Thing 23

1. I especially enjoyed creating an Avatar, learing about Flickr, creating in Pic Makr, and learning everything Google has to offer.

2. I enjoyed learning the "creative" things on the web to use in the future. Blogs are interesting and a good way to solicit others opinions.

3. Each Thing took anywhere from 30 minutes to four hours depending on the difficulty - I did not expect to spend that much time on 23 Things.

4. Provide very detailed directions as some of this is not intuitive.

5. Yes I would enroll in another program in the future.

6. Chalenging learning experience resulting in creating "fun" Things.

Thing 21 Podcast

This has been one of the toughest Things. I went to the Media Center for assistance this morning. The Photostory worked good once I understood and the text writing on the picture was easy. Unfortunately the audio was never able to work. Apparently several others have had this same problem and they have notified GEEK.

So lets keep our fingers crossed that the photo part of this podcast works!

Time out for a Sunset on the Big Island....

Thing 22 Explore Nings

Yes I know this is out of order, but Thing 21 requires me to get my photos together before I can start. Therefore since Thing 21 will take some time I am working on Thing 22.

I looked at all the websites and focused more on the Ning for Teachers - Teacher Lingo. Nings can be a great way to provide communication on similar topics of interest. My first year teaching I taught a class that had no curriculum and I was constantly searching for topics on the Internet. I would have loved to have Teacher Lingo at that time. Teachers are great about helping each other but when you have to start from ground zero it can be difficult. Luckily through research and lots of teacher conversations, I developed more curriculum than I needed. It was a great learning experience for me and invisible to the students.

I can see that Nings would be very helpful in the classroom with student projects and other group activities.

Thing 20 Revisited

Yeah I went to Vaughn the captain and she walked me through the process. Now this is a good Teacher Tube on Excel 2007!

Thing 20 YouTube, Teacher Tube and Zamzar

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=04c327ce88972bc528ec

I hope this shortcut takes us to Excel 2007 How to Use Autofill. I have been sitting here for hours watching all the videos and having fun. There were lots of videos in YouTube when I went in to search. Teacher Tube had no videos when I searched for MS Office or Business teaching. So I just went into Teacher Tube Most Viewed and played around until I found some videos.

The one I am attaching could take the place of my demo which is using one computer which displays on the whiteboard. Students are more interested when they try to figure it out with their classmates than when I conduct a demonstration. They also would rather have their classmates help them than the teacher. As long as they are completing the task correctly, classmates teaching works good for me.

I think videos are a great way to give students information in a different format than some of the standard teaching.

Thing 19 Web 2.0 Awards List

Wow, the majority of these I have never heard of - so I went exploring. Next time I need to take a trip, go shopping, sell something, I am referring back to this great list. I will be sharing with my friends. This is great fun. Thanks for this list!

Thing 18 Online Productivity Tools

First I thought Google Docs would meet an email need. What an easy software to use for communicating interactively. We just need to get our co-workers signed up to use and get started.

Open Office is interesting. Sun Microsystems is a player in the specialized networking field and they are much smaller than they were in the 90's. I find it interesting they are offering this for free and just ask for your feedback (?). I think this is a great idea, I am just not sure how this would work. What happens when you want to integrate a Microsoft document into this system? I cannot see the general population making the paradigm shift from MS to Open Office. I have been using MS products for the last 20 years, so I think it could be an interesting alternative. I forgot to read about their security, did anyone read it?

Thing 17 Rollye

This has been a frustrating Thing. First I went ahead and loaded Mozilla Firefox on my home computer just to play around with it. The software was not a great tool with benefit and totally messed up my other settings. After I saw I could not make it work, I deleted it.

Then I went into Rollye and completed a Create Searchroll with several links. The file with the name Melle was saved and is no where to be found. This seems like it would be a great tool if I could figure it out.

Any ideas?

Thing 16 Wikis

These are pretty cool. I am going to get into my personal email and see if I can make dinner arrangements using wikis. Wish me luck.

I wrote a comment on the SBISD Wiki. However, since I did not want to type over someones comment I created a new page. I went back in after getting out and it is still there. I don't know if that was correct. I said this has been the most frustrating, exhilarating, exhausting, easy, hard, fun, simple, difficult, confusing,mind boggling, and crazy program I have taken. Thank you SBISD for offering this great learning experience. I cannot wait to see what happens during my next Thing!

Thing 15 Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and the Future of Libraries

Libraries have to change to keep up with technology. They still have to meet the need of learning to read for small children, having reading lists and summer fun to encourage the reading. For older children and adults there has to be technology involved in the library offerings. I thought a good quote from the reading was "Librarian is a trend spotter". How true that in this age they have to keep up with the trends and those tend to be focused around technology. Librarians truly have to be change agents to embrace the technology changes that are coming our way.

I spent lots of time in the library while finishing graduate school in early 90's. Saturday mornings I would head to the Houston Public Library downtown as they had vast amounts of data for research. The Librarians were very helpful and once you knew the process it was easy to find data. I heard the downtown library reopened within the last year after remodeling - has anyone seen it? I think it is time to head downtown to take a look!

Thing 14 Technocrati and How to Use Tags

I went back and looked at my Thing 9 which said Technocrati was too confusing. Now I wonder why as it now makes sense to me. It reminds me of searching an online newspaper with the categories at the top of the page. However, this is blogs. I am a little confused about the Technocrati Authority. The first definition said that it is the number of blogs linking to the website in the last 6 months. The highest number would be the number #1 blog. Then I read something that make me think it was the opposite to determine the number #1 blog. Anyone know how to determine the number#1 blog with the most number of blogs?

