I am FINISHED!!!!!

With the help of my good friend Joel I was finally able to produce a slideshow and embed it in my blooming blog! I will not be able to do it again by myself without help, but lucky for me, I have smart friends. And, like so many other things technological, I will finally get it with enough slow, deliberate repetition. Signing off for now!

One Last Thing

Now actually this isn't one last thing. I still have to go back and get my slideshow done tomorrow, but I wanted to do my reflection in peace. I must say even though I did my share of whining, or really a lot more than my share, I had a BLAST! I loved the format of the class, but it really helped to take this with friends nearby...sometimes to help, sometimes to calm each other down, sometimes just to listen to frustration.

My favorite discoveries were Library Thing, Googledocs, Wordle,and my blog. But if I could only use one,it would definitely be my Google reader with my RSS feeds. It keeps me up to date on everything I care to know about.

The program has reignited my love of learning and probably fired up some new dendrites. It made me realize I've been getting stagnant and I appreciate the push from Richard and Deryl.

The biggest surprise for me was that I could do it. I have a certain reputation for being technologically fragile...I think I'm beginning to feel a little braver.I would absolutely do another program like this. In fact, in a week or two,I'll probably even miss Mary releasing the next 5 things to do!

This class will definitely influence my job. I have told my facilitators to enroll so we'll all know the same cool tricks. I think it can only improve our communication with teachers and administrators. I will keep up primarily by using my reader. I have several feeds about curriculum and about technology that should keep me going.And I plan on going back over the 23 Things materials for some further exploration.

Mary and Debbie, thanks for everything. You have been wonderful and the materials were great. Loved the Common Craft videos. It's like 2.0 for dummies.I began this journey as The Terrified Traveler. I leave it as The Adventurer. Tomorrow, who knows, maybe Captain Kirk!!

Thing #20

I had already attended a workshop on using Googledocs, but as usual, I didn't start using it right away so I forgot about it! I played around very briefly in this exercise with a document about New Teacher Camp. I will really use this to collaborate with my facilitators to begin making plans. It will save us so much time, especially since they don't work during the summer. It's like a conference call without the phone. They'll be able to offer input and changes and we can do it all from different places.

I also played around with the presentation tools. Loved them! Not only can we plan New Teacher and lots of other staff development but we can also collaborate on the slides we'll use during the presentation. I loved the slide layouts for organizational purposes. They will be of service to me as my layout skills are right up there with my slideshow skills!

There are as many uses for Googledocs as there are things to do, to organize, to plan, to study, etc. I'm sure as I begin to use Googledocs more, I will begin to think of all kinds of applications for it in my personal and professional life.

Thing #12

OMG! Will this assignment ever end??I have really struggled with this one. While selecting the photos was easy,getting them into a slide show with links and attributions was something else. I looked on with envy as I saw others post slide shows and embed them into their blogs. As I write this post, I have been working for 4 hours trying to figure this out for myself. And this is the 4th time that I have devoted so much time to this same task. But alas, I will have to ask for help tomorrow. I WILL finish this class on time, even if I have to get tutoring. I'll start a new trend...slide show acceleration. I'm going to close this blog for now. Perhaps someone will rescue me before that infernal countdown clock on the 23 things Ning beats me.

Thing # 14

Okay, I'm definitely going to spend more time on this one later. I had a blast playing around. I did a wordle using my son's name and some of his personal characteristics. What a great idea for a project when kids are studying characters... puttting words that really describe the character more than once so they're bigger. I love this! I still haven't figured out quite how to save my work and show you, but I'm going to figure that out. Just you wait.
I also played with ToonDoo...another fun one. I made a single frame cartoon of me flying through the air saying hooray for me and tagged it with 23things. Imagine!! Really had a lot of fun with this one. I'll be doing lots more in this playground!

