Thing 23 - This is it!!!

I am a leader of technology in my building. That is why I took this class, because I want to be able to show all these cool tools to my teachers and keep up with what the kids already know. There are so many great tools that teachers could be using. I will definitely promote some of these tools to them. Will I promote all?? It is hard to say. I am still trying to get my teachers to get there students to NOT use wikipedia and use a database instead, so do I want to show them a wiki? Maybe. It's getting the time and chance to promote these ideas to them. But as I have mentioned previously, I do not give up.

Okay, let me address the prompts. Have I differed in my view between Thing 1 and Thing 23? No, I still think it is overwhelming and there is so much out there. You could spend a lifetime just exploring those that were covered let alone the stuff that was not covered. It's just like the one presentation said (Did you Know) the world is growing exponentially. For example, I have mentioned I am camping, we bought a travel trailer, and we stocked it with camping stuff from when I was a kid. When I was between 10 and 12, so about thirty years ago, my parents and sisters went tent camping around the state of MI for a week. We had plastic dishes. We are using those plastic dishes, and my daughter tried to put one of the mugs in the microwave and I had to stop her. She asked, "It's not microwave safe?" And I had to reply, "It was made before microwaves."
Our students don't know life before the Internet, or DVR, let alone only three stations and the wonderful invention that VCRs were. (Okay, I love my DVR). I love technology. And it is more than just the cool tools we find in the Web 2.0 world. It's the cell phones that record video and instant weather surveillance. Which brings me back to the question asked, "Has this program changed how you view the Internet or how view teaching in the digital world?" Just that it is cool. I once worked for a data processing company (they still used tape for data drops) and one of the sales people always said to the customers, "If we can tell a person how to do something, we can program a computer to do it." Okay, I might not be quoting her exactly, but the point is there. We can make the computers do stuff that works better, looks impressive, and can be transmitted around the world in the press of a button. How cool is that?
" What plans have you made for using these tools in and out of the classroom?" I have started several projects I hope to put finishing touches on including my flash cards, my Googledoc site, my wiki, and a few others I can't even think of right now, oh yeah, podcasting.
" How will you continue to learn about Web 2.0 tools?" Listening to my colleagues at REMC meetings for one, because there is too much out there to explore on my own. I wouldn't have found these tools on my own, because I do not like to surf.
"What are your big "take aways" from this experience? " I have learned about how to get around many of things I thought were holding me back before. Like not having a server, or it being tedious to make a webpage in Dreamweaver. It's so easy to do these at the many sites. I feel confident now that if a teacher asks me about doing one of these projects with students that I would be able to help them and possibly get filters unblocked (except for flickr and you tube), if they wanted to pursue something like podcasting.

So, confidence, knowledge, and the starting point to help my self and my teachers bring their teaching into the 21st Century.

Thing 22 - How long?

I am trying to wait for my download, and I am sneaking ahead to do the last thing while I am waiting. 45 MINUTES!!! Ahhhh, I'm hungry and cold (the air is on in here but it is only like 70 outside.) But isn't that the beauty of the Internet, that I can work on this while I am camping. It is a good thing that I get July and most of August off. On the last day of school, when everyone else left by 11:30, I was there until 1:30. I am going to post this so my Thing 23 is not out of order and come back and edit it when my download gets done. Other than saying I was able to download, I think I did all of the reflection in part A. It is cool to know that there are ways we can get around the filters. (But I've answered two phone calls and filled out an online survey while waiting for this download. Plus I watched that last video on Thing 23.

6-20-08 2:55 Update - Checked my email. Download was there now saved to my computer!! I am done!!!

Thing 22 A - embed video

Okay, it is approaching zero hour and I had trouble with signing up for You Tube and then Blogger went down for a half hour, so I am going to do this in pieces, to get it done.

I picked the video the Element Song by Tom Lehrer. I have been using an animated version that just basically flashes the names of the elements, this one shows a lot of pictures of the elements (gases are hard because can you see gas? But they show a balloon for helium, so it is cute.) See if you can spot why I can't use this with students.


If you didn't catch it, see Thing 21's reflection.

Thing 21 - Online Video

I'll start with the last question and yes, you tube is banned in my building. I think it is so banned I couldn't even join with my school email. I never got the confirming email. I used my personal account, and snap, it was there so I was able to comment on "the element song tom lehrer". It was fairly cool until the silicon element was a pair of huge, almost fully exposed breasts. Sighhh, so much for showing my students that video. But see the next thing, because I am going to use it there.

