Thing 21

I didn't realize there were so many podcasts available. I looked at all four directories, but finally chose a podcast from the Educational Podcast Directory. It was broken down by elementary, middle, and high school. That made it much easier to find podcasts suitable for my school. I tried looking at the podcasts related to technology and thought I might have found some good lessons on using mac's. When I tried to open the link, it wouldn't work. That was really disappointing. So, I went to another link called Uncontrolled Vocabulary. It is really very intersting. First, it gives instructions for others to join in. It is held every Wednesday night at 10PM and regular callers are librarians from around the country. It is just an audio podcast, but it felt like I was sitting around the table discussing issues with them.

I looked around podcast.net and was a little disappointed. I didn't find much that would be useful for elementary schools. Plus, on the side bar it said you need to download special software to fully enjoy the podcasts. I decided to move on and look at other podcast directories. I went into podcastalley and looked under the education tab. I chose one about vocabulary. Oh my, was I surprised. The speaker was not dressed appropriately for any educational setting and although she was talking about words, there is no way I could ever show that at school. I finally chose a podcast from Jamestown Elementary School. There were several podcasts that would be useful for my campus. They had math word problems, a trip to Jamestown, letter writing, as so much more.

Thing 20

I started looking around youtube for something I would like to show in my post. I love Mo Willems' Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus so I started searching. I wasn't sure what I would find, but I did have a few hits. It was mostly parents or schools reading the story. My favorite was a father reading to his two girls. It was great because one girl kept telling the pigeon "no" to everything he asked. I love to see parents reading to the children and getting the kids involved.

Our teacher's use powermediaplus frequently, but it is limited. It would be nice to have video clips of children's books being read for younger children. For high school this might be a great tool for theater classes or, as a project, students could create commercials based on books.
Below is a video about Strega Nona by Tomie Depaola.

Thing 19

I created an account with mindmeister and looked at other individuals work. I like that it had tags to help narrow my search, but the majority of examples are from another country and written in a foreign language. I do like the idea of using mind maps. My campus is implementing Thinking Maps this year and mind maps are very similar. Mindmeister only allows straight lines and sometimes I prefer to use bubbles or t charts.

Gliffy looks wonderful on the home page, but once I registered I couldn't figure out how to make the samples shown. I went to the home page and watched the demo. When I went in to create a document, I still couldn't find a help button. Flowcharts are similar to the mind maps. Flowcharts allow more freedom with the set up and I like that much better. It is also more attractive which is important when working with students.

Thing 18

I am loving this "thing" so much that I'm having trouble moving on. I have explored several links on the Web 2.0 Awards list. One site I found to be very interesting was Confabb. You can search, track, discuss, and review any conference, speaker, or session. You can also add a conference to the site for others to view.

The section about fun stuff was really fun. I checked out One Sentence and it is for users to post one true sentence. I read several posts and some would be inappropriate for a school setting. I can see this being very useful in the classroom, but it might be better to use a wiki for this so that posts can be controlled. The teacher could create a page and students could go in and work on writing one sentence. This would be a great way to practice summarization skills. Another fun site was fuzzmail. Anyone can type a message and send it to their friends. Their friends can watch exactly how it was typed. For example, if you are typing and then you have to use the back space key, they will see all of this on the screen. If you go back to add a word or change the spelling, they will see this as well. I can't really see and educational use at this time because it moves so quickly, but it could possibly be modified for writing skills. The students could watch to see how the teacher would modify their writing project.

Thing 17

I love the idea of being able to work offline and it automatically makes my edits when I log onto the net. Sometimes I cannot access the Internet and it is frustrating not to be able to view necessary documents. With Zoho, I can make changes on my most recent projects even when I am not connected to the Internet!

I created my account with Zoho and started work on my first project. It was very easy to create a spreadsheet and I used Mockingbird books for my first test document. I am still working on how to post a link to my blog. I felt like I was working with my regular Microsoft Office applications. The toolbar was familiar and I had no difficulty in using the application. Now I am off to explore Google Docs.

Thing 16

After viewing the discovery resources, I see that it is very easy to use, edit, and create pages using wiki's. Wiki's allow users to do almost anything on a page. This would be an excellent way for my campus to post our school faculty calendar. Each month our secretary prints a calendar for each teacher with events for the month that affect staff members. It would be great if it were online where staff members could add to it as necessary. Teachers already deal with so much paperwork, so putting it online would be a great way to always have the calendar nearby.

I just discovered another wonderful wiki site, Curriki. It offers a place online where educators from anywhere in the world can post curricula and lesson plans for review and use by fellow classroom teachers. It is very user friendly and has lessons categorized to make searching easier.

My campus has clubs that meet after school every other Monday. The Writing Club could really use a wiki to help produce the school newspaper. They could type their articles between meetings and the teacher(s) could go online and edit or make suggestions for changes. This would cut down on the length of time between printings.

Thing 15

I was unsure just exactly what a wiki was until this assignment. I know I've seen them in the past and I've certainly seen Wikipedia, but I never really understood until looking over the discovery resources. There have been many times I could have used a wiki to coordinate plans instead of using email. I can see the benefits of using a wiki for small groups such as the Mesquite Librarians, but allowing the general public access to some wiki's would cause me to question the validity of the information.

My campus has a grade level meeting every Monday with the principal. A member from each grade must attend and take notes. I think it would be useful to have a wiki detailing some of the items we will be discussing so we can start before the meeting. So much time is spent after school trying to work out the details of some new situation or program and I believe it could be easier on everyone to have more time to think and plan if we knew in advance what needed to be worked out. Another use for wiki's on the elementary level would be in ESL classes. ESL students do a lot of writing and I think it would be much easier to have it on a wiki where the students and teacher can access it anytime and make changes. Students can track their progress by looking back at the history of the paper and seeing the changes that have been made.

Looking at some of the discovery exercises, I really liked the idea of teachers using them for students to interact. I didn't realize wiki's could be set to allow only certain users to make changes. This would be an excellent way for educators to reach their students during the summer. I know several advanced classes that require summer assignments. What a great way to get feedback before the school year begins.