I thought it was interesting to see that Google and Yahoo are their competitors. Google Reader reminds me of Technocrati, although to me is more about news not blogs. Also I thought it was interesting that Yahoo purchased Del.icio.us in December 2005 and already owns Flickr. No wonder Bill Gates wants to buy Yahoo.

If your goal is to read other blogs on a topic, then I think Technocrati is the best tool. My only concern is that everyone knows about Google and Yahoo, but the non-tech group does not necessarily know about Technocrati.

Thing 13 Del.icio.us

I had never heard of social bookmarking but it makes sense. I thought Del.icio.us and Furl were very user friendly and could find information on my interested topics. I found limited information on Ma.gnolia and did not find the site as easy to nagivate. I can see that we could use these sites for posting bookmarks for research for students while gathering information.

Thing 12 Finished

I blogged on several of the Library Two players websites. Several of the players are finding many interesting Things that are helpful. I think we are all getting into this!

I found blogs and commented on a couple about putting a microchip in a dog. I know that is a great way to keep track of pets, especially our "runners" that are too dumb to know what a good deal they have. Reading all the blogs I found that sometimes they are finding cancer localized to the microchip site - a good reason not to insert one. Also many vets do not have a microchip reader, like my vet. I don't plan on taking advantage of this, but plan to be a responsible dog owner that has dogs wearing clear id tags.

Thing 12 First Part

I am using the idea of another blogger on Thing 12 - complete it in different parts. Although I take notes on each Thing, I really need to make comments while it is still fresh in my mind. I like the Ten Commandments of Being Polite and Don't be Condescending. I was raised that if you did not have anything nice to say, don't say anything. I actually cannot understand why someone would make Darth Vader comments on someones blog. I actually liked the Cool Cat recommendation of Criticize Kindly. If you do have to say something negative, criticize kindly.

I think the most important was to Write Meaningful Comments from Cool Cat which would include the Ten Commandments of Read Before You Write. We all know someone that feels the need to talk when they really have no idea what the topic is.

Have fun blogging!

Thing 11

This website is very easy to navigate. When I typed my favorite fiction author, many books can up but only one group that started June 26, 2008 - no topics posted yet. I think this would be helpful for me when I'm using technical books and want to discuss their usefulness on a topic.

Thing 10 Online Image Generator

This was a fun Thing. I don't have any digital photos saved on my computer so I used http://www.comicstripgenerator.com for Snoopy and http://happyfacegenerator.com for the happy face.

Thing 9 Useful Library Related Blogs and News Feeds

My problem is that when I start going through all these blogs, I find lots of interesting information - I just noticed I have sat here reading for three hours. I have always liked automic learning and have used it prior to starting this journey. I added these feeds to my google reader - topix.net (good news info), techlearning.com, edublogawards.com and automic learning. Good information. I really thought Technocrati ands syndo8.com were the most confusing. The other sites are user-friendly so I don't know that I will use Technocrati or syndo8.com in the future. I am just amazed at the quantity and quality of information out there - these RSS feeds make it easy to read at your fingertips.

Thing 8 RSS and Readers

This makes keeping current so much easier! From a personal standpoint, I normally minimize msnbc.com or some other news program during the teaching day just to keep aware of news events. The RSS will allow me to keep current on all the subscriptions I signed up for - 11 of them. This technology can assist school personnel and students to be able to log in quickly to keep up to date on current events. Since news happens so quickly this is a great tool that Librarians, Teachers. School Staff, and students can use daily.

Thing 7 Google

I have always found Google very user friendly. Therefore setting up calendars, alerts,picasa albums, etc was very easy. I have never used them before so I will be curious to see if I continue to use them. Since Flickr has been the software of choice, I don't know how much or if I will really use picasa albums. However, it is nice to know that option is available.

I have always liked GoogleEarth as it is fun to look at a satellite photo of your destination, home, etc.

Thing 6

Wow, I can't believe everything that you can do with Flickr. The one that really interested me was Pic Markr as I would use that one. Using that software you add customized text/comments on each picture. That software replaces the task of writing on the back of each printed picture so you remember names, locations and dates. I plan to try out that software.

Thing 5

The pictures are great although sometimes you think you are on vacation with people you do not know. I copied a picture of the sunset on the Big Island, Hawaii. This time last year four of us from high school and families celebrated our 50th birthday there. The sunsets are magnificant!

Thing 2

Out of the 7 1/2 habits, my strength is Setting Goals. Having worked in corporate America for 26 years, goal setting was a constant part of our daily work lives. My weakness is Play. For years when I started working with computers, there was no play and it was all about work. Taking this class is a big stretch for me. I want to learn about what the web has to offer, but I still think of this as playing. I like to learn new things on the computer and this has been very interesting. I hope after completing the 23 Things I will like to Play.

College Education Required?

Do we really need to have each high school student focused on getting a college degree when at least half of the open available positions do not require one? As a young child, I was raised that to "get ahead" you needed a college education. Of course I followed the path that was intended and received a bachelors degree and then a graduate degree paid by my employer. Now college degrees are very expensive. Unless your child receives a scholarship, you will be paying several tens of thousands of dollars to pay tuition, books, housing and other related costs. One of my family relatives has decided to drop out of college and work for a living. He does not want anyone paying college costs when he has no idea what he wants to do "when he grows up". At twenty he is trying to get some work experience to see what life is about. His previous work experience was as a summer lifeguard. This young man is now working in sales and making good money. His parents are hoping that he gets tired of working six days a week and returns to college. I think it is a good idea for this young man to work and experience the responsibility of paying for all his costs. Only then will he determine if acheiving a college degree will be his goal. Melle

Thing 3

Creating an Avatar was fun. It reminded me as a young child dressing Barbie with clothes. There were so many choices that my Avatar is simple. Exporting the HTML address was easy. Lets hope this blog looks like it should. Wish me luck!
Melle