Learning As I Go

Where did summer go?

2009-08-06T09:54:00.000-07:00

I go back to work next week. I'm going to try to keep up this blog so we'll see how well I do. I think I might enlist my friend and fellow paraprofessional in this little project so stay tuned.

Thing # 23

2009-07-26T16:55:00.000-07:00

Summary

I did it! I finished all 23 things and my first online learning experience.

Favorite Discoveries: I had the most fun with the mashups, online image generators and making a video with Photostory. I think they are great way to encourage students' creativity and they would have a fun time learning using these tools.

How has this affected lifelong learning: This is my first exposure to online classes. I couldn't imagine taking a class completely online, but it was a good experience. It forced me to try things that I have been hesitant to in the past. I now realize that so many things that I thought were only for computer tech people are actually very user friendly so many things. I am much more likely to explore new Web 2.0 tools on my own now than I was before this class.

Unexpected take away: I was surprised at how it easy it is to set up and keep a blog. I have followed blogs from friends and family and was always impressed by the way they added photos and video. Now I know it really isn't hard.

What could be done differently: I feel fairly comfortable trying new things on computers so for me the course was ideal. It was something to give me a nudge to explore more. For those that are not as comfortable exploring on their own might feel want or need a short intro type class to get them more comfortable exploring Web 2.0 tools before they start.

Would I Participate in something similar: Definitely. I am guilty of getting too comfortable with things sometimes and another opportunity like this would keep me on my toes and learning new things.

Summary in one sentence: 23 Things was a fun and challenging way to become familiar with Web 2.0 tools and how to apply them in the classroom.

Thing # 22

2009-07-24T12:40:00.000-07:00

Nings

I like Facebook so the idea of setting up similar social networking place to focus on education is something I would try. I hope to find more social networking for paraprofessionals. I am sure they are out there I just need to spend more time looking. If not then maybe I'll consider starting one myself. The feature I like the best is the Lesson Plan feature on Ning for Teachers. The user can search by grade level and subject or search for a specific term. The TeacherLibrarian Ning also has some forum topics that seemed interesting and I plan to continue to browse through those.

Thing # 21

2009-07-24T06:55:00.000-07:00

Podcasts and Videocast

Once again, there is a lot of potential for this in the education field. Students can put together presentations to be shared with other students, educators can put together pod or videocasts to share their experiences with others. Putting things together with Photostory was easier than I thought it would be so sharing ideas this way is not difficult. Its probably one of those things that gets easier the more you use it. The song in this video is Little Wonders by Rob Thomas.

Thing #20

2009-07-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

YouTube, TeacherTube and Zamzar

This Thing reminded my about how we are always learning from kids. My oldest daughter was the one that introduced my YouTube and how it can be helpful. Since then we have used it to learn new soccer drills, to work on improving her softball pitching and my husband has used it for complicated car repairs that he never would have been able to do on his own. Ok... maybe the last one was a bad example as the work would have gone faster had it been done by a mechanic, BUT it did save us a ton of money. Considering all that I'm surprised I never thought about using for schools. Between YouTube and TeacherTube I found TeacherTube a bit easier to find what I was searching for since it is already focused on education. I like that it also also has docs, blogs and communities as well for sharing information. Here is the video that stood out for me on from TeacherTube.

http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=9338&title=When_I_become_a_teacher

Thing #19

2009-07-21T18:43:00.000-07:00

Web 2.0 Awards

So many thing to explore here and I definitely got side tracked several times. Some of the award winners were web sites that were already explored in previous discovery activities so for this post I will try to keep the focus on what caught my attention for educators that I have not explored before.
I like maps so maybe that is why I started with this category. I thought Frappr would be a neat way to share places students have been. Swivel was also interesting in the way it lets users upload, share and compare data as well as creating graphs. There is a ton of information to be read on .Docstoc. I particularly like the way you can narrow you search by most viewed, most downloaded,most reviewed, most recent etc, etc.Writeboard is similar to GoogleDocs and has a nice feature that lets the users compare changes that have been made by allowing them to view earlier versions of the same document. I didn't get to play with it because of a server error Comiqs looked like a great way to get students started and comfortable with using Web 2.0 tools because it looks like so much fun.
I am still looking through some of these award winners. There is SO much to go look at.