There were some neat things I did learn though by exploring You Tube. I guess there is a new commercial out that uses the theme song from Eddie's Father. I, being the TV junkie I am, remembered this when my daughter's friend started talking about the commercial and the song. I was able to find the song fairly easily in You Tube. I also found out that, apparently, the TV show was based on a movie that starred Glen Ford. I didn't know that.

But as everyone has probably pointed out, it will not get unblocked. And I don't want it to, I don't like being the Internet police. There are enough legitimate educational websites out there that you could find what you want somewhere else.

Even the Teacher Tube had some very poorly produced videos there. I thought I would try to find a multiplication one for my son, an 7th grader, who basically failed math and is seeing a summer school tutor, might benefit from a video. But I couldn't find one after watching about five poor ones, I gave up.

Obviously, RESA has managed to find some good videos and even posted some of yours there as well, but for now, it will be a tool to have fun with not to use for educational purposes.

Thing 20 - RSS Revisited

Now that I have done my delicious account the use of bloglines seems to make more sense. I can view bloblines from any computer. I have that RSS feed button on my computer and thought that was easier to subscribe to the feeds. But that limits it to that computer. Seems like a big duhhhhh! but that's my epiphany for the day. New benefits? Not really other than I like subscribing to the news (since I never watch it and go through life not knowing what is going on.) Am I checking regularly? Are you crazy? I can't get my things done because when I turn on my computer I automatically check my emails. And by the time I do that, I've wasted a half hour that I should have been working on my things. Once upon a time, when I had AOL, news popped up every time you logged in, and that was good in a way, that I saw the news then, but again it is something that distracts you from your main goal. So NO checking blogs or my RSS feeds are not a habit, nor is a habit I really want to develop. I like going through life not knowing what others are thinking.

Okay, only three more to go, but I must go stretch my legs. Now, I just hope I will come back in a few hours.

Thing 19 - Set up delicious

My user name is the beginning of my email address : schultn.

I guess I was an overachieving, procrastinator because I imported my favorites, because that's really how I wanted to use this. Okay suggestion for when you run the class again. Do this as one of the first things. Like Thing 2 we created a blog that we have been using throughout the whole project, but this Thing 19 we could have been using the whole class as well. So for the ten sites to add to delicious I went back and added all the sites that I didn't already have bookmarked (which just happened to be 10) and most of those were from Thing 16, but either way, I think delicious would have been a good tool to help us organize the class.

I think delicious will help my productivity because I have a computer in my office and one on my circulation desk that have different bookmarks and sometimes I find myself running back and forth between the two because I need the bookmark that is on the one I am not at. I am not sure how I would really use it in my teaching. I use Instructional Arcitect to organize web addresses for students and that has worked out well. see the main page at http://www.ia.usu.edu/viewproject.php?project=ia:4038

Thing 18 - Tagging

Social Bookmarking - Tagging. "Tag. You're it!" always comes to mind when we start talking about Tags. I am a librarian. I catalog. So I can relate to tags. The "social" thing, I'm not so sure I care about that, do you get the idea I'm not so concerned about what others are doing on the web? But I do like the idea of my favorites being all in one place, because between two work computers and my home computer, I have many of the same bookmarks but they are in different places on the different computers.

(Okay what were the questions again?) Are tags useful? I would say probably, since I have my financial links under a folder with that label, it would be easy to tag those websites as banking or financial. So, yes, tagging sounds useful. Advantages, might help my bookmarks be more organized, sometimes, I do have trouble finding them, disadvantages are the public aspect. So I would think you wouldn't want to tag a site that is a logged in site or one that is not generally public (it might make it easier to call it to someone's attention.)

okay, this one's done (in less than an hour, whoohoo!)

Thing 17 - update

Four Screams!! Now it failed to convert. So yet another thing I will need to play around with after I get the rest of the things done. It's 12 noon, and I have six more to go. What do you think my chances are that I will get these done today? Well, at least, my daughter is here now to hang out with the dog.
But to finish my reflection, I looked at a few just loaded and a few top hits, but didn't really look for any other than that. Again, as mentioned in my previous posts, this thing, as long as it is not blocked by school filters, may be a great tool for my students who are collaborating on projects. I like that it said you can mark it private, I just wonder if the old version of Powerpoint will load better than the new version. I will have to do quite a bit of testing of this before I try to introduce it to my students, but if I can get it to work, it should overcome problems that we currently have (namely that students don't have server space so they can only save to the computer they are currently using, it makes transferring files a pain.) Now I hadn't tried to download a ppt in Googledoc. I wonder if that would be better. But I will try that later, I have to move forward, not backward.

