Thing 23

This project is a real gift to the members of SBISD- I feel lucky to have been able to take part.

It did disolve any illusions I had about being 'up' on technology. It would be easy to get overwhelmed and shut down. Which is another reason to complete the project. I have enough surface information on some of the Things now, so that I can at least ask semi-intelligent questions.

Also, doing the project gave me a feel for which of Things will be most useful to me and to the students.

I want to master Wikis, and I still have much to learn about organizing/placing things on my blog. The image generators and Google tools will definitely getting more of my attention. As will the ongoing work with the igoogle. RSS feeds and I still don't see eye-to-eye, but maybe the need will appear to me.

Also, I felt waaayyy smart when I was able to adjust the html so my teacher tube video would embed.

Thing 22

Nings! Wow! This would be a great vehicle for the students to use around any collaborative activity. Our school does international investigation inquiry groups every year. This is perfect for many of the projects. Can't wait to get back to school and share. (Hey! did I just say I wanted to go back to school. This summer heat has gotten to me.:)

Thing 21

I have been enamored with Photostory for years and have guided teachers and students in their use of it. Photostory crosses all curriculum areas and its uses are innumerable.

Thing 20

I found this video on TeacherTube. While the picture is pixilated, the content is the type of project I would like the students to be able to create. In our classes this year we hope to offer various forms of product publication, especially videos.

As an information source for me as a teacher/learner, YouTube and TeacherTube is a good resource.

Thing 19

Lulu is an amazing site - talk about removing the gatekeeper. Anyone can be a published/recorded artist, writer, or singer. I have seen a friend's 'coffee table' books created on LuLu, and the professional quality is wonderful. Students could feel very impowered by seeing their class's projects/writings published and possibly even made available for sale.

Thing 18

I have been using Google Docs for about a year - during an online course as well as when collaborating on curriculum with others. I thought it very friendly.

When we use netbooks in the classroom this year, we will be relying heavily on Google Docs.

Questions: Can a facilitator (don't know if that is a correct term) create an RSS feed, so that notification is sent out when edits have been made? During my online course, we did get an email notification from each collaborator, but I'm not sure that the notification went to the instructor or, if it was, in what format it was sent.

Thing 17

I created a search roll when I was applying for the technology grant.

Here is what I don't understand - I put in 10 sites that I thought had good info. But when I use that roll for particular information, I get as many as 288,000 matches. I've done something wrong since this tool would not limit/focus students in their research. (one of the classroom applications we were hoping for)

Thing 16

I sooooo want to use wikis right now. But I still don't understand where we go to create a wiki page. I created an account on wikispaces, but that allows for only one page at a time which isn't enough for classroom use. Is there a district account?

Thing 15

Change, change, change, change, change.

"Well, when I was in school...." Hopefully we do not hear this from those adults working in education. We are learning that as teachers, librarians, administrators, etc. that we can not/should not be the gatekeepers of information.

And it, of course, makes sense that no matter how fast libraries assemble printed material, they will never keep up. Nor can they acurately predict the requirements of patrons. A book has been compared to a new car: as soon as the car is driven off the lot, it drops dramatically in $ value; as soon as an informational book leaves the printing press, its insides are outdated.

There are arguments out there that books should be published on the internet as well as printed - some authors are doing so: Little Brother by Doctorow for one. Still, I do love the printed page - newspaper, magazine, books.

Thing 14

Searching tags certainly makes sense, but there can still be 100,000 blogs that turn up for a search. Still, it is a good idea. I also liked the 'tools' technorati has for previewing bloggers- helps for weeding out.

I can certainly see how the site could be used for research.

Thing 13

The availability of delicious and digg from the internet instead of relying on the bookmarks attached to one computer is an obvious advantage.

I could see students making use of these tools when collaborating on inquiry projects. Also, they are helpful in setting up unique tags to limit/build web sites for students to use for web quest assignments.

Tagging? Great tool - so much of the stuff I look at belongs in so many different categories - now maybe I won't lose the web sites, or at least will be able to remember what use I imagined for the site.

Thing 12

After reading '10 Tech. to Get More Comments', I realized that a blog needs entry points for readers just as print media does. Drape's Takes discussion about responding to comments presented some ideas I hadn't considered. Not responding to blog comments is limiting entry points for the reader. By not creating conversations with the blog reader, the blogger keeps himself at a distance from his readers.



I went to two blogs focused on young adult literature. This topic is highly interesting to me - however, I got exasperated by the 'additional' material on the sites - I want to know about the books, not about what the blogger had for breakfast. :)