Thing # 15

I have set up a delicious account. http://delicious.com/sedonagal At first I didn't see much use for it because I was perfectly happy with the list of bookmarks that my browser kept for me. But after spending some time with delicious I can see some definite advantages. First of all, the fact that I can keep one list of bookmarks and access them from any computer. That's a big help. Also the tagging is a great help. I hadn't thought about using tags so much, but as I discover more sites and join more groups, it will be very helpful to tag things so that I don't have to bring up the whole list of bookmarks when I'm looking for just one topic.Lastly, the social component. It is interesting and could be enormously helpful to share other people's bookmarks who share some of the same areas of concern at work. I personally have used Mary's sites more than once to find new directions to look for things. That is primarily how I see using it for work...tagging and sharing.

Thing # 21

Just want to go on record as saying I love Google. It has so many amazing free features. I did set up Googlecalendar as an experiment. The only problem is that it keeps reminding me of all the things I put on it when I was just playing around! I can see that it could become a very useful tool. I also set up an iGoogle page and added some recipes , news alerts and a Spanish word a day. I still need to spend more time here. Another participant said his iGoogle page is his home page. I might have to try that.I also spent way too much time on Google Book Search, looking at all the great classics you can just start reading, right there on the computer. It really is amazing!

Thing # 17

I previewed several different podcasts. My favorites were Just One More Book and the NPR Books Podcast. I loved Just One More Book for keeping up with children's literature and was excited to see that it lists books by topic, author, illustrator, almost anyway you want books to be organized.I checked out Grammar Girl but thought it was more high school tips than elementary. I love all things NPR and all things about books, so duh! I loved the NPR site.I'm going to try to follow the Reluctant Blogger's lead and listen while I'm in the grocery store, but I'll probably never get through shopping! I am intrigued by the idea of podcasting. I think it has many possibilities for staff development and communicating with teachers. It is so difficult now to reach all teachers with specific information. I'm going to try it out. I already had an iTunes account, mostly for listening to music, but now I have added several podcast subscriptions. I really feel buried with all the new ones automatically posting to my iTunes. Yikes!

Thing # 23

Oh my! Ning and all its accompanying sidetrips could take forever! I did see many groups that link technology to the classroom and saw several groups who discuss literacy issues. It's almost too much. If I was feeling information overload when we created our RSS feeds, just imagine how I'm feeling now. I do see possibilities for making contact with other professionals to discuss issues of importance. But I'm really going to have to fine tune my search and discovery skills to make this useful and usable to me.

Since I completed this blog entry, I have found a Ning I love, thanks to MAry W. I joined the English Companion Ning and have alredy joined several of the groups on this site. I even found a discussion thread about persuasive reading and writing using children's literature...one of the items on our new language arts TEKS. Oh happy day!

Thing # 22

Well, I now have an account on Facebook. It was very easy to set up , but I'm still learning to navigate all the twists and turns. I do feel, as some other bloggers have commented, quite exposed...like anyone can know what I'm doing. But I suppose I control how much other people know by how much I post. I have had a couple of good laughs and find there are all kinds of inane quizzes with which to waste my time! I am connected to my son and daughter-in-law as well as 1 brother and several friends from work. I'm sure this will grow as I gain more experience. I haven't found too many old acquaintances...forgot or otherwise.

I think it is important for educators to know how these sites work, if for no other reason than to be able to know what our students are thinking and talking about. Perhaps we should be addressing safety too...although it is one of those issues about where the parents' job ends and the school's job begins. I'm still thinking about educational applications...I probably haven't played with it long enough yet to see classroom applications. More time will tell!

Thing # 13

I was frustrated by some of these image generators...I couldn't get them to do what I wanted and I was having trouble saving images I created. I tried Spell with Flickr, Custom Sign Generator, Flickr Color Pickr. I went to other participants' blogs to see which ones they had used with success. I finally found image generator salvation when I revisited the Reluctant Blogger's site. She suggested a site to create motivational posters . At last, success! This thing will require some remedial work for me. I can see that it is cool to use these different mash-ups to create fun and interesting images so I think it will be worth my time...but later.

