Thing 10

Here is a video for that I discovered and it just put me in a good mood. If anyone grew up watching the Sound of Music like I did, then you will enjoy this video of Do-re-mi being sung at a train station. Hopefully this embedded stuff works!
Oops, apparently I did something wrong because I got an error message, so let me try again...
Well, I can't figure out that one, so here is the website if you are interested-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UE3CNu_rtY&feature=PlayList&p=5CF4114C1026E042&index=16&playnext=2&playnext_from=PL


Let me try one of the PS22 choir songs. I really enjoy watching these kids sing. When I have seen many music programs cuts, it is nice to see this teacher and students really enjoying music. I love how serious some of the students get into their songs- very cute and inspiring. Okay, let me try to post this-

Thing 9

You Tube is something that I am familiar with, however I never really thought about it as something to use at school. I really like the choir performances by the PS22 school. I think that their videos shows how much the students and teacher love music and how proud they are of their performances. I think that videos showing the talents of students would be useful. However, the privacy issue would be a factor. Other than that factor, another challenge would be that anyone can post anything on you tube, which is probably why I don't think my school gives us access to it (though I'm not sure because I never really tried). But overall, I think that You Tube is a fun media to explore. It was easy to sign up and a piece of cake to comment on other people's videos.

Thing 8

Well, I just finished Thing 8 and there were some very cool things that you could do with pictures that are actually more easy to do than I had originally thought. Making the mosaics was fun and I could see using that even in my personal life. I did get a little frustrated using Big Huge Labs- somehow signing up and signing into flickr proved to be confusing to me, but evenually I figured it out (though I really don't know what I did differently). The thing that was time consuming was when I had flickr do a random search for my mosaic. I had to keep redoing the mosaic because the search for something like "island" gave me pictures of airplanes and things that weren't what I was looking for. I'm sure if I used my own pictures or found some on flickr that I liked ahead of time, that would have been easier. But I did like using the programs. I could see myself using something like the flickr montager to have the kids create a montage of how they are feeling (for counseling).

Thing 7

Setting up the Flickr account and uploading photos and tagging was a piece of cake. This was the first time that I had actually uploaded photos instead of just pulling photos off of flickr for a powerpoint presentation or to help a student with a project. As a support teacher, I will definitely will continue to use flickr for the usual projects (helping them find pictures for reports, projects, etc). I also could download other pictures of classroom activities for the students to view and I could post them on the classroom blog as well. I am looking forward to reading other blog's about Thing 7 and see what other ideas they have that I can borrow. The main problem that I would envision would be privacy issue with the students but if you don't make the pictures public then that wouldn't be an issue I suppose. I also have run into issues when students search for pictures and they can legitimately stumble upon pictures that I would deem inappropriate.

Thing 6

I have past experience with Flickr, so this was the first Thing that I felt confident exploring. With it being way too hot and way too gloomy outside, I searched for pictures of St. Lucia (that's where my husband and I went on our honeymoon). Even though I have pictures, there were not right at hand, but I quickly was transported back to relaxing times through Flickr. I was able to download and post on my blog with ease. It's nice to feel comfortable with Thing 6!

Thing 5

RSS makes sense and was pretty easy to navigate. Creating a blogline in the Links tab was definitely the easiest to manage. I had difficulty with trying to just click on the little symbol. On the first activity, I agree with one of the comments I read that the symbol wasn't even there. So, on that one I copied and pasted, which seemed to work just fine. However, on the second activity where we were supposed to try the copy and paste, I tried to click on the symbol instead since there was one on that blog. I didn't have success with that, my computer was trying to add it to something else, not my blogline- so I gave up and just copied and pasted that one as well. The third activity was creating the blogline Links tab, which went smoothly. So, overall I figured out most of it and since I know how to add blogs 2 out of the 3 ways, I think that I will be able to add more and more blogs to my blogline. So far, so good! Trying this world of blogs and such will definitely help me gain information for both professional and personal life. In fact, I found some ACT prep information that I can use in a summer program, just a couple minutes ago. I also got a little gossip fix from another blog.

Thing 4

Setting up the Blogline went surprisingly smoothly, though I do feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of blogs out there. I think that the blogline/RSS is a good way to manage all of the blogs and I after I hopefully get a little assistance in Thing 5 with how to subscribe to some blogs, I think that the blogline is something that I would use for school and probably personal life as well. I must say that I still am not quite sure how to narrow down all of the blogs out there, but I am hoping that that is covered in Thing 5. But overall, blogging is new to me, but RSS makes it quite easy. Going to one site to gather information from all over the web is very convenient. Creating the folders will be helpful as well.

Thing 3

Okay, well I have finished Thing 3 and I really am inspired to incorporate a blog into my classroom next year. As a Student Support Teacher, I have many students (and their parents) who are struggling keeping up with assignments. I think that creating a daily blog with all of their assignments from their classes would be very helpful. I also think that creating links and different things for study skills and tips would be helpful as well. When I was exploring the different blogs, I really like one that had students proudly presenting their work, with powerful music in the background- it just seemed like such a wonderful way to get students excited in projects and assignments. I really wish that I was familiar with blogging when I was a high school counselor because I think that there is a lot of information that could be shared via blog.

Thing 2

I have always considered myself to have decent Web skills, but just posting this blog on 23things@resa.net posed to be a problem for me (I still don't know if I was successful). But, if I figured this out, I am hoping the rest of this course will go smoothly. I like the idea of utilizing a blog in the classroom. I think that it would be a great way to communicate with parents and students about school/class events and assignments. It seems like a pretty easy way of posting information once you have the hang of it. I never really even thought about using blogs as a teacher, but it definitely makes sense. The only problem that I would run into would be some of my parents/students lack access to the internet and computers at home. Other than that, I am starting to think about the blogging possibilities for the next school year.

Thing 1

Wow, I have just finished Thing 1 and Thing 2 and I am a little embarrassed to say that I feel a bit overwhelmed. I was really inspired by the video in Thing 1 and posted an enlightening post only to find out on Thing 2 that I have to create my own blog before I post (oops). But that brings me back to my original thought as I began this course- I am definitely not confident in my advanced technology skills! However, after seeing the the video, I hope to learn alot over the summer so that I can incorporate new things into my classroom. My school may not have all of the technology that was discussed in the video and paper, or maybe they do, I guess I don't really know what is involved in creating a podcast. As a support teacher, I sometimes run out of ways to motivate or interest some of my struggling students but watching the video today gave me some fresh ideas that I am looking forward to learning more about.