*** Thing # 23 ****

Yea!! I made it! Number 23!! I was a little worried that I would not finish when I could not get on from my parents house for 10 days!! But I did it!! I have learned so much cool stuff. I think that photostory will be one of my best friends this year. I also love the image generators like framing, cartoons, comics.... They will be a lot of fun to use plus make things more interesting and fun. I plan to keep looking for blogs and networks of interest to me. I also want to find some of the daytime radio talk shows podcast so I can listen after school and keep up with stuff going on.
Thank you for this wonderful opportunity to learn so much in a comfortable format!!
I loved it and hope to see more next summer!

Thing #22 Ning

Ning is a pretty cool tool. At this point I am not into social networks but I can see the potential especially for older kids and networking among teachers. I like the way you can easily make your network focusing on your specific needs either professional or curricular. I liked the scenario described in the description of Ning. It could be a very powerful experience for students. Using the teacher networks is a great way to share ideas, get ideas solving a problem and just 'talking' with others in your situation. I did not try to make one but I did visit several teacher ones and found them very interesting. There are some that are mostly sharing ideas, some kind of complaining about stuff and others just sharing experiences. A lot of potential!

Thing # 21 Podcast and Vidcast

I enjoyed looking at/listening to the podcasts and vidcasts. I think there are big possibilities with both of these. The can be used for oral reports so it doesn't take up so much class time. - also helps with anxiety for some kids. Kids can record their podcast, then teacher and other students can listen at their pleasure and leave comments. Same for the vid casts doing very creative projects. It will be very helpful in making how to's info video books and the like that can be used as needed. I made an ABC book. What I would like to do with my kindergartners would be to have an older kids or a volunteer to help the kids find the pictures they want for an ABC book, then as a group we would pull them into photostory, then have each child record their own "A is for ..." sentences.I think it would be really cool. The really great thing is that it is so easy to do. It just takes time to find the pictures your want. I would also like to try scanning in pictures the kids make (or use ones made with Kidpix) and use them for a vid book.

Thing 20 YouTube and TeacherTube

YouTube and Teacher Tube have a lot of really cool videos that could be used in the classroom. It is pretty easy to find clips that illustrate concepts or ideas.
Here is one that demonstrates a Magnet shooter by a kindergartner.





Here is a nice photostory from Teacher Tube about the national symbols.



I also saw videos of people reading stories, books, singing songs, explaining concepts either to the teacher or to the students.
A lot of really talented people out there. If people in our district create these we need to be sure to spread the word. One of the problems I have here at home is annoying and very hard to watch. Sometimes the second time is faster but not always. Will it down load faster at school?
But I do think they are very useful in teaching. Older kids could have this as a product choice. Those who like this kind of thing would have a ball. I know my oldest niece would have!!

Thing # 19 Web 2.0 Awards list

Comiqs: create comics out of stock or your own photos, add speech ballons and title. Easy, fun. just used stock photos and made a simple Kitty cartoon for fun. Very easy. Could use to make a writing prompt, summarize a part of a story, tell about a setting, give facts about places or things, in a language class it could be used to practice labeling or simple conversation. Here are 2 comiq strips I made that could be possible products.

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flamings are birds from turtletracs on Comiqs


USA Landmarks from turtletracs on Comiqs

Thing # 18 Online Productivity tools

I looked at both Open Docs and Google docs. They seem basically comparable to Office. One of the neat things about Google docs is that you can share your documents as you are working on it and not have multiply copies of your original streaming all over email. Open doc did not have a clip art gallery that I could find but I guess I could find pictures I want and have them saved, but I do like having a bank of picts at my fingertips. They both have spell check and option
s to change font, color, size, add tables, graphics... Some things are not as easy to do in the free applications as it is in Office. So now that I have rambles a along a little about each, I think they are ok for a free version of these productivity applications. I think people who do more complex things in these would need to see it they will work for them too.

Thing # 17 Rollyo

Rollyo is an interesting tool. It would be really great if you are working on a big research project and need to go back and forth to the same resources a lot. I do not use specific sites enough -although this year I might- to make groups of sites to search. I looked at one person's rollyo to get an idea nad I say she had differnt kinds of recipes as different catagories. Interesting. I will keep this in mind this year and see if I can find some uses for it in my classroom/life. I made a search for some places I like ot look for things for my classroom.

Select Search Engine...jill's ShoppingSearch The Web

Powered by Rollyo

Thing #16 WIKIs

Wiki's are really cool. They make working together even from a far so easy. I liked the idea of being able to plan things using the wikis. I loved the extra features shown in PBWiki. If working with a team or group, the calender would be so handy. It would be very helpful at our school when the monthly calendar of events is being made, people can just go in and add their event then the person making it to print would have it all there. I also liked the classroom applications although I think it would be more useful for upper grades.
I added some text to the Sandbox. It was so easy!! I even tried adding images and tables. This could be so great for many things!!