Thing # 19

I was totally unfamiliar with voice thread, but I can see some possibilities with its use. I explored the Going and Coming and thought it was an interesting way to have students comment on a specific work of art. I could see doing that in a classroom cooperatively solving math problems, or doing peer conferencing. I enjoyed the kindergarten presentation about the library and thought it was an interesting way to do a presentation. Conversely, I did not enjoy the Industrial Revolution one. It was a boring, unengaging presentation done with a computer.
I can see what the 23thingster was talking about when I watched the Web 2.0...about wanting to read ahead, go faster than the presenter and even hearing recorded for all posterity deep comments like , "Well, my slide isn't showing up." Powerful stuff! The applications I see as most effective were the ones of a cooperative nature. After all, that's more what 2.0 is about, isn't it? Engaging others in meaningful dialogue?

Thing # 18

YouTube is an amusing adventure...I viewed several short videos about teaching writing. They all had the same woman in the same outfit and she proclaims to know everything in the world obviously! She says she is with Young Writers Wrokshop.com group, a group in India. Interesting, but not very worthwhile. I also watched a video on how to peel hard boiled eggs...fascinating!I visited teacher tube and watched a hilarious but informational video on how NOT to do a power point presentation.I truly can see some advantages to using teacher tube for education. Teachers could videotape presentations for students who were absent or needed to hear the presentation or parts of it again. And I really see potential for staff development on short topics...how to administer TPRI,teaching for fluency, etc. Now I'll just have to learn how to make one.

Thing # 7B

Well, now this class is costing me money! I read a blog about a new book called The Book Whisperer and absolutely had to have it after reading just this blog...very persuasive writing! Perhaps this topic just resonated with me because I see so many children and adults who don't know the joys of reading that I do. Even in our class, at least one friend of mine has confessed to not being a reader...at least reading for pleasure and entertainment. My goal is to get every teacher to become someone who loves reading, who feels passionatley about it as I do. Who is in a better position to convert all the students they see every day than the classroom teacher? A teacher, unfortunately is not who made me a reader. It was my mom and dad. They were constantly reading and I always got 2 new Nancy Drew mysteries for Christmas and my birthday. When I ran out of Nancy Drews I had to find other books to read and so I did. But today we have so many students who will not get that love of reading at home. So that leaves just one place-school and one person-a beloved teacher. We should never underestimate the power we have to change the lives of the next generation by modeling for them what we value.

Thing # 7A

Boy can I sympathize with Andy in this blog!He is a perfectly capable and well-informed leader, but lacks knowledge of many 2.0 tools. Sound familiar?? The point of the article is that unless we as leaders are aware of the capabilities of technology, how can we expect our teachers to use them in today's classrooms? I am really working to at least acquaint myself with the tools in this class. Some of them are very difficult for me , particularly the ones that deal with the visual images...the slideshow, the image generator and even Delicious. I need to quit whining, but some of this is really hard for me...something about an old dog and new tricks keeps running through my mind. But I'll muddle through. It is important work for me to move myself forward as a role model for facilitators and teachers.

Thing # 16

I really enjoyed playing around in Library Thing. I did join up but only with a free account. This is probably my favorite "Thing" so far. I love listing books I've read and seeing other people who share my taste in books. I went to some of the groups and explored a little. I can definitely see myself going here for book recommendations and new authors to try out. Perhaps I'll stretch into some different groups as well to broaden my reading interests. I tend to love the mystery, thriller genre because the books are so fast paced. Maybe later I can cultivate a deeper appreciation of literature, even some of the classics I need to reread or read for the first time. I laughed going to the Zeitgeist area and looking at all the statistics about Library Thing...so much trivia, so little time!

I can see some really practical applications for the classroom. We're always trying to get our students to develop the lifelong habit of reading, reading both for information and for pleasure. This could really help our kids to find like-minded individuals who might steer them toward new books or authors. I think the kids are more likely to read books recommended by peers than by teachers. Setting class challenges would also be great. Teachers could also find books to read as a class or to read aloud...that search bar allows you to enter partial titles. I didn't try entering topics. I'll have to go back and try that!

