Thing # 23

Yeah!!!!! I did it! I have thoroughly enjoyed doing this learning activity. I have found out about more stuff than I will be able to remember, so..........I have taken notes, bookmarked several, several sites that I found interesting, and will go back on look at "things" that I might be able to use to jog my memory, and of course, reread my blog! My knowledge of web 2.0 was practically "nil" when I started, so it is a little hard to figure out my favorite discoveries and exercises, it was all interesting. I will be using teachertube videos (now I know where some of my colleagues have found this), flikr, photostory 3, classroom 2.0, google reader, ........This activity has helped enter the 21st century and given me a basis to continue learning new "things" on the web and also a basis for me so I will actually know what the "younger" set is talking about!! Always good to be "in the know". If another professional development activity, using the internet, was offered again, I would seriously consider doing it (and I probably would!)
My one word is EXCITING, from a technology-challenged person.

Thing # 22

These are interesting Nings. I looked at the top three (since I am not a librarian :)) and found a couple of interesting sites, including Classroom 2.0.
I read some of the information and think that this is an excellent site to continue to explore. I don't know how I would use it just yet, but would hope that in exploring it more, I can get some ideas that I could use in the classroom.

Thing # 21

This is a fun "thing". I can see how it would be easy to do a photostory to music to introduce a lesson in class. If I could find pictures easily (which, using flikr, I can) it could be a fun way to introduce a math topic with pictures of it's applications. Then, the photostory could be used again at the end of the unit for students to tell how the math that was learned applies to each picture!

Pretty cool!

Thing # 20

Math class can be fun....................

Thing #19

I looked through several of the Web 2.0 award winners, none of which are what we have looked to date on 23 things. Under education, I did not find anything particularly useful, however, it looks like one could try to learn a language from some of these sites, which might be good. I liked looking a Lulu just for personal reasons. I did not find anything that I thought would be useful to me in an Algebra II or PreCalculus class. I don't know if it is because I did not know where to look, or there really isn't that much beside the websites that we have all ready looked at.

Thing #18

I cannot find my school computer at the moment. I hid it in the house while we went on vacation, and I can't remember where it is, so I will have to look for it. This leads to.....I am using my personal laptop to do the 23 things and I had trouble downloading opendocs so I looked at, and tried some of the templates, etc. on google docs. I found a couple of items there that I could use for school purposes, calendars and presentation docs. I do not have my students do word processing assignments so I don't know that I would personally use these tools, but I have read a few other people's blogs about #18, and they have pointed out that opendocs and google docs are great for students who do not microsoft office.

Thing # 17

What a deal Rollyo is! I really enjoyed bgood's video, he did an excellent job of explaining how to use rollyo. I can see how this would be an excellent tool to help students do research, especially in middle school and 9th grade. It could also be used by team teachers highlighting sites that are of use to the subject they teach. What a wonderful tool! For my personal use, my "favorites" is quite satisfactory.

Thing # 16

I liked this "thing". I did not know what a wiki is and now I do! I was most impressed by a couple of teacher wikis that had class assignments on them with directions for the students to post their work on the wiki, like the APHistory review, that is cool! I would like to find a way to use wiki in my classes, could be a very easy way to post assignments each day, instead of going through the sign in process of a district website. This would be my site, and easy to use.
I do hope that the district allows access to utube one day.

Thing # 15

I am happy for having Thing # 15 because the articles are helping me "gel" the previous 14 things in my mind. The web is such a fascinating place, and such an educational place. The use of the web in research papers must help out tremendously versus looking in books. This is why libraries are changing, and the web makes so many books and site available to so many more people.

I was interested in reading 2cents Worth, and have book marked his blog. He talks about using the web as a learning tool and how students can be distracted from using it properly, which he says may not be too bad, in other words, I think he was saying it helps their creativity.
I can see how this would work really well in classes where reading for information is useful. I have trouble seeing how this could be done in a higher level math class where we are really teaching skills for the next class. I do see where the web could be interwoven occassionally into a lesson, but a lot of learning math is by practice, just like learning to be "good" at a sport, it must be practiced.
Anyway, I found thing # 15 to be very helpful for me in consolidating all of the previous things.

Thing # 14

I think I missed something on this "thing". I just looked around at Technorati like before, typing in key words, which is what I did on the previous site when we looked at search engines. Was that what I was supposed to do? Tags are key words. I guess I felt like I was repeating Thing #9. Oh well.

Thing # 13

I looked at the sites listed in the activity, looked up some tags, typed in my own search, etc. I then signed up for Delicious and was surprised that this is where my bookmarks could go and then not have any on a personal computer. Needless to say, I kept mine on my personal computer (I am not using my school computer to do the 23 things - had lost the key info to get into my home network -- anyway, that is another story).
I thought these sites were okay, probably a good way to discover what someone else has all ready tagged and therefore makes it an easier search for things.
As far as using this with students in Algebra II and PreCal classes, I really can't think of applications except maybe if a student needs additional help on a topic at home, this could be used to search the internet for explanations.

