Thing #23-- Oh and one last thing...

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

This experience has been wonderful... for considering myself pretty technologically inclined prior to beginning this journey, I definitely learned a lot! I think my favorite discovery was probably Delicious, though Ning is definitely high up there as well! I plan to incorporate both into the upcoming school year

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

Well, the availability of this online and to be able to work on it from home is definitely the way of the future. I hope to continue to have at least one program going on at a time so that I am constantly aware of the latest and greatest in educational technologies. Some of the Things also gave me some tools to use!

3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

Plenty! I could pretty much see how most of the Things could play a role in my classroom or assisting me in becoming a better educator. Students are notorious for a being a step-ahead of adults when it comes to technology and I feel like I may have caught up for the time being and am excited to implement!

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

Overall I think the concept works well. To improve, you could maybe host it through a tool like Ning instead of a blog to allow for more interaction between the players... though I know that commenting also serves that purpose

5. If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?

Absolutely!

6. How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote 23 Things learning activities?

Library2Play is like GPS for the internet.

Thing # 22-- It's good to be the Ning

Well hey there, Ning... it seems like the possibilities for your use are endless! (but maybe that's the point) As a teacher, the idea of connecting with my students on Facebook or MySpace makes me a little uneasy... so this seems like a great alternative. In fact, Ning might have more of a place for teachers than a blog or a website as far as being an online component to the classroom. My preliminary ideas are having Nings for each class ... maybe even separated into periods. On whole, I think it would be a replacement for my current homework site as it adds the function of interaction. I envision a student posting a problem they are having with a concept and ther students commenting to help them understand and/or add their own issues. I will definitely attempt to give this a shot this year!

Thing# 21-- How much did I pay for my wedding video?

Using these types of technologies meet students where they are, either in presenting material in this way or allowing students to express what they've learned. I think another important feature to remember about podcasts and VODcasts is their portability. Many students have portable technologies such as the iPhone or mp3 players that can download these audio/video creations and could potentially download lectures or important videos to help aid them in studying. In middle school this would be a major leap, but many lectures in college are now available on iTunes. There is even an entire new component entitled iTunesU that gives universities their own site for students to download from. It's the future of education!


Here's my photostory of my Wedding that happened almost 2 years ago. Happy Anniversary, honey!

Thing #20-- Glued to the Tubes

As a science teacher, the ability to SHOW science in action is something that we are constantly striving to do. One of the reasons I became a middle school science teacher is because most of the concepts taught are evident in the world around us. I have cautiously used YouTube in the classroom but am delighted to discover TeacherTube that also proved to have a lot of good material. Here is a cute little cartoon explaining the difference between weathering and erosion... a big struggle with students (adults too)

Thing #19-- Cook and Lose Weight!

I can't say I looked at the instructions for this thing through my professional educator glasses. I took one look at that list of fun Web 2.0 tools and I immediately gravitated towards the things that concern me personally right now... post-pregnancy weight loss and cooking... ironic yes?

The winners in the Health category were the first to catch my eye... RevolutionHealth and PEERtrainer. Revolution looked very similar to WebMD and so I did not spend much time with it, but PEERtrainer definitely struck a chord. It had wonderful articles on my specific weight-loss scenario ... working mother and nursing and even had groups that I could join with other women that are in similar situations. Being in a group involved setting a visible goal and logging food and exercise each day. So, in terms of useful parts the ability to find information on a topic I was interested in using a search tool as well as being socially involved with commonly-interested people were the key with this site. With a professional lens, I see these parts being useful to me with the topic being middle school science with the ability to communicate with other teachers in the same content field.

Another site that I absolutely LOVED was I'm Cooked, an arsenal of videos of recipes being cooked... just like food network!!!!!! This is far more useful to me... a novice "chef" as I am not only able to get the recipe but see it applied in ACTION! WOO! ahem... sorry... professionally... the useful parts of this site can be applied to education in that there are Many MANY MANY! things in science that are much better seen than read.. hence why we have labs. Unfortunately, budget and time often prevents us from doing as many as would be useful so if there were a site dedicated to science projects and labs (especially dangerous chemical reactions) I would definitely be all over that in my class! Yes.. YouTube does have some stuff right now... but it would be nice to have a site that didn't also have inappropriate "suggestions" scrolling across the screen or on the side bar.

Sidenote: Web 2.0 awards = del.icio.us tag? you betcha

Thing #18-- Maybe I won't clutter my online office

Forgive the title, but last few weeks of summer= declutter rooms and our office is the WORST.

I decided to opt for Google's version as I am on my husband's laptop and want to limit what I download. As I mentioned previously, I use Google docs pretty frequently for personal use. I have created a food diary using their version of excel and have a working honey-do list with my husband where we keep track of the statuses of our many many projects.

The advantages of an online office are:
1)Easy access-- wherever you have internet
2)Ability to share/collaborate
3) Do not take up memory on hard-drive

Disadvantages:
1) Limited function compared to Microsoft version
2) Privacy issues
3)Transferability into Microsoft-- I know that it can, but it's not always a seamless transfer between the two... at least with Google Docs
4) Can't access without internet access -- these places still exist, people!