Thing 17 - Slideshare or Drive me crazy

I am writing this while I am waiting for my slide show to convert. finally! Okay, here is the story. Last fall, I made a slide show presentation using Power Point (on my husband's new computer complete with Vista - I hate Vista) and emailed it to my self to use at school. I thought I also put it on my old computer. Anyway, I had to download Powerpoint viewer to get it to play on my school's old computers, even though they have Powerpoint on them, it would not run the new version (which had to change the look so drastically it is hard to get used to). Well, after perserverance on my end, I got the power point to run and set it up outside the MRC so people walking by, changing classes could see it. (People at my school are not used to someone promoting the library.) I went and played parent and came back at the end of open house unsure if anyone even viewed it. But I didn't care, I had at least made the effort.
What does this have to do with this Thing? Well, I thought that this Thing, slideshare, might help me solve that problem for next Fall (if I can get an internet connection to where I have it set up, or use a wireless laptop, but I digress.)
So, I thought, why not load my already made presentation to the Slide show, then quick, just like that I could have my thing done. Okay, have I mentioned I am working on a fairly new computer (with Vista, which I hate) because it looks so different it is hard to tell where you are storing files sometimes (plus my old computer and my computers at school all use the old stuff, so that is familiar). Okay, back to the point. I browsed my new computer sure that that presentation was stored here from my transfered files, but no I couldn't find it. It probably took me fifteen minutes of searching before I remembered that I had did the presentation on my husband's computer and may not have saved it on the old one, let alone transfered it to the new one. So I screamed (and remember I am working in a public place.) But then, Eureka! I had emailed it to myself (have I mentioned I love email! It saves the day) I find the attachment download it carefully to my new computer (so I know where it is), see that I can view it (do I have powerpoint downloaded on my new computer? I didn't know). But I save it and go back to Slideshare, and hit the upload, and browse, and I CAN'T FIND IT!! I scream again. My new computer won't show me the file extension and I begin to worry that it's the "viewer" version so it won't upload. I try the two different ways to upload in Slideshare and still nothing. I rename the file, I move it, I resave it and suddenly it opens in an editable view in my computer. Apparently, I do have Powerpoint downloaded on this model (still the new version, yuck,) But "Cool" I think, I can make the updates I need to get it ready for next year and upload that, that would be more helpful anyway. So I spend ten minutes making those changes, save it (where I know it is at), and make sure the file extension is ppt. I go back to Slideshare and all I can find is the renamed, saved presentation from the second time I opened it from the email. I screamed again, but hit UPLOAD anyway, because while I am a procrastinator I also never surrender. So know, while I have been writing all of this, the Slideshare converter was supposed to be converting the wrong presentation. I am going to go check. I'll end this post and try the embed thing if I did get it uploaded and converted correctly.

Speaking of MP3 players - joke of the day

For anyone who thought they were not tech savvy, you might feel better after reading below:

My daughter has been complaining about an "airhead" type of girl in her speech class. We didn't believe how out of it this girl was until my daughter quoted her asking, "When you load music onto your MP3 player, does it get heavier?"

Thing 16 - Exploring Online tools

Okay, I could spend forever looking at these tools, but I only have until Friday, so I looked at Knowtes because my daughter is always making note cards to study. At first, I thought I would just explore it and pass it on to her, but then, the more I played around with it, the more I thought I could use this myself. I quickly developed 7 cards about the type of things I present to students when I am giving them a library orientation. Evaluting a web page is the title I gave to my cards. I made them true false and it would be a neat thing to use during a presentation since students seem to need to see something in front of them. I really think I could make this into a neat learning tool. I will need to explore the site more and actually read some of the information on how to use the site. I was intuitively able to make the cards but then trying to get to them to study was a little trickier and the part that I would need to practice with. So, it seemed to work okay, if you know what you are doing. Students would need an email if they were going to use this, but it looks like a neat way to make note cards for yourself. I am not sure if I would trust someone else's note cards to study from because I can not evaluate their reliability (hey, that's what I am teaching my students, evaluate where the information is coming from, a student? a teacher? some one who has access to a computer and posts anything?)
I will pass this site on to my daughter, once I figure out more how to use it. (She says she is not tech savvy because she can't program the DVR, but yet she has learned how to download something onto her MP3 player so she might be able to figure this out faster then me.)

Thing 15 - Online Productivity

I can see myself using this already. Well, I guess I did, because during the Explore part, I sent the document I tried to put in my wiki to the teachers I am collaborating with (and RESA). I have done the emailing thing to a colleague in the past and then we loose track of which one we have sent to each other. Actually, I am surprised she didn't know about this then.
For students, I can see great things. We don't supply them with server space and they can only save to specific computers. Most of my students have some type of email address. They always have to do group projects and then someone leaves it at home. This is the answer to the dog ate my homework problem!! Yes, I like it.

