Thing 7

Where do I start...I love this stuff. I would really like to use this in the Wiki that we created the other day. It will help me to remember some of the cool stuff that this program offered. When I did the 23 Things I didn't have time to go back and look further into some of the items and I have since forgotten many of the Web 2.0 things that I learned. There are so many things out there and at our fingertips that would completely "WOW!" the teachers and students if I could just remember them. I love Bubbl.us! I think the teachers would really like using this in the classrooms and it goes right along with our district's idea of Thinking Maps. I also liked the Book Trailers for Readers. I am looking forward to sharing this with my students. I think they would get a kick out of seeing what others have created and they may even be interested in creating one themselves. I also think I will attach my blog onto my e-mail signature line. Who knows it might give others some great ideas as well.
One of the things that really surprised me was how easy it is to embed videos into your blog or wiki. That was really cool and something I definitely plan on using as well.

Thing 6 - I just had to try it again!

I really like Youtube and Teachertube. I haven't had the time to really explore these in depth before, but in doing this I have found that this is an endless resource. Look what I found for Eric Carle and the Very Hungry Caterpillar!

Thing 6 -embedding videos

Flicker Thing 5

I have played with Flicker before but because I don't have time to just play on the computer I forgot all the cool things that it can offer. I found some really awesome pictures and some pretty neat groups that I would like to join. I still want to make sure that the groups have all safe pics that my students can view, so I will look closer at all the pictures in the group that I present to a teacher or class. There are so many ways to use this. Teachers, students, administrators, librarians; everyone can use this for a variety of reasons. I can't wait to introduce this!

Photo by:Jeremy Kunz

Google

Super cool! I have explored Google before, but I have never really had the time to dig deep. Today I got a good taste of some more really cool things that Google can do. I particularly like the calendar, google alerts, google earth, and igoogle. I naturally use the computer everyday, but I have not ever thought about using it for my personal calendar. I really like how it is always available. Now I will say that it would be much more useful to me if I actually had an iphone, but none the less I do find this very useful. I really enjoyed playing around with google alerts. I like the fact that I can be informed of things and events that are happening in and around me. I look forward to finding more sites to subscribe to that will be useful for me. Google earth is very interesting but a little scary too. To know that people can literally see what is happening in my own back yard is somewhat frightening, but on the other hand it's really neat to be able to see an exact location most anywhere.

Wiki Spaces

I think you really have to play with a Wiki to understand how it can really help you. I have thought of several different ways that I can use this at school. I think one way I can do this is by recommending good books that we have in the library to go with our Literacy Collaborative or themes that our teachers are using. I think that as this becomes more of a habit for me and my coworkers everyone will use it more readily to get suggestions for teaching. It's a great way to collaborate without having to meet with everyone in person, which is practically impossible. I think that with everyone giving advice and recommendations it can help everyone and it will hopefully catch on pretty quickly.

RSS Feeds

I remember doing this when I did 23 Things created by Spring Branch ISD a couple of summers ago. I was a little overwhelmed that summer, so I am glad that I am revisiting it now. I am going to have to remember to visit this at school every day to update me on the latest. The information that this provides is awesome. I learned about some new games and skills from School Library Journal and also got updated quickly on the latest news stories of the day. RSS is very cool and helps out tremendously when you just want to be updated on the latest. I look forward to adding more RSS feeds to my Google Reader.