Thing # 12

I am definitely a Lurker. It was not so easy to find five blogsites and comment on them, I have been reading quite a few of them, but I have not been commenting back. Ones of the points that stick with me about commenting on blogs, is to make your comment meaningful, contributing to the discussion -- sometimes I just don't have anything to say. I did make the effort to comment on 5 blogs today, mhsbroadcasting, smithcounts, gal named Al, Ginny's blog and Queen of all Things Everywhere (I love this name!)

The two most important points about blogging are 1) be polite, constructive - not destructive, and 2) make meaningful comments.

I did Google blog search for LSU sports and found tigerforums.com. One of my main interests in life is gardening and I have all ready found all of the blogspots I could find on gardening in southeast Texas and I have them bookmarked.
One of my favorite is jungleintheheights. Also, the grumpygardener from Southern Living is a great spot.

Thing # 11

I love to read and am always ready for suggestions of books to read. My mother is an avid reader, so I am fortunate to get her books to read and an fortunate we have similar tastes in books we like to read. I found the Library Thing an interesting site and I joined the groups what are you reading and the crime, thriller group. I notice that I have read a number of the books being mentioned on what are you reading, so that means that I can probably get some great suggestions from the posts on that page. I don't know how this site could apply to my school setting in high school math, but I will certainly use it for my own pleasure.

Thing # 10

I have four cats, and this is a tribute to my kitties,

Chloe, Shasha, Sylvester and Phoebe. An aside, we named our last two cats Chloe and Phoebe, and my daughter works with a woman who has two young children by the same name!

This was the best "thing" so far. I have had a lot of fun playing around with the different sites. I think that I will use the wordl to make posters of important words in new units. Also, I could use banners, or magazine covers to announce test dates and post them on my door. There are so many creative ways to use some of these sites to get students' attention! I'm excited about these and hope that I can remember to use them!

On another note, my son-in-law changed his photo on Facebook the other day, and it looks like a sketch. Now I know how he did that!! Pretty cool!

Thing #9

I really had a hard time getting focused on the different sites and looking for things. My two subjects of interest were high school math and southeast Texas gardening. I did not like Bloglines, couldn't quite get it to work properly for me, but I though Tchnorati was the absolute easiest to navigate. I enjoyed that one.
Edublog is interesting, and I will make a point of going back to this site and read some more of the winning blogs.

Thing # 8

I set up my RSS feed, but will work on it some more, especially when college football kicks into high gear. Vaughn, I wondered how you knew when anyone posted a blog, and now I know because we are on your RSS feed. That is cool!!

Thing #7

Google is amazing!! I had no idea, it is like one stop shopping for all of your needs. The two items that I really explored were Google Advanced Search and Google search page More button.
With Advanced Search, I typed in Algebra II on youtube and found some really fun videos about math that would appeal to my classes - these include math tricks which students always love. These would make for a fun moment in what can be an intense class for some. I will definitely be using these in my class this next year. This is one good use of the Activboard. Speaking of Activboards, in looking at different places in Google, it seems that one could create the same type of "flipcharts" easier than how we currently have to create "flipcharts". It also appears that there are actual directions on the google sites, unlike any for Activboard, which is frustrating -- sorry, I digress. My other wow factor in google was using the more button and discovering the books section, how cool is that??!! This would be for my own pleasure, however, I did see a mathematics section that had a book on how students learn math, and another book on how the brain learns math -- maybe I will browse those on this site.
Google was fun!

Thing #6

I have often wondered where to look for sites that could publish personalized calendars, etc. This was a helpful site. As I said in post thing #5, I see now that I can use Fliker to find photos that represent math in real world situations. I continually get asked by my students "where will I ever use this". Photos truly bring the real world to math students.

Thing # 5

Wow! Unlimited fotos of whatever you want to see. I looked up my hometown, Baton Rouge, and there was actually a group for it, and some of the photos really captured the area. I used the group feature to find mathematical shapes in the "real world" and have included a bridge with a parabolic shape in this blog.

Thing # 4

I hope I have signed on correctly and my name will show up on the list soon...............

Thing # 2

I think that reflecting on the 7 1/2 habits is difficult for me, because I have never, never been good at this type of activity. I am always evaluating myself, reflecting on what I have or have not "done", and what I need to do. So......these are my thoughts. I enjoy learning new things, always have, and I like to learn them in different ways, depending on what it is. I am a "leisure" learner in everyday life, I find something I am interested in and "leisurely" learn about it. I have a very difficult time with technology, so I would say that is my weakness. I tend to "buck" at technology because of the fear of not being able to do it. It always happens that when I do learn something new about technology, it turns out to be much easier than I feared.
This is blogging, because I feel like I am going on and on and on...........

Thing # 1

I had read the directions to 23 things back in May (about three or four times), "interviewed" some of my friends who have completed the 23 things, read the 23 things again at the end of school, and started on this last week. Can't think of a better activity when it is hot, hot, hot outside.

Thing # 3

I just created a blog! Pretty cool, and extraordinarily simple. It must get harder from here...............I forgot to put in the avatar, so I went back and had fun looking at all of the options!! This is where it got hard --- I followed the instructions but it would not paste to my blog, so I noticed that it was commented to save as a jpeg, so I called my husband and he helped me out - he has a blog himself (blind pig productions). One challenge is, I keep getting my windows mixed up, closing the wrong ones, then finding myself having closed all of the windows.