Thing #11

Sedona twilight
Originally uploaded by ga clicker

Flickr was an interesting experience for me...frustrating but very interesting. I loved exploring and looking for photos of my favorite place...Sedona, Arizona.My frustration came when I tried to get the photo out with the attribution and the link back to the picture. I learned how important it is to bookmark the exact location so you can find it again when you go back to look for it again. Trial and error is a painful way to go when you're not very adept.I can see many applications
for its use in the classroom...slide shows for content, clarifying setting, photos to represent characteristics, all kinds of things.I will definitely keep exploring. My curiosity has been peaked.

Thing # 9...at long last!

Creating a wiki page was a very stressful experience for me. My fear of hitting the wrong button really came into play. Then after I recovered and started working on my page, it got better until I tried to link it to the group page listing and I did hit the wrong button and lost my whole page!!! There probably was some way to recover it, but I just redid the whole thing. Grrrrrr! I left it for a few days and moved on to other Things. When I came back, I found it much easier to work on. I still struggled to add my wiki to the list....it turned out to be so simple, I felt idiotic. I guess I was just looking for it to be very complicated. Once I got it added to the list, I even put a link in and a photograph. It really was fun once I got the hang of it! Now, I want to see what else I can do with it. It really is simple to do. I need to keep repeating...it's not that scary. But on this assignment I really was The Terrifed Traveler!

Thing #10

I enjoyed the videos explaining the differences between Big C and little cc. I have been held hostage by Big C for a long time as I try to write curriculum and share wonderful ideas with teachers. Sometimes I have even avoided using ideas that I have seen in dozens of places because I've been afraid of the copyright police. So, the idea of places where people actually encourage the sharing of ideas is quite intriguing. I had never noticed the CC and have looked for it on several sites. I actually haven't found it too often, but maybe that's because I mostly frequent copyrighted sites!I did explore the OER Commons site and was blown away by all the stuff we could actually use for free and not get into trouble. Gator Girl challenged the content coordinators to go there and I went, though hesitantly. But I really found some top notch material. I will be using many of the ideas and images I have seen. It's really kind of freeing! I'm excited about the opportunites ahead!!

Thing # 8 Stretch

Wow! What an unending maze of paths to follow! I went to Wikkipedia and clicked on the highlighted Best Picture link appearing at the top of the page. I followed to information about a favorite movie, Giant, and then to the talented actor James Dean. The article contained much information, but what I thought was very interesting was the discussion that ensued over certain sections of the entry. Participants debated on the reliability of sources- what constituted valid information and what was just gossip. The discussion became quite heated as participants speculated about Dean's life. The content does seem complete and well-written although I'd have to withhold judgment on its validity after reading all the discussion. Probably we'll never know the whole truth. I also explored the History section and found most of the changes have been cosmetic...correcting spelling, grammar or rewording. It's a little frightening to me , this whole business of rewriting what appears. While I can see advantages for sure, I also see the possibility for revising historical accuracy. Like the stories in the news right now about denying the reality of the Holocaust...

Thing # 8

I very much enjoyed the Common Craft video clip explaining the possibilities of wikis. Then I explored several of the ones on the list and was a little disappointed. Like the 23Thingster, I felt like I was looking at Open House projects, just digitally formatted. The Go West wiki was organized by topics of interest about the journey on the Oregon Trail. But it seemed like each student or group worked on discreet pieces of content and then they put it all together. That may not have been the case, but it appears so when I view the wiki. The Salute to Seuss was a wiki devoted to celebrations of Dr. Seuss' birthday and appeared to have had contributors from different locations around the country, but once again, it seemed an "after the fact" vehicle. The Common Craft video made it so robust and active.I did check out the wiki on Schools of the Past. That one to me seemed more interactive than any of the others I've seen. It looks like people just go in and add their childhood memories about schools, playgrounds, etc. I'm sure it provided some interesting discussion for that class.