Thing # 18

2009-07-21T13:14:00.000-07:00

Google Docs & Open Office

We actually already had Open Office on our computer. My husband downloaded it when we were having problems viewing an PowerPoint presentation sent in an email attachment. For some reason our computer shows its installed, but if we try to but if we try to fire it up it says its not installed. We haven't had luck uninstalling or deleting what is there either, so who knows. Any how, he came across Open Office and it has worked for us ever since. That would be a great example of how knowing that there are other products available for down loading can help out. I also like the way it gives different formats to save a document created. A disadvantage, and its not a major one, is that you need to be very careful in saving the document to make sure it is in the right format you want to save it as.
I had also played with Google Docs in Thing #7. I uploaded a document I already had then uploaded and added my daughter and husband as collaborators. It was neat to see how we could all three work on the same document.

Thing # 17

2009-07-20T07:28:00.000-07:00

I was bit skeptical about this at first. After looking at some of the other search engines created by others I began to see how this could be useful. The first thingI played with was someones public search roll on food. I typed in 'lasagna' and instantly had several links from carefully selected sites about lasagna. It seemed like a cool way to filter out sites that you are not crazy about and focus in on getting the info you need from sites you know and like. The search roll I created is titled 'Music' and I am now using it to search playlists when I am looking for particular songs or need musical inspiration.

Thing # 16

2009-07-19T06:33:00.000-07:00

Wikis

Yay! I know what a wiki is now. I have heard of them and I'm familiar with Wikipedia but now I truly understand what they are. I think the students would really enjoy working on projects using wikis. Its great to move beyond the poster board and markers for showing off a group project. The ability to go in review and edit the project easily is also a plus. With wikis students can offer their input to their peers and check the progress on an ongoing project. I also think that in working with wikis students will see that their input really is important and does make a difference to other people. This will hopefully get them to be active participants in the web tools that are available to them and not "lurkers"

Thing # 15

2009-07-16T16:17:00.000-07:00

Web 2.0,Library 2.0 & Libraries of the Future

This particular thing has taken me a long time to post about. I actually read most of the articles yesterday but had to think about it a bit. I think it was partly due to the fact that I myself am a bit stuck in the mindset that the library is a place rather than the "library is human" as Michael Stephen quoted in his article. He describes the library as a "center for learning and experience", not just a building that has books in it. I liked the Dr Wendy Schultz refers to libraries as communities. That mindset gives librarians a new way of looking at the libraries to be more inclusive of the users in planning what will be included in libraries based on their needs.
This is a rather short post, but I think I might come back to comment on it again before the 23 Things are done.

Thing # 14

2009-07-15T15:24:00.000-07:00

Technorati

I spent more time exploring Technorati today. It was one of the sites that had caught my attention on Thing #9 because of the filter. Today I took more time exploring the site. It does take some practice to find what you want quicker. For me,searching by tags was the better way to go rather than just doing a general search of all the blogs.
I also just added the What's Hot Widget from Technorati.

Thing #13

2009-07-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

Social Bookmarking & Tagging

I think the days of adding any link that I want to go back and review in the future to the regular bookmark menu on my browser are over. The end result to that was a huge unorganized list. I really like the fact that not only is my stuff organized, but also by using tags I can find even more sites of interest. I also liked the way Furl let the user save a section of the article they are bookmarking as well for future reference. If I'm researching something new I can start by using the tags to find what I am looking for. This also makes it easier to share what I find interesting and helpful. I used to send links by sending emails but Delicious can make sharing simpler.

Thing # 12

2009-07-14T11:25:00.000-07:00

Comments on Commenting

I was already a bit familiar with the things covered in Thing # 12 from following the blogs of friends and from finding out about other blogs of interest from those friends. Through experiences with those blogs I have come to realize that you can get so much more out of blogs by participating than by lurking. That's not to say we must comment on everything we read, but if something stands out or makes us think a bit that might be an indicator that its time to jump in with a comment. I did enjoy reading the post by Meredith Farkas and the way she described sharing comments on blogs as not being "tit for tat". The two blogs that I found using Google and posted on were Stop and Smell the Chocolate and Scraps of Life.

Thing # 11

2009-07-13T20:32:00.000-07:00

LibraryThing

I'm still playing with this, but I am already excited about the groups. There are groups for everything. No more getting stuck in a reading rut. I had fun browsing through the historical fiction, children's fiction, YA fiction, fantasy and even the group called Awful Lit.

Thing # 10

2009-07-13T11:42:00.000-07:00

Online Image Generator

This was fun! I think favorite was Image Chef my favorite. I found it super simple to work with I love the cartoon idea, but for some reason my creativity was not kicking in this morning so I did only one of those. Also the file size of the picture I selected was too large so I had to shrink it down to be able to work with it. No big deal, just took me a while to remember how.
I had played a bit with Trading Cards last week. I think the students would enjoy using them by incorporating them into whatever project they are working on and using them to put bits of information on them.

