23 Things - Thing #7

I've been using Bloglines as my reader for several years and I like they way it works. It has made it easier for me to keep up with news sites and blogs that I like to read. It serves as my bookmark for blogs. I use the reader to keep up with technology news for professional and personal topics and I also use it to keep up with several blogs that deal with books and library issues. Big A Little A, American Indians in Children's Literature , and The Brown Bookshelf help give me different points of view on children and young adult literature. I did set up the Google Reader and found that it is very similar to Bloglines and now that I'm using my Google account for more services; the blog, documents, notebook and calendar I may switch all my feeds over to the Google Reader. A reader is a necessity these days just to keep up at all.

RSS readers can be used by students and staff to keep up with the latest news and headlines. Teachers could suggest appropriate blogs on specialized topics for students. Current events classes could certainly benefit from having students use RSS feeds to stay up dated on topics from diverse sources, not just the usual news sites. RSS readers could help teachers and students keep updated on classroom blogs and classroom activities that are posted to blogs. As more teachers use blogs parents could be encouraged to subscribe to the classroom blog and be easily kept up to date.

Kax's idea to add each participants blog to our reader makes sense to me and I've started subscribing as I scan the different blogs. Using the reader will make it much easier to keep up and participate. Thanks for sharing the idea Kax.

23 Things - Thing #6

Technology use gets really complicated when you try new activities in a school setting. Keeping in mind the student's safety and the need to teach good habits I wonder if it is wise to have secondary students use sites that require an e-mail address or other information. Do we need to get parental permission, who in the district do I need to get permission from or do I even need to get permission? Flickr, blogs, wikis, social bookmarking sites etc. all come with privacy issues and monitoring issues. I can spend hours just previewing sites and check out the section of a site that I want to use but it is nearly impossible to check out the entire web site. Any of the sites that have chat sections have the potential to have inappropriate chats going on, this is often the case on Youtube or even on the Image Chef site and on Comic Strip generator. Once I do find a site that I feel I can use with students then I need to get it unblocked which can be another time consumer.

Hope

I can see lots of uses for ImageChef. Creative writing, creating your own images for use in presentations even using the Poetry Blender to create a three image report, something like pick the 3 most important features/images etc. for a country, famous person, etc. My concern with many of these sites though is the comments or ads that are at the bottom or sides of some of the tools. There were swear words and comments that could get us in trouble even at the secondary level, how do we work around that?

23 Things - Thing #5

My creation
Originally uploaded by Ibbooklady57

I'm having fun with the Big Huge Labs Flickr toys. I could see students using the Flickr toys for projects to introduce themselves to classmates, creative writing activities, and I am thinking of ways to use this to incorporate these tools for students to create trading cards of their mytholgoy characters. Trading cards of dieties could be a good alternative to the normal PPTs.

23 Things - Thing #4 - Part 2

Miner's Rock
Originally uploaded by Ibbooklady57

I just had to set up a blogging link from Flickr.

23 Things - Thing #4

Flickr is way too fun! I spent a bit of time learning my way around Flickr and uploading some family photos from the 40s and 50s and my husbands pictures, plus pictures from my favorite spot which is the river and using the map tool too. One great feature I noticed was that pictures that had comments already added on my computer, uploaded with the comments already attached. I had labeled some of the old family pictures already with dates, locations or the people in the pictures, so having that information upload was great.

23 Things - Thing #3

7&1/2 Habits
Out of the 7 & 1/2 habits #2 accepting responsiblilty for your own learning and #7 &1/2 Play are my easiest. I have always loved learning and when it comes to the techie things PLAY is my best way to learn. Learning and play go together for me, my curiousity is natural, it is a strength that makes me a stronger teacher. When I work with students my curiosity is something I like to model, helping students to develop their curiosity helps them enjoy learning which is part of life long learning.

Number 3 viewing problems as challenges would be my most difficult. Although I often view problems as a chance to learn, my first reaction is frustration. I also get annoyed at the time that needs to be invested in solving some problems. My latest experience would be, that my wireless network quit working - yes it is a chance to learn but the time invested was frustrating. _____ number of hours later (I don't want to admit how long) I'm back online and my home network is working but to be honest I can't tell you why because my original settings didn't work and some of the changes don't make any sense to me. Ways to improve?? I need to remember that its fun to learn new things (see my strengths :), take a deep breath, and don't worry about the time so much.

23 Things - Thing 2 second part

Reflecting back on my initial thoughts about Web 2.0 I would have to look back a couple of years but my reaction would be the same as now - cool - I can play with this stuff for HOURS! Now I'm in this class I can even say I'm doing class work - how cool is that. Some of the 2.0 tools have made improvements that make them more user friendly for schools, while at the same time education has been taking steps towards utilizing the tools. If school technology will allow 2.0 offers us some opportunities to help students learn and create ways to utilize technology to encourage life long learning skills. The creative aspects along with the collaboration potential give educators a whole new tool box to help reach all learners.

23 Things - Thing #2

What makes a good blog is going to depend on the reader - as long as a blog finds a niche to fill and entertains, informs, communicates with a group of followers than I would say it is good. I judge blogs on whether they give me something of value for the time I spend reading the blog.

Blogs enhance web sites by allowing an exchange of information and discussions. Web sites can already include video, audio, pod casts, photos but they don't easily accommodate communication and discussion between individuals and groups.

Blog definitely make it easier to self publish just like the social networks do. Not only can you create and publish a blog for free in less than 1/2 hour, you can create an environment for collaboration - no HTML (or headaches) necessary. No censorship either.

23 Things - First Thing

I'm looking forward to being part of a group and discussing the issues, ideas and techniques. I love learning new "things" and find good classes and discussions a way to energize myself. Briefly put I'm looking forward to:

• learning about tools/toys
• learning tips and trick to utilize said tools
• learning ways to share with my staff and students at school
• having a valid excuse for exploring all of the new 23 Things

23 Things Class

Well, I've just started as a participant in a class called 23 Things. I'm looking forward to discussing these topics with other class members and discovering new 'things'. I've been playing with blogs for several years now - but haven't come up with the perfect use for them yet in my job or personal life. Still I like to mess around with them and check out the new features and styles. So here's starting a new look at some old tools with some new people to help me create a new vision. I do love learning new stuff.