We also have a Closing House that parents attend at the end of the year. Parents have sent me pictures on CDs to include in these. Recently, some parents have sent links to sites like picassa and shutterfly. Wouldn't it be great if we could catalogue all of these in one place? I would just be concerned with privacy laws, though, and creating a new place every year.

Thing 6: looking for pictures

When looking for pictures, I was immediately drawn to pictures of the beach. My family just spend Easter with my parents at our beach, so I wanted to see if anyone else had pictures of our special place. I have posted pictures to shared family websites before. I have also searched sites such as google images with my students, but these were for very general images to be used in presentations such as Power Point. I have never looked on the web for specific pictures before, so this was fun. It was a little challenging to narrow the search, but I was able to find a few pictures that I liked. I was also able to see some pictures before the terrible beach erosion of the past few years.

Thing 5

Thing 5: I am finding the video tutorials very helpful. I open up by google reader in a different window and I follow the directions as they are given in the video. If I am confused, I just replay that section of the video. I like that there are three different ways of following a blog. I also like that I can disconnect at any time if I make a mistake, or if I'm not interested in the blog anymore. I love the "little school house" and the informative articles that it shares. I am a little worried that I may spend too much time exploring these new sites, though!

Thing 4: Part 2

Thing 4: I was able to find a few of my friends' teacher blogs, so I can see examples of how to create my own. They update their homework daily and they have added many features to their blog such as podcasts. They use wordpress.com instead of google. What are the differences and similarities between these 2? Is one easier than the other to use?

Thing 4

Thing 4: I really liked the vireo about RSS and using readers to shorten the amount of time that you search for updates. I remember when I subscribed to several teaching sites and I would constantly receive e-mail updates. But, these took so long to read, and my inbox was always full. I also subscribed to several yahoo sites like freecycle. I wonder if I could keep track of posts like this?

Thing 3

I had a lot of fun exploring the different websites and the links that they offered. I was very interested in seeing what other teachers had set up and how they chose to connect with their parents and students. One blog that I looked at had students create audio podcasts for their memoirs. I'm definitely interested in using that technology! I also explored a blog that linked me to site about the American Revolution. It had a timeline and pictures of artifacts from that time period.

In creating this blog, I was a little frustrated with the backgrounds and how to change them. I think I clicked on them too quickly, so I will work on how to change the background. This website was really easy. It reminded me of my Facebook site in the way that I uploaded pictures o my profile. That part was very easy.

My question for this site is the same as I would have as Facebook. How much should I post, and how much should I keep private. I am wary of sharing too many pictures of my children.

I am definitely seeing the possibilities for my classroom. We used to use a blog in Darien to list daily homework assignments and I could see this blog as a way to do that. I am frustrated with my school's website because I don't feel that it is as easy to use. It is template that the webmaster has to save and update every time.

My first post

This is my first post on my blog! I am excited to learn new technologies, but I am also scared. I use Facebook, so I am familiar with how to post, but I am interested in seeing how i can link other sites to this one. I am interested in linking my favorite reading sites to mine such as IRA and author websites. I can't wait to connect with other educators! connect