Thing 14 - Creating Podcasts

Okay, a question I just realized that wasn't answered in all the information I looked at is that of server space. If you use a blog as your webpage, will you also be able to store the audio file on the server that is hosting the webpage? I would think so, but thought it prudent to ask. Can you use a wiki as the webpage and server for the audio file? And why is an RSS feed a necessity of a podcast? If it is set up with a webpage, can't people just visit the webpage?
Wow, I didn't realize I had so many questions. I would love to use podcasting on a daily basis for our morning announcements. Teachers don't always require students to be quite during morning announcements. And since they are being spoken anyway, why couldn't they be recorded and uploaded to the server so students could access them throughout the day or week? High school students certainly could be trained to do this on their own. Hmmmm, sounds like an independent study type of thing that could happen. Obstacles in my district might be filters. I had one teacher attend the recent Podcasting Workshop there at RESA and came back saying some of the websites suggested to her during the work shop are blocked by our filters. I haven't had a chance to test them all, so I am not sure how true that is or what the objection to open up some of these websites would be (I understand the flickr ones.) And then getting the equipment. . . Hey, I was looking for an idea for a supplemental grant for an innovative classroom idea, looks like equipment for a portable podcasting station might just be the ticket. Always stimulating my ideas, this class.

Thing 13 - Locating and Subscribing to Podcasts

I liked the idea of the Education Podcast Network but many of the links I clicked on were dead ends. Also, many of them were over a year old and no new ones posted recently. Podcast Alley seemed okay until I started exploring more and then the word sex came up every where (or at least it seemed to). I don't care for the big search engines like google and yahoo so I'll be honest I didn't even try that. (Plus, I have to get these done by Friday and I was busy downloading iTunes)

iTunes is a bit overwhelming until I remembered from the video to click on podcasts (I started by searching TV Shows). So a thing not mentioned is that some of the stuff on iTunes is free while others is not. But again this reminds me a lot of the blogs. Why do I want to subsrcibe to these podcasts? I don't even have time to watch the news. I did subscribe to the book talk podcast listed in Thing 12.

One of my kids has an MP3 player and one has an iPod. I have been trying to figure out the difference between them because I know I would like to download books to listen to, I know my sister does this, but just random podcasts that I have searched for? I'm not sure if I would do that. Although, I would like to try the booktalks out on students next fall.

Thing 12 - Learning about Podcasting

I am listening to a podcast as I write this. Having a hearing impairment I have trouble hearing everything that is being said (I watch TV with the closed captioning on), but I can tell what a professional sounding podcast this is. It is supposed to be a book talk, but I think she is reading a part of it right now. It is from a high school/middle school and I am wondering how the media specialists have time to practice such a show. Now, I have to remember how to link in this program (ahhh!! we've been using so many, okay I see the link symbol) Okay the site is Hopkinton High School & Hopkinton Middle School Library, the link is http://www.hopkintonschools.org/hhs/library/podcast.html

My physical science teachers do an element unit each year where the students come down and have to research an element or two. I actually get to do a little stunt with them where I play the element song and show them the differences between some of the web pages they are going to use (web site evaluation is not a topic my teachers generally teach students) Anyway, back to the podcasting, this Eagen High School site is an excellent example to show the students and teachers, the different type of projects they could do instead of just making a periodic table on paper. Perhaps they could put a power point together to go with the commercial. How do you do enhanced podcasts? (I haven't looked ahead to see if that is covered.) Any way the link to this site is http://www.eagan.k12.mn.us/fletcher/acn/projects.xml

Other than my previously mentioned hearing impairment, podcasting sounds like a motivation tool that I must get my teachers to use. Wouldn't it be great for speech class? Especially those who don't want to get up in front of the class. They could practice and hear what they sound like.

Okay, onto the next thing so I can figure out how to teach my teachers how to do this.

thing 11 - creating a Wiki - a work in progress

I started my wiki for what I mentioned in thing 10. I loaded an image and tried to put a word document attachment but it did not work like I thought it would. I sent an invitation to RESA and the teachers I want to work on the wiki with me. I also made links to the page. It needs a lot of work, but I think it shows that I can use a wiki space. I like that it combined the RSS, blogs, and other skills we have learned while working on our 23 things. Since it is June 16, and I am running out of time, I will limit what I am doing with this for now.
I think the wiki is a more elaborate blog by all means. There is more that you can do with it. One of those things is to make it more of a webpage. I have a Dreamweaver produced web page so I can get a feel for the difference in making a web page with a wiki and one with an HTML editor. There is a difference. But I also am used to Blackboard and downloading documents to that is very easy. Hopefully I will be able to figure it out in the wiki (once I get my other things done.)