Thing #15

Yea Thing 15. I am getting there!
I read Away from the “icebergs”
and To more powerful ways to cooperate.
In Away From the "Icebergs" post, I think many areas are facing icebergs in thier attempts to embrace the technology generation. It is hard to let go of the past that we are comfortable with whether in the Library, the classroom, the office or the grocery store. Iderson find I am very guilty in the Just in Case Collection senerio. I keep paper files of things even though I have them saved on the computer and several other places. I don't even use those paper files, but Just in Case! In libraries I think it will be easier to go techie in the information areas of the library a lot sooner than other sections. Most people still lkie to curl up with a nice book in thier hands to read.
I think that one of the most motivating ideas to get users into technolgy is what was discussed in Rick Anderson's second 'iceberg.' of He talked about the web having so much more information than most libraries can physiclly hold. When we need more information for work or pleasure, we will all come to the web to get more sources. This makes helping people connect to those resources and learning how to check reliability a big role of new libraians and teachers.
Library 2.0 is the direction for all libraries to head inorderto help their patrons access the information they need wether physical or web based.

Think 14

learn technology tags organize search find advertise
I found the videos about Technorati very interesting. I like the idea of having user defined tags like the lady was saying. When you want to know about somethings, you don't want a professional view but ideas from everyday plain regular people. It is good to have both because it you can get a better overview. I think it was kind of cool that when you seach for certain things, the advertising on the page is related to what you searched for. I guess that is a bit commercial but it is kind of cool.
Technorati and the other tagging sites will be useful to me because it will help me find what other people are saying about topic of interest to me. Since I will be teaching a new grade level this year, I am excited to read about not only what is going professionally but also what the averge teacher things about kinergarten issues.

Thing # 13

Del.icio.us is a really great tool. And it is really easy to use and share. I liked the idea of having an agreed upon tag when working with a group. Then all the bookmarks on that topic would be easily found by all. I think this would be very easy for students to use in group research projects. Teachers could also make sets of sites for students to use in a similar way- using a special tag to ID the sites. This would be especially useful for younger students.
My only negative is similar to any searching in that when you enter in tag search, you can get a lot if unrelated stuff. I entered in Frogs and there were many sites tagged with frog that I do not know what it had to do with frogs. But that is a tech tek- to teach careful searching.
Great tool for researching especilly in groups even if the group members are from differnet places- maybe a penpal project??.
:)

Thing # 12

I think one of the most important things in commenting to other's blogs is to be polite. (From problogger: fhttp://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/10/12/10-techniques-to-get-more-comments-on-your-blog/rom) As in Email, It is very easy to say things that you would never say face to face to someone. I think we need to be mindful of how and what we say when online. Comments should express our thoughts and opinions but in a way that builds up not tears down. We want to learn and challenge others not turn them off.
The second Idea that was from Cool Cat Teacher (http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-to-comment-like-king-or-queen.html ) said to make sure your comments are meaningful. Just responding "I agree" or "Right on" doens't add anyting. The blog is not a voting place to see who agrees or disagrees more, but a place to sharte information with others who are not physically near you. She Says to make sure your comments add something to the topic or ask for clarification.
I have added some comments to some fellow Library2play friends. I will be back to add info on adding comments to outrside blogs.

Thing #11

Library Thing is pretty cool. I started off just thinking I would get me account, post my 5 books and move on, but hours later, I have been reading post from the talk and group pages, I looked at the events in the local section. I have added my favorite bookstores to my favorite venue list.
I found it interesting how many people were trying to find a book that they could not remember the title of (usually from thier childhood),and most have found them. Really cool resources. Many were asking for read aloud book advice for certain kinds of kids. very interesting.
I can easily see this being used as a place to get help finding titles of books for hard to find topics. Also a teacher was asking about early childhood songs that have been made into picture books. She must have gotten hundreds of repsonses!! What a great place to get book info!!
I am also going to continue to look through the goups and find one I could join for a while. It is nice to discuss the books I read with others sometimes.
Great Resource!!

Thing # 10

Myspace Banner Generator @ JellyMuffin.com

I had a lot of fun with Thing 10. I love text and image generators. I tried all those on the Library2play site and also found: http://www.jellymuffin.com/generators/glitter_animator/ and http://cooltext.com/ To make some other styles of letters. I loved the other image makers like the cartoon ones but I ma not thinking very clever today so I will have to go back and make one on another day.
Uses of these are many but I think most would be to add interest to projects and end products and to motivate kids ot get to that point. You could use the text generator to make really cool labels, signs, for projects. The image makers would be great for open house, mom's day gifts, student author pages, even jazzing up a biorgaphy.
I did notice though that these free geerators usually have a lot of ads on them. This could be something to look at when refering students to these sites.