Thing # 9

2009-07-10T07:53:00.000-07:00

Useful Library Blogs

Still exploring the blogs with Thing # 9. I liked the Google search and Technorati. I particularly like the way you can do an advanced search or filter some of the results when your search comes up with too many options. I also found the list of Edublogs award winners interesting for education related blogs.

Thing # 8

2009-07-10T06:33:00.000-07:00

RSS and Readers

I confess I was one of those people who didn't have a clue what RSS was or what that little orange symbol meant. Now that my reader is set up I can see how helpful it will be. I like the way it lets you organize the blogs and information you want to receive all in one spot. I had bookmarked many of my friends blogs but now I can see them on the reader without having to go through all my bookmarked website. Cool! I also did a blog search and found a couple of running related blogs that were interesting. Hopefully it will help keep me motivated in the excercise department.

For those of us in the education field, I think RSS and readers are a great way to keep up with what is going on. It is easy to get wrapped up with what is going on on your particular campus, but with a reader we can stay connected and share ideas with other educators not just in our district but across the country

Thing # 7

2009-07-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

Google

Lots of stuff to look through for Thing # 7. Where was Google Scholar and Advanced Search when I was in college? What a cool way to find the latest and greatest on whatever you happen to be studying. I think Google Earth would be a great thing to have in the classrooms. Its great for the students to be able to see places around the world that way instead of just in photographs. Google Alerts are also a good way to keep up with current events for classroom discussions.
I am still playing with iGoogle. There is so much stuff you can add to customize to have all the information you want and need right on your home page.
I'm still playing with the calendar as well. It should be done soon.

The Cat in the Hat

2009-07-09T06:40:00.000-07:00

"I will pick up the hook.
You will see something new.
Two Things. And I call them
Thing One and Thing Two"

From The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss

Since starting 23 Things I think of this book every time I sit down to work on the next Thing.

Thing # 6

2009-07-08T11:16:00.000-07:00

I could spend hours playing with this stuff. Thing # 6 made me explore Flickr a bit more. There is definitely much that could be used in the classroom with this. I decided to do a mosaic and chose butterflies for the theme. I also created a movie poster just for fun with one of my vacation pictures

Back from vacation

2009-07-08T07:52:00.000-07:00

Updated the avatar to motivate myself to get back into the exercise routine. It took far less time than I imagined it would so I must be getting better at this. We are off to the movies right now but I am looking forward to playing with some of the vacation photos while exploring Thing # 6.

Thing # 5

2009-06-30T20:33:00.000-07:00

Flickr

I enjoy photography but I have never explored Flickr. I actually started Thing 5 this morning, but I've spent so much time browsing the site that I just now got around to selecting a photo. I really like black & white photography so this one stood out. I like the way the shadow of the ring forms a heart. After reading a bit about the photographer I found out that the book she used for this is actually Twilight. I love the Twilight series so I figured this was the picture I needed for Thing 5.

Thing #4

2009-06-30T06:12:00.000-07:00

With the blog set up I am getting excited about this now.

Thing # 3

2009-06-30T05:38:00.000-07:00

The Blog and Avatar

I am only on Thing # 3 and already faced a challenge. As I mentioned in my previous post I saw Habit # 3 (viewing problems as challenges, not obstacles) as one of the habits that would be most difficult.I had started this post last night only to have a thunderstorm knock out the power before I could finish. I have followed the blogs of friends but have never had a blog of my own so this is a bit new to me. I was a bit annoyed at the time because I was trying something new but picking up where I left off was a breeze this morning.

Setting up the blog was not difficult at all and the creating the avatar was fun. Part of me wonders why I didn't do this sooner. We are going on vacation soon so at the moment my avatar reflects that.

Thing # 2

2009-06-29T16:47:00.000-07:00

7 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners.

To be honest there are 2 of these habits that I find the most difficult. The first is to begin with the end in mind. I tend to jump into projects without any clear goal.The second is the habit to realize that problems are challenges and not obstacles. What a huge difference it make to look at from that perspective instead of focusing on the problem as something horrible and overwhelming.
I enjoy learning about new technology so to the easiest habit is to use technology to my advantage.

I have to add that habit # 7 1/2, playing, is my favorite

Now that my blog is set up I am looking forward to continuing 23 Things.