In Wiki Wiki Teaching, I did see some possibilities as the teacher described the excitement generated as kids did the assessment piece, and they pieced together reviews for other subjects' tests and quizzes. Most of the wikis I visited seemed to have had teacher identified organization. I saw many different tools being used. I am totally unaware of these and need to do some more checking into them. I was embarrassed by the 3rd graders who know how to do a Power Point and insert it into a wiki along with maps and photographs. One disappointing thing about the wikis I visited was that while the technology outcomes seem to have been successfully met, sometimes I wondered about the content outcomes. The material represented seemed very surface level to me. I think this is one area we'll have to be careful of as we integrate technology. It doesn't need to become technology for technology's sake, but rather used as a tool to deepen knowledge about the topics we are studying.

Thing #7

Oh my gosh! How scary is that...to leave a comment on a real somebody's blog! It is quite comfortable leaving comments on the blogs of people in our class. It's safe and I know they won't think terribly of me. But to see your blog and address listed on something that's really out there scares me...knowing I can now be judged by everybody in the world. It really makes me think carefully about any comment I venture to leave.

Thing #6

Feeding the reader was a little frustrating for me...I tried to add some of the fun feeds listed. One made my computer freeze and some others were dreadfully slow. That being said, however, I now have several interesting and engaging readers to challenge and intrigue me every day.

I read a very interesting post by a teacher who has his students read and then create a written response using blogs. He was trying to figure out "the teacher's" role as students work more and more using technology. He noticed that many of the comments on the students' blogs included asking fellow students for input, feedback and criticism, yet no one asked for his feedback. Upon reflection, it seemed that the students only saw him as the evaluator who graded the work not anyone who helped during the process. I have found this to be true in digital or non digital classrooms. Too often teachers wait until the work is completed before giving any feedback...something to think about as we consider the real value of assessment...maybe as a teaching tool?

Thing #5... at last

Man, I have struggled with getting this one done. It probably has to do with the fact that I keep chasing threads and getting hooked on all the different stories I can read about. This RSS stuff is positively addicitng! I now understand how my son and other members of his generation can spend so much time on their computers. I have listened to podcasts on the NPR site about a new movie following the progress of the first Projesct Runway winner. I have read about 2o things to learn from President Obama's first 30 days in office and how they can apply to school organizations. The dizzying pace really can eat up my time so I'm going to have to put myself on some kind of reading allowance...at least as far as the RSS. I don't seem to have that problem putting a book down., but then a book doesn't lure me in all directions!

Thing #4

Wow! Until this lesson, the word blog had just been an ethereal kind of fuzzy term for me. I had heard it, knew it had something to do with posting online, but beyond that, I had very little information. My greatest discovery was that blogs are so interactive. Another poster has commented that a blog is a conversation; otherwise it would be a diary!I had no idea of the capabilities of communicating with other people or of the wandering paths that are often created. As I read some of the blogs suggested, I felt myself meandering through an online wonderland, deciding whether I wanted to follow this link, pursue another link or just stay on the same path..the original blog. Mindblowing! I'm a little afraid sometimes of not being able to find my way back. Thank goodness for the bread crumb trail provided by my trusty back button!

On to the assignment...I do agree with some others who have said that the blog style of writing is less formal and more personal. It reminds me of the stream of consciousness writing I tried to follow in high school when I read Joyce or Proust. It definitely has voice and is more disclosing of personal feelings than most kinds of writing. Perhaps we ought to use blog writing to help our students develop voice in their writing. But, I digress. The genre itself is interesting. You have to be able to read the original post and then navigate through the comments and questions along with answers that may be sprinkled through out. It is often difficult to remember the exact question since it is separated by time and space. I often found myself scrolling back up to reread the question once I had found the answer. So it is definitely not as linear as regular written text. That is one of the things that I think must be included if we think about what defines "blogging literacy." Also I read in a comment left on a class blog , that skimming and scanning are skills that are very important to reading in the 21st century. I can see how that is so true because we and our students are glutted with information to plow through.

