Thing #15 Delicious

Delicious was indeed delicious! I had such a good time tracking down sites for the subjects that I teach. It was really easy to set up an account and begin searching. I added so many sites with labels that I now need to get them organized. It was easy to type in the categories and search through the results. I didn't have any trouble getting the sites and looking at them. These bookmark save me so much time and effort. Before now I would look and look for material and sites using google and other search engines, but this was so easy and gave me a wealth of places to look for the things that I am teaching. It was awesome!!! If you would like to join my network, it is teacher708. I will be adding to my bookmark on a continuous basis now that I know where to look. This has been my favorite thing that I have learned so far. Thanks for the information.

Thing #7a - RSS Reader

I have been checking my Google Reader frequently and I have found an abundance of articles, videos, links, hints, and useful information. It is time consuming to go back and read all the interesting entries, but I have found that the effort has paid off. Today I checked my reader and found an entry that had videos that every teacher should watch. I watched them and found that it was informative, inspirational and sometimes touching. I would recommend that you go and view them at Seven Videos All Teachers should watch. It will be worth the time. I also read a blog that gave me the top ten sites for creating videos. Another helpful posting was an article on how to download videos with another one about sizing videos when they are embedded. There are more and more sites available that explain/show you how to implement technology that will interest your students in your lessons. I am amazed at the speed that technology is moving. It is a challenge to keep up with the possibilities and then make use of them in reality. Time is the biggest factor for me. I don't have enough of it!

Thing #14

I really enjoyed playing with ToonDoo. I created a cartoon. There was a lot of variety in the characters, tools, settings and pictures that you could use to create your own cartoon. It would be fun to use in the classroom to create comic books for book reports, social studies events, etc.. I could use this in numerous ways because it was easy to use and easy to save. There were lots of different types of characters that you could create as well as using a photo to make it a cartoon.

I also went to Wordle. I enjoyed the different ways that you could create sentences and make them into an abstract. It would be fun to type out sentences and see if the students could figure out what it meant. I loved doing the jigsaw puzzles in JigZone, but I'm not sure that I would ever use it in the classroom.

Thing#13 - Images

It was fun, yet time consuming to explore all the different tools that are available on the internet to create pictures, animations and all sorts of attention-getting effects. I am interested to find out if they will work on my computer at school or if they will be blocked. I intend to use these tools with lessons that will get my student's attention and keep it during a lesson. These type of entertaining graphics will also show some of my personality to my students as I choose the different types of art/pictures.

I want to add that not all sites were compatible with an imac and not all programs would run on firefox.

Personally, I will now be able to put some interesting things in my e-mail, send e-cards, and basically add my personality to my on-line interactions. It will be interesting to see how my family and friends will react to the new face of my correspondences. I hope that I can continue to explore and use the sights that I have become acquainted with. It create interest and depth to my postings.

I am posting a couple of things that I created.

This is a collection of old school houses that I found interesting.


1. sedgwick school, 2. Old School, 3. Old School IIII, 4. 19 High School 12, 5. The School 'Marm', 6. back to school, 7. Abandoned School, 8. One Room School House on the Prairie, 9. The Old School House, 10. School on Sunday, 11. R.I.P. - James McMillan School (1894-2008), 12. School's Out......., 13. Thorington School House (Gold Key)

Thing #12 - Slideshow

I created a slide show on cause and effect things. I found some great pictures on Flickr that really explained the concept. I went to RockYou and put together a show for you to watch. For a classroom I would add more detail and more explanation. It appears to be a great tool for putting together a quick slide show of your favorite pictures, artwork, etc. Many picture companies such as Kodak offer free use of their slide show tools if you sign up for their services and offer discount rates on prints. These sights run on the same premise. There are lots of opportunities to upload, use and share pictures on the web. There is an ocean full of opportunities. I hope that you enjoy the show.

Photo credits:

Day 222~Cause and Effect from dr_nik

Cause = water bottle
Effect = growth
Posted at 1:54PM, 19 February 2005 PDT ( permalink )

Burger-scale-diet

Onion and Tear
from Sjaaks

Law of Cause and Effect

Thing #9-The Sandbox

I went and played in the wiki sandbox. Constructing my own wiki page was not a problem. What was a problem was finding the Home page and adding my link to the sandbox pages. I haven't quite figured it out yet. I guess that I will be able to go back and do that later. The wiki page was easy to create and I was able to save all my information on the wiki. I have a few questions about creating a classroom wiki. If I did one and let students go in and edit the page, how would it work? Do they all have to create an account so that they could join my wiki? Would they use the same usernames that they created for comments on my blog? I have a lot of questions about how the wiki would actually work for them.

My wiki page is located on the 23 things page. I uploaded some pictures that I found on a creative commons page that I found interesting for cause and effect. I will get with my technology facilitator about creating a wiki for my class.

Thing #11 - Photo sharing

http://www.flickr.com/photos/iqmatrix/3556755666/
I can see endless possibilities for using cc images & videos to create lessons and presentations. There are teachable moments in almost all the pictures that I downloaded. I already create my own Power Points and flip charts for my classroom use. I will now be using the cc images and videos to make them more interesting and powerful.

I chose to look for cause and effect pictures. I spend a lot of time teaching this reading skill. I am including a couple of the photographs that I found interesting that I will add to a flip chart that I have already used to teach it in my classroom.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aoisakana/165445144/
This cause and effect picture speaks for itself. I think that it is very visual and one that most people can relate too. I think that in education when we can link a visual picture with a concept that we are trying to teach that the information has a greater chance of being remembered. I would remember this visual.