Thing # 9

I tried all the different search tools listed. I found Bloglines and Google Blog search easiest to use for me. They are really just like using Google search but you only look for blogs or RSS feeds. Very easy! But as I am still new at the blog stuff, I do not know what I would want to read about on a regular basis. So for now I have added some hobby interests like birding, and curriculum interests like dinosaurs and birds to my other more news like feeds.
As I was reading another person's blog I noticed a great application for the RSS feeds. For whoever at you school who assists with the daily broadcast, having feeds from the sites you use would be great- weather, person or today in history...All the info would be right there and ready to use each day.
I also agree that we have to be careful about the source of these feeds. Are they really accurated and reliable sources? How can we double check? This would be a great stepping stone or reveiw of checking sources.
I also found some RSS feeds by just going to the sites that I use like KHOU, history channel.. and found the feeds one a variety of subjects that I might like to have on my fingertips.
As I continue to exlore the world of blogs and RSS I will find more things I am interested in.

Thing # 8

So far, I am not liking the RSS very much. It is way too much stuff and I have found it very hard to find stuff of interest to me. It is a great idea to have your favorite info just come to you and you do not have to go searching to check for new entries but as I said, I will need to do some more lookingn to find more of interest to me. I think that is kind of what I have on my AT&T homepage where I have the top stories from a few different sources (Reutgers health, Fox news)

I would use this as a way to keep up to date on things happening around the world. If I could find some feeds more directly related to school- kindergaten in particular, it would be more usefull in teaching. Again, I will be reading other's blogs to see how they think it could be used in the classroom and the library.

Thing 7

I have had a lot of fun playing with the Google tools. I first just looked around, then I made myself an iGoogle page. I added the time tool, moon phases and the weather. Then I found some fun games to play, and 2 of the " best pictures" tools. I put on a couple of news sources on too. I am not sure how this could be used for curriculum so I will be watching what others say.
I love to use Google Earth. I have been using it for a while now. I have visited amy places I would never go to like Greenland, Svalbard ( an island near the north pole), areas in China as well as familar places. When reading it is fun to see what it looks like where the book is taking place. Last year I used this a lot for my kids who were reading or studying unfamilar areas to help them get a better feel for the setting.
I am still working on the notebook tool. I am a little mixed up on a few things so Iwill go back and check out the how to more.

Thing #6

I have had a lot of fun playing with the different flickr toys... I mean tools. The different color pickers were cool. I loved going through the colors and seeing what pictures came up. I also enjoyed making trading cards and magazine covers but I haven't figured out what size picture to use and all mione are being cropped a lot. But it is fun. I made some trading cards for some different kinds of birds. I could see 2nd grade using this during their bird unit. The magazine cover was fun. I think it would be a fun way for older kids - 3+ to pull out the main points in a science or SS chapter or unit. Jigsaw was also fun to use. Thinking about what I might try to use with my kids next year, I would probably use the trading cards to make alphabet trading cards.

I also loved playing the guess the caption.

Thing 4

I forgot Thing 4. I did send my info in to be registered and today when I logged in, I saw my name on the list I guess I did it right!!

Thing 5

I found a lot of nice pictures on Flickr but I am not sure I get the idea. It seems to be like google images except that you can choose the level of rights you have with the image you download?
I stopped and went to read some other people's blogs to get some new insights on Flickr. I see that the idea is that it is easy to find pictures that are not copyrighted and so easy for us to use. My question is: Is there and blocking feature to keep 'inappropriate pictures from showing or is the site relatively safe?

I did find some really great pictures and plan to go back to the sight for more pictures when I need them. At this point I do not need to post any pictures but I will consider it if I need to in the futrue. Could you post a set of pictures for your students to choose from while working on a project thus giving them options but not free run of the internt?

Thing 3

Well, my blog is up and my Avatar is posted. The blog was really easy but I had some problems with my Avatar. Mostly not saving and so I had to restart a few times. I also had to have 2-3 windows open at the same time to see the directions from Library2play and email so I could get all the right info emailed to the right person to register. But now that that is complete, I am ready to see what is out there. I will be teaching Kinder this fall and I hope I can find some fun stuff to do with my kids. I am sure they will be quicker than me on a lot of this stuff!!
Anyone out there using this stuff with 4 and 5 year olds? may be we will need to partner with some older kids. Let me know!

Thing 2

I enjoyed watching the 7 1/2 habits. I think my hardest habit is staying positive. I often get frustrated and decide that I can't do it. I liked what she said about don.t say it or think it unless you want it to be true.
The easiest habit is taking responsibility for my own learning. I love to learn new things and am always finding ways to learn what I want to learn. I love to teach others new things too. I have found this one of my best ways to learn- knowing that I will need to teach it to someone else.

Thing 1

Ithink this Library2play is going to be a lot of fun. Thanks for the opportunity to learn at home... or whereever..