Thing #23

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey? My favorite exercises were: creating my blog, exploring Flickr, using comic strip generators, exploring TeacherTube, and creating podcasts.
   
2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals? I always want to keep up to date on new technology and ways to incorporate it in my classroom. I plan to use many of the things that I learned about in Library2Play this upcoming school year.
   
3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you? I was surprised at how many things that I had no clue about! I am a young teacher and I felt like there was not a lot that I was missing out on. I was so wrong!
   
4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept? I love the format and do-it-yourself pace. I really don't have a suggestion for improving the concept. It worked flawlessly for me.
   
5. If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate? I would DEFINITELY participate. I signed up for Library2Play because my librarian recommended it and am elated that I did. This has been a wonderful learning experience. Like I said before, I like that I was able to work at my own pace and convenience.
   
6. How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote 23 Things learning activities? Convenient exploration of the Internet's best new features.
   
7. Now go and comment on some of the other Players' blogs? Done!
   

Thing #22

I thought that the Teacher Librarian Ning was an interesting social networking site. The forum was a great place to read about upcoming conferences, program ideas, research, etc. It is an easy way to communicate about the library profession while picking and choosing topics of interest or concern. There is also a spot to share blogs. I also liked the different interest groups. There is everything from a Harry Potter Discussion Group to a Librarians 2.0 Group. I was impressed with the user-friendly set up and vast array of groups, discussions, and forums. Social networking sites, like nings, are great places to share and discuss ideas with ease. I searched Google for "nings" and found a site that lets you create your own social networking site! Here is the link.

Thing #21

So, I created a podcast using Photostory. I downloaded the program for free and got started. It was simple. I added photos of my amazing chihuahuas, added titles and captions to some pictures, and added a song. After I was satisfied with my video, I saved the file. Badda-bing badda-boom. Then, I went to Switchpod to upload my video as a podcast. I registered with the site and uploaded the file. Here is a link to my podcast. It was a painless and fun experience that was much easier than I had anticipated. You should definitely check out the disgustingly cute creatures I get to share my life with! Yes, I am a crazy lady with a pack of chihuahuas to call my own. I use them to do my evil bidding, so beware. Muahahahaha! :)

Thing #20

I added a YouTube video to my blog and titled it "Use Commas With Caution." It's a silly video, but gets a point across. Commas are ridiculously misused today. (I'm one of those people who loved Eats, Shoots, and Leaves)

There are a lot of great videos out there that can be used to gain students' interest and teach them something at the same time. I love having access to these videos to use them at my disposal. The only thing that I wonder about is if SBISD will allow access to these sites at school or if they will be firewalled. I'm going to have to play around with that at school.

Thing #19

My first Web award goes to a little site called Docstoc. I love Love LOVE Docstoc. I found it on the Web 2.0 Awards page filed under education. It's a site that allows you to share professional documents. I searched for "language arts" and came up with oodles of information. There was a cool language arts and math jeopardy game, a PowerPoint presentation on idioms, and all kinds of other useful tools. It would be a great site to post and share my creations for the classroom as well as pick up others' contributions.

Aside from teaching language arts, I teach health fitness. I decided to check out some sites filed under the health category and found PEERtrainer. It's a FREE site that offers small group support for weight loss. You can count calories online and log the meals you ate throughout the day. There is help for workout program design and healthy goals. I just thought that this was a cool site that does what sites like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig pay for you to access. I was thinking that this could be a great site to help students set personal health goals and become aware of the foods (healthy and unhealthy) that they are consuming.

Thing #18

So, I tried out Open Office and thought it was great. It's easy to use, which is always good, compatible with Microsoft Office, and free. It's the total package!

I decided to pass on Google Docs because I just don't want to register for something else. Too many login pages! Sorry to disappoint, but I feel like I have entered my name, birth date, location, picked a username, and decided on a password too many times this week. I will just have to come back to this one later.

Thing #17

I went to Rollyo and created an account. You do not have to register to use the site, but I created a login. I made my own search engine that focused on language arts lessons. Here is a link to the search engine (I searched for "grammar"). It was really easy. I chose a name for the engine and decided which sites it would search through to find my results. This way I only search through my approved sites and filter out a lot of garbage and advertisements. This would be great for a web-hunt for my students. I could give them a list of questions they need to answer or fact hunt and have them use MY search engine to look at pre-approved sites. This would cut down on time they spent searching pointless sources and eliminate the risk of them ending up on racy sites. This will make an excellent resource for my classroom.