Thing 23

1. My favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey were image generators, photostory and googledocs.
   
2. This program assisted and affected my lifelong learning goals because it has opened my eyes to many different ways I can teach my students how to broaden their horizons. With Library 2.0 the classroom is not contained in four walls. It is everywhere!
   
3. The take-a-ways from this program that surprised me were when were learning about Podcasts. I thought to myself, I am never going to be able to figure this out, and when I do I will never use it! I learned that Photostory is so easy and I can use it in my classroom!
4. To improve upon this program’s format or concept I think I would go through things 1-4 with the students in class. I know it is old fashioned... but I spent more time on my darn avatar than anything else. I think I just needed some support in getting started. I loved it once I got going and I appreciated that I didn't need to be in class to do it! The freedom of doing it online at my convenience was awesome!
   
5. If another discovery program was offered like this in the future, I would choose to participate. This has helped me become a better educator and has introduced some fun new things to play with in my personal life!
   
6. Innovative!
   

Thing 22

Nings could be great in the classroom. It is a social networking service and they are attractive to students. So you already have the kid's attention - now you just need to get a topic that you want them to network about. Another good use for a Ning would be to collaborate amongst the teachers in your district. You could even collaborate with teachers in the state, the country, and the world! It said in one of the articles that Ning is competing against Facebook and My Space... I doubt that it will ever get that big. However I never thought Facebook would get as big as it did!

Thing 21

Yay! Photostory is so easy! I created this small vidcast with pictures and music I already had saved on my computer. I can use this in my personal life and in my classroom. My students could create videos and/or book reports. The possibilities are endless!

Thing 20

Having educational videos have been very helpful to me while completing my 23 Things. I am a very visual person and have benefited tremendously from them. My students will also benefit from the videos because they will provide another style ( visual and auditory and could be kinesthetic) of learning from Gardner's 7 styles of learning. TeacherTube is usually not blocked by the district's firewall and can be very helpful in the classroom and the library. I uploaded this video from TeacherTube about the main idea!

Thing 19

I read through many of the 2.0 tools, but I chose to blog about UrbanSpoon under the food category. I can use this tool in my personal and professional life. I love food and I like that UrbanSpoon allows me to search for food by neighborhood. This allows me to find restaurants that are close to me. One way I can use this in my classroom is I can have students look up restaurants and then create maps on how to get there. This will be integrating real life skills, students need to know how to access information and how to get places. Best of all we get to talk about food!

Thing 18

I love GoogleDocs! In life - with work and school and personal affairs - I sometimes can't remember where I have saved things. Also I may not have my USB with me at one of the places I am - and then cannot access my information when I want to work on it. I plan to use this while working on my final project. It also has a calendar to help keep me organized! For now I have not found any disadvantages!

Thing 17

At first I was overwhelmed with rollyo. Then I watched the video from the teacher in Spring Branch. He did an excellent job of explaining what rollyo is used for and how it is helpful to our students. Using rollyo saves the time of the reader and provides students with authoratative, safe sites. I created a rollyo for the rain forest, which is a project we will be doing in our class. Check it out: http://rollyo.com/adrienne/rain_forest/