I noticed in reading Imagine Turning on the Faucet and Nothing Coming Out that blogging can really facilitate learning. In this student blog, the kids are discussing a water shortage in Georgia. The teacher is able through tracking the blog to find some hastily offered opinions on the subject that were not really grounded in reality and were a bit short-sighted. Typical teenaged responses. She is able to point out to them some additional things to think about about as they ponder this difficult problem. The possibilities seem really endless. Even in my position, I can see so many opportunites for sharing with teachers. I am excited!

Thing # 2

Why does 2.0 matter? I enjoyed watching the videos, although I have to admit, I watched the 1st one, The Machine Is Us/ing Us a couple of times because the music and speed of the changes made me dizzy. I had seen Shift Happens at staff meeting before and seen the MISD version of A Vision of K-12 Students Today there as well. When I saw them at the meeting, they were shown, I think, to shock us(administrators ) into the reality of our current students and our current world. Unfortunately, sometimes the people who are charged with leading an organization are those who are seasoned with wisdom and age, and can often resist looking into the newest ways to reach students and teachers.

As I go through these first of the 23 things, I feel somewhat like I think an ELL student feels...confronted with massive amounts of unfamiliar vocabulary-blog, facebook, wiki, twitter, podcast, RSS. Additionally there is a whole group of terms that I understand in other contexts but don't have any background knowledge of how they're used in this technology arena...remixing ( apparently not to stir it again), linking (nothing to do with joining hands or arms) and tagging (not the game of my youth.) The only way for me, like the ELL student, to become familiar with the vocabulary is to immerse myself in the terminology and accept my approximate definitions as I build my knowledge through experience.

I agree with the Reluctant Blogger who said she worries about the divide between "the connecteds and the not connecteds. " Is 2.0 going to further polarize an already fragmented society? I know it's here (technology, that is) and I have to acknowledge it and embrace it, but I still worry about the consequences for the future.

When I read the article , A Day in the Life of Web 2.0, it made me think of something Frank Smith, a noted reading researcher, said. He stated that we can never truly reread anything because once we have read something, our frame for understanding has changed. We have more knowledge about the topic than before we read it, we have more familiarity with the vocabulary in the text...in short, we have altered the structure of our brains as pertaining to that particular topic. Therefore we can never truly reread it with the same results. Heavy, isn't it? But I think it accurately describes 2.0 as well. As each person reads and adds to or otherwise interacts with what is posted, the content changes and as the content changes, we change. The professionals in this article all display an open, adventurous attitude to learning using 2.0 and their students will be better for it, I think. I still sometimes wonder about how to teach kids to filter what they read and see and to read critically, not blindly accepting things just because they saw them on the Internet. I don't work directly with students, but with teachers. I'm exploring all the possibilities a 2.0 world offers me to communicate with teachers in a more direct and meaningful way.

Thing 1

As I reflect on the 7 1/2 Habits to find the one that will be the most challenging, I find that habit # 3 would be my most likely answer in many other fields of work and study. It is difficult for me to put the positive spin on some "challenges" and say, " Today I get to, "rather than, "Today I have to." That being said, however, I think that in this particular area of learning my greatest challenge will be Habit #4- to have confidence in myself as a competent effective learner. Anything mechanical ( and I mean anything even remotely mechanical or technical!) scares me to death. Thus the name of my blog! I find that part of my problem is my self-talk. I listened particularly closely to the video clip when the narrator said, " Don't say it or think it unless you want it to be true." I will really try hard to be careful with my words. I am such a perfectionist and I think part of my self doubt comes from knowing that I'm not the best at this!

The habit that will be easiest for me is Habit # 2- accept responsibility for my own learning. I am a self- starter and am generally self- motivated. Deadlines sometimes assist me as I overcome my lifelong habit of procrastination, but I always take responsibility for my own learning. Thank goodness for Catholic school upbringing!

As for the habit that I think will be most important for me, it will definitely be Habit #7 1/2- PLAY! I think if I can do more playing and experimenting, I might be able to overcome my fear of hitting the wrong key or appearing ignorant. I might even try a couple of the stretches now and then! The sky's the limit!

First steps

Well, here we begin this frightening path to new learning! Let's get it started!