Wrapping it all up!

• What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

I think the best part was all of the resources I now have bookmarked on Delicious. I cant wait to play more and actually put these things to use! 

• How has this program affected your lifelong learning goals?

I love technology and my goal for this year was to complete more staff development in that area so I could bring it to my classroom.

• Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
  

I had heard so many great things about this course that I expected great things! 

• If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?
  

Absolutely. I love this kind of learning. 

• How will what you have learned influence your practice as a teacher or school librarian?

It will reinforce my goals and help me bring more technology in to my classroom. 

• How do you plan to keep up with new developments in web 2.0? Recommend a way that you have found to be useful.

I think I will just keep practicing and playing. I have all of the sites bookmarked and want to revisit them so I don't lose my new knowledge! 

Thing #23

I am a Myspace and Facebook user. I have ventured out recently and tried Twitter, but I was really excited when I got on Classroom 2.0. Finally a networking site where I can go for information and advice for teaching! One particular topic I looked into was the Smartboard/Promethean topics. Lots of people were wondering about the slate which I am not a fan of! I thought it was interesting to read others' opinions as well as read tips. The 23thingers on ning was also really cool. I really wish we would have started this before the last "thing." 

I would love to use some of these things in the classroom but I worry about the maturity of my 5th graders. I have an immature group and I am not sure they could handle this type of thing. I was planning on starting a science club in the future so maybe that is something I can do with that group since it will be a smaller number of students and easier to monitor. I could see how this would be very beneficial in the upper grades. 

Thing #22

Social networking is so addicting. I have had a Myspace account for several years and about a year ago I started Facebook. My Myspace account was found by several students who soon requested to be my friend. I had a huge problem with this. I know my page and my comments are clean, but I cannot control the people that are my friends. So I made a Facebook which is strictly adults only. No students allowed! Since I dont use my Myspace that much I edited to where I have to approve comments left on my page, deleted people who send me inappropriate things, and accepted my students as friends. It is a great way to keep in touch with former students. I even have students who send me messages about homework help. 

My Myspace

My Facebook

Thing 7B

My Google reader find of the week was my horoscope.

Take care of any errands early in the day to give yourself more time for getting cozy with your loved one. Free yourself of all distractions so you can give yourselves fully to each other.

Therefore I am finishing this course before I go home today so I can focus on my family!! !

Thing #21

Google tools RULE! In the chaos that is my desk right now are my Fall conference request forms. I have been trying to find the time to sit down and put them on the calendar. So what a relief when I was forced to play with google tools and decided to try out Google calendar. I entered all of my conferences and a cool little email pops up to remind me what is on my schedule!

I also chose to set up Google alerts. My friend told me about this awhile back and I was excited to set up alerts of my own. I set up an alert for Kate Gosselin (because I love drama?!?), Mesquite (which I later removed because I realized I needed to be more specific), and New Moon (because I am a Twilight fan and am counting down the days until it comes out).

Thing # 20

How many times a day do I send a document or spreadsheet to my team members to review and edit. How much easier will my life be now that I can use Google docs! Here are some ideas on how I plan to use Google docs in the future.

• Class spreadsheet with vital information (including contact info)
• Parent packet for review and editing(with whole team)
• Milestone/Benchmark scores to update throughout the year
• Notes regarding students for all four  5th grade teachers to add to
• Parent conference summaries
• TAKS data
• Accommodations for students

Thing # 19

I have never seen or heard of Voice Thread before. How neat! I really got a kick out of the family photo and the comments the family members all made. The mom really cracks me up. I really enjoyed looking at the Library A-Z voice thread. I could use this in my classroom for a variety of reasons. We could create an A-Z about 5th grade to share on Meet the Teacher night, we could use it to review science concepts, or we could use it to just have fun! I would also like to do a similar family photo voice thread and pass it around to family members to get everyones thoughts or memories. 

Thing #18

I laugh at my sister because she can literally sit on youtube for hours browsing videos. Now I know how she does it. I have seen videos from YouTube before, but I have never gotten online and searched for videos. The video above was pretty cool. This teacher has her students go over science safety rules. I always look for fun videos to share ideas with students and I think they would really enjoy this one. I always teach safety the first week of school but I am going to show this one to review the rules very soon. 

Just the other day my students and I were discussing dry ice. I came across this cool video and can't wait to share it with them. Maybe I can even buy the supplies and do one of these experiments in front of them. 

Okay now this next video is pretty funny. My students this year are obsessed with Michael Jackson. They LOVE to moon walk on the tennis court. They are always asking me to do it with them but I have tried and just cannot seem to get it down. So as I was browsing the "how to" videos I found this how to moon walk like Michael Jackson video.

And now for some fun! This baby getting down to Beyonce! 

