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.