The address for my wiki is http://actclassgchs.wikispaces.com/

Thing 10 - Reflecting on Wikis

When I first saw the video of the Lefever right away I thought, hmmm maybe this will work for the teachers I am collaborating with for a new class next year. Because right now we are emailing stuff back and forth to each other. It seemed perfect. I quickly explored the other wikis in the list, thinking "Hey these are easy to do websites. They solve the problem of having to find a home server." Then, before I started to write this I looked at Tech Time's reflection because I know she has been using wikis and thought, "Ohhhh, Nooooo!"
So I don't think any one wiki I looked at inspired me to create one of my own, like I said, the video did and the article both made a wiki out to be a great collaborative tool, so that is my inspiration. The hurdles I forsee are trying to get the teachers of my project to use it. Some do not have many computer skills (but I have at least taught them how to email more effectively). It would take training with a wiki to overcome most of those hurdles. But some might actually be the internet itself. I have teachers who do not have a computer or internet acces at home (How do they teach?) Is it worth the fight? With the struggle I have had to get my teachers using email and viewing a schedule on a website, I don't know if it is worth the fight to try to get them to use a wiki as well. But, for reasons I don't think are even clear to me, I will keep trying. "Never give up, Never surrender," Galaxy Quest (1999) http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0177789/

Thing 9 - You expect a lot from this thing

Okay, I made the image, saved it to my pictures folder, and uploaded it here. Maybe it wasn't as hard as I feared. Although the directions then said to add a link to where I made this. Where was that??? AHhhhhh! Okay, I can do this, I've only closed down my windows a million times, but I can recreate what I did. Let's see, I would like the Things better if when we clicked on a link it opened a new window, can't you set things like that?
Okay, I opened up 23 Things again for the tenth time tonight, found Thing 9, clicked on Big Huge Labs and then Movie Poster, so the link to that is http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/poster.php. And yes there was a Link icon to add it into the blog. But I wonder if I had just copied and pasted. I am going to copy this link http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/poster.php and see if there is a difference. Now what else did I have to do for 9? Reflect, probably, I'll go back and check.

Yep, reflect. It would be fun if I didn't feel like I was running out of time. When you said play, you ment play. I don't know that I like to play online. I want to know where I am going and what I am doing. I often get into a website and get busy playing that I forget the objective. I was playing with creating an avitar but then couldn't figure out how to use the avitar. It did make me want to load my casino game on this computer though, because it has a great face creator on it and that would be a neat thing to put on my blog. I had a good creation on my last computer before it died. And I digress. Fun, but time consuming (especially when you babble).

Editing

How do you edit in this program? Go to new posts, then you can edit an old one.

Thing 8 - Cool Tools or Fustration Causers

After I played with the tools, I was glad I read the posts below because I had a lot of the same questions. 1. How do I get to these tools if I was in Flickr? 2. How can I put these tools somewhere other than the computer? 3. How can I use these tools while teaching?

I liked the spell - because it could help teach about layout. Often as I look at my students' newspaper and yearbook, I wonder if anyone teaches layout anymore. The letters need to be similar or have a connection apperance to them. The spell feature had a neat way to change a letter to make a better "fit".

I did the matching using the RESA23 tag, so they were familiar pictures. I could see my Japanese teacher taking photos of the kangi characters so students could make sure they were recognizing them (but if the sight needs to connect to Flickr to do it, then the students would be blocked.) But I liked this matching because it flips the cards for you. (Like the appeal of computer solitare)

And I like Sudko anyway, so I liked that. It might be easier for a student to learn to do that puzzle before a number one just because it may be easier for some to focus on the image rather than a character.

Thing 7 - Finally, my reflection

I can't beleive it has taken me so long to get back and do my reflection. I was hoping that I would see a response from someone on the Thing 7 blog, about not getting our pictures to post in the RESA23 Flickr list. But there is no response that I've seen. Anyway, I put my picture there, and I can see it on my account, I just don't see it with the others. But I notice there hasn't been anymore added since I tried to add, there's been something like 86 pictures. Is there, perhaps, a limit?
But back to the reflection question, how would I use Flickr in my classroom? I can't. It is a site blocked, and I don't see myself fighting for it to get unblocked. While it is a neat tool, I'm not sure I see an absolute educational need for it. If kids want to electronically show us a picture, they can throw it in a power point, that works well.