Thing #17

Since I teach science I previewed the DragonflyTV Podcast: PBS Kids Go!   I listened to several different podcasts. I definitely will begin to use these in my classroom. I like these podcasts because they include video and come from actual questions that kids have written in. In one particular episode they even discussed different science experiments they could design regarding the topic they wrote in about I searched the science directory and this was by far my favorite. It was super easy to access. I clicked the button that said "Add to itunes" and transferred them all for me. Then I could browse through and listen to the ones that I was interested in.  I have taken a podcasting class before and I have made podcasts with my student using Garage Band, but I have never subscribed and shared podcasts with my students. 

Thing #16

I have always been an avid reader. My sibling make fun of me to this day because my nose was always in a book growing up. To this day I read for enjoyment and look forward to the end of a long day when I can cuddle on the couch with a book. Over the summer I got my mom to finally read the Twilight saga. I forced her to take it on a trip and then she came back addicted to books like me. She reads more than I do now which is a strange concept to me. My Dad is a little annoyed because he now has two bookworms to deal with in life. I love technology and organization, but I am having a hard time getting interested in using Library Thing. Maybe it is because I would rather actually be reading a book. I do see how it would be helpful in searching for reading that you would enjoy, but at the moment my bookshelves are overflowing with books I need to read. I think if I keep trying it maybe I will grow to like it more. I am willing to give it a try. 

Thing #15

Delicious is DELICIOUS!! I am addicted. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. I guess that is because I use so many computers in so many different places that this simple site makes my life so much easier. The only problem I have encountered so far is adding the "bookmark on Delicious" link on my bookmark bar at school, therefore I am forced to copy and paste, but I still love it. Lesson planning has become so much easier to do from home now that I can pull up the sites I use without having to write them down. 

My Delicious

Thing #7A

When browsing through my google reader feeds I came across one feed in particular that I found interesting. The reason it was so interesting to me is that I am currently participating in this course as well as the Intel Essentials course which is all about using technology in education. This particular article is from the Tech & Learning site and talks about the need to refocus staff developments to include learning how to learn with technology. It includes a presentation and I found that this particular article made me appreciate the current courses I am taking even more.

Thing # 14

The tool I chose to explore was Letter Pop. Every week I send home a science newsletter to parents which includes student expectations, vocabulary, and discussion questions for home. I currently use Pages, but after exploring Letter Pop I think  I could use it as well. I also love to scrapbook and recently got in to digital scrapbooking. This site is super easy to use. You can choose a template, upload photos, and drag them into the template. I played around with some wedding photos from a recent wedding I attended and made a cute little page to send to the bride.

Thing # 13

Wow! I did not know there was such cool stuff to play with on the web! (Okay maybe I did but I never took the time to sit down and play). As I played on many of these different sites I came up with tons of ways to use these in the classroom. I could use them to make generic signs, use them with vocabulary words, make name plates with the Spell with flickr, and much more! Here are some of the cool things I did. 

Click the images to go to the image generator! 

Thing #12

   

This slide show was so easy to make! I have used Rock You before, but my has it changed! I played and played and then finally decided I must blog! This slide show is an example of landform pictures I could show in class to help students visualize them. 

Mountain    toufeeque     http://www.flickr.com/photos/toufeeque/ 

Valley          a.vieth            http://www.flickr.com/photos/30745689@N04/3098619619/

Plateau        marvin908            http://www.flickr.com/photos/marvinok/

Glacier        toufeeque            http://www.flickr.com/photos/toufeeque/

Canyon       Tut99 (Roger)            http://www.flickr.com/photos/tut99/165582741/

Sea stacks  geographyalltheway_phot os            http://www.flickr.com/photos/geographyalltheway_photos/319733495/           

Thing #11

I have to say that I really like Flickr. I have used other sites like photobucket a d rock you to do things with photos, but I really like searching through and looking at other peoples photos. For fun I searched the zoo pictures and the wedding photos. Then  I started to think about what I would use photos for in my classroom. Last year I used google images to  show my students visual examples for our Earth science vocabulary. It was so difficult for them to visualize some of the words so I put them all in a power point and showed them on the Promethean board. I sometimes would not find what I really wanted and did not know of another place to look. So tonight I decided to search for landform photos to see if I found any we could share in class. Here are some examples of some AWESOME photos that I cannot wait to share. 



from Echo_29



from geographyalltheway_phot os



from a.vieth

Thing # 10

Copyright laws have always been confusing to me. I have seen the CC logo before but never knew what it meant. I use google images often in my classroom and in my newsletters. I thing using Creative Commons would be very useful in my classroom and sharing creativity is very exciting. I think that there will always be people in the world who will use others' work as their own and unfortunately it is not something we can change easily. My hope is that if I teach my students about copyrighting and the importance of making sure they are responsible for their own work then that is a start. I have a class blog that I post my newsletters and other information and work to often so this is definitely something I want to look farther in to.

Thing # 9

I have a confession to make! When I first read the instructions for setting up the wiki I was completely overwhelmed. So much so that I put it off for over a week. Then tonight I actually sat down and did it and found out that is was so SIMPLE! The steps were easy to follow and I could not believe my procrastination. I had a little time to look at a few of the wikis and enjoyed answering some burning questions. I can't wait to see the responses to mine.

Kristy's Wiki

Thing #8

Okay I will admit I had no idea what wiki meant! Ha! I am currently working on the Intel Essentials class and we post to a wiki and now it makes so much sense. WOW! This has been a tough year- I promise I am usually a lot more with it than this! I really enjoyed visiting the different wikis and brainstorming ideas of how I can use this in my classroom. I currently have a class website, but a wiki seems way cooler! I like how the Primary Math wiki has a list of topics to the side. I could post many of the topics we are learning about in class so that my students have a way to study and review at home. On Mr. Lindsay's wiki I liked how he had the images and titles of different pages all right there for a student or parent to choose from. Many of my students and their parents are new to the internet and may lack the experience to search for things. This would make it so much easier. While reading Mr. Monson's 5th Grade class wiki I thought about how excited the kids must be to try and get 1000 responses to each topic. They must spend some time brainstorming some really good topics that would elicit such response! 

Thing # 7

Communication is so important today and it is very easy to drop a comment. Why then do many people avoid it? On my personal blog I often feel that nobody is reading, but when I see or talk to family and friends they often reference my blog. I always suggest to them to comment so I know they are reading! I have learned a great deal by reading the comments of the blogs I am following and often that is the only discussion time I get in a day. I myself will admit that I need to improve on being a better blogger by commenting as well.

Thing #6

Wow! What a lot of information. I have to admit I am a bit overwhelmed, but I am slowly learning to skim through and read those feeds that I choose and let the rest go. I really enjoy reading blogs of my classmates. I have personally been blogging and following friends' blogs for over a year so I am excited to follow new ones! I am currently following Cyndi Johnson's Momma Bear blog and Rebecca Hogg's ForeverLearner blog. I also enjoy the educational blogs I am following, especially Free Technolgy for Teachers. I love the ideas and the freebies I can get here. On a FUN note, I check my horoscope daily so why not add it to my feed? I have to say with all of this information in one place, I am saving time by not spending so much time "browsing." What an awesome idea.

Thing #5

Wow! What an abundance of news! One of my favorites is North Texas News and Commentary Podcast. One of the podcasts I found interesting was about

 swine flu deaths in Dallas and Tarrant counties. Since I recently tested positive for type A flu I was 

interested in what this podcast had to say. Here are some of the things I found interesting:

-Richardson ISD student that passed away had serious underlying medical conditions.

-6-8% increase in absentee rate at schools

- Fort Worth ISD student was not prescribed Tamiflu because she did not meet the criteria

-99% will not need Tamiflu- wont make any difference whatsoever. Up to doctors to decide who is high risk.

http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/77/510088/113328266/KERA_113328266.mp3?_kip_ipx=1760900420-1254705627

Thing #4

To me personally blog writing is much easier to read and engage.  I find it fascinating to be able to read about other peoples lives and especially teachers who write about their classrooms. I get many great ideas and insight from these sites. It also makes me feel better about trying new things and maybe "trashing" those things that are no longer working for me.  Commenting is one of the most important parts of blogging in my opinion. As a blogger, I personally read and reflect on all of the comments left on my posts. It helps me get insight in to the opinion of others and maybe helps me see things from another perspective.  I feel that when I am blogging, I write with more enthusiasm than if I were just writing in general. I want my readers to be entertained and interested in what they are reading. 

Thing #2

POST 2: Thing #2 - Thoughts about Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is a very exciting thing in my opinion. I LOVE technology and feel that it is important to share this love of learning with my students. I think that my teaching practice will continue to change as the use of technology changes in our world. It is more than just using technology in the classroom- you have to teach your students to do it too!!  When I think back to my education the first time I actually got to sit down in front of a computer and learn how to use it was in 7th grade. WOW! Times are sure changing. Even common things such as banking and bill paying can be done online now so it is very important to teach our children how to use technology not only in their education, but their everyday lives as well.

Thing #1

Thing #1 - Reflections on Lifelong Learning
I try to emphasize to my students the importance of life-long learning. I know that I can help them understand this concept by being a model to them. In our world change is a constant. We must continue to learn and adapt our thinking in order to survive! The most challenging habit for me is to view problems as a challenge. I think this is a great idea and will encourage a more positive attitude, but I need to adjust my thinking in order to make this happen. The easiest habit for me is to use technology to my advantage. I LOVE technology and constantly look for ways to make my life easier through the use of technology. This is something I do on a daily basis.

The most important habit for me is to play. I have learned so much about technology from just sitting in front of a computer and playing around to see what I can do! Just tonight I was trying to embed a file in to a powerpoint presentation. I started looking through the help topics but soon decided I could figure this out on my own. It only took me about ten minutes and I did it!