Though I have more disadvantages... I believe they are smaller issues compared to the whopper advantages. I vote YES.

Thing #17-- Rollyover

It's getting harder and harder to come up with creative titles for these posts :-)

Alright, Rollyo... here's the deal. I know you're useful.. I could have definitely used you last year when I asked my kids to do research on a specific animal and gave them a list of websites to use... it would also eliminate the need for the "Wikipedia threat-speech". I know all of this... however, I have found it so hard to create a Searchroll!

Part of this problem I believe is that I kind of like the idea of discovering information from an amazing resource that I don't know about yet! Perhaps it's because I am not yet at a point where I have the full arsenal of good websites to use so maybe ask me in a year or so.

I should mention thought that I do see it's use in online shopping when you're 1) waiting for something to go on sale or 2) come into stock... not very educational though !

Thing #16-- wiki fever

The most experience I've had with a wiki up to this point is fervently threatening my students to NEVER to use Wikipedia as a reference for research. Though I don't see myself reversing that thinking this year or even the next, I do see the potential application of wikis into the classroom in OTHER ways. I really like the idea of a top 10 list... especially as an end of semester activity to wrap up what they've learned. I could see it also functioning as an organizer (graphic or not) to assist students in apprehending what they've been presented in a different way!

After watching that video I can see how a wiki would be used personally as my friends and I are notorious for planning events using a "barrage" of e-mails. Wish I had used one for my wedding! :-)

Thing #15-- Library 2.0

The perspectives given on Library 2.0 were extremely thought-provoking. I found the "Away from Icebergs" article extra-ordinary in that it made me questions my own views of what a library should be. Libraries have been many things to me throughout my educational career. In grade school they were used for research papers, checking out books, and "free days" in the classroom. As an undergraduate, I spent most of my time studying there studying individually with classmates but did use it for the occasional research paper. Finally, in my graduate studies, I can honestly say that in the 6 months it took me to research and write my thesis, I think I may have spent a cumulative 3 hours inside the actual library and instead, spent the majority of my time using it's online resources and the resources of other libraries across the world.

This experience has pushed me to agree with Mr. Anderson's labeling of the icebergs... especially in questioning the necessity of print material or the "just-in-case" collection and the idea that libraries are only buildings that people must come to in order to use the materials.

Now as an educator, my experience with school libraries will certainly change. Our school library has done a fantastic job of providing online resources for students and I can't help but wonder what the actual library will look like in twenty years? Will it have any printed materials at all?

Thing # 14- Technoraddicted

I truly think Technorati is a useful tool as I have used it mutiple times since discovering its existence. As a new mom, I constantly have questions that come up about baby products, food, behavior... anything! There are THOUSANDS of Mommy blogs out there to pull from and it would be nearly impossible to try and find an answer to a single questions without the use of a tool like Technorati. Obviously, tagging makes this all possible so consider me pro-tagging! I have started using delicious regularly... no more bookmarks for me!

Sidenote: I tried searching for "School Library Learning 2.0" in tags, blogs, and the blog directory and did not come up with ANY results... did I do something wrong? Additionally, the "popular blog searches and tags" function was unavailable when I tried to use it. Anyone else have the same expererience?

Thing # 13-- The new game of tag

Delicious...where have you been my whole life? Done with the endless list of bookmarks in my web browser, I only wish I had discovered this tool sooner when I was researching my thesis in graduate school. I'm pretty sure I use to copy website addresses into a word document... if only I knew.

These tools could play an incredible role in school in the way the example showed about keeping track of good teacher websites with ideas for class and any other random information that is dug up. On a personal note, I will definitely be using this as an online recipe box... no more wasting paper on random recipes to file haphazardly at home.

The social aspect of these tools is useful with sharing good information with other colleagues... I will see if I can get my team on board with this next year!

Thing #12 -- Comment Commentary

Well, I can honestly say that I have never put much thought into the concept of "successful commenting". I think the two most important points for me from the multiple readings were:
1) Commenting is necessary in blogging because it allows growth and learning through conversation rather than a soliloquy
2) When you comment on a topic it adds worth to what the blogger has written about... a indirect vote to continue to write on this topic
The two blogs that I found of interest to me are:

1) http://theconfusedhomemaker.com/-- good recipes and funny anecdotes of her kids that moms can relate to

2) http://healthyindulgences.blogspot.com/-- This blog has excellent recipes for my sweet tooth!

LibraryThing #11--

LibraryThing is an interesting site that I had never heard of until this experience. It was easy to join and add books to my profile. I tried searching for groups but had a hard time locating ones that were active. I ended up going back to the Group home page and looking through some of the ones highlighted on that page. I found one that appeared to be essentially an online book club for different novels.

As a science teacher, we don't assign books for outside reading, however, it's clear how Language Arts teachers could utilize this site to help students keep track of the books they read as well as a portal for commenting on or reviewing them. I saw there were a few groups set up by teachers that allowed students to review books they had read, but few were still active.

Thing #10-- Picture this

YAY! I LOVED this THING assignment. I was most attracted back to Big Huge Labs as I liked the feature of using photographs from your facebook or flikr accounts rather than having to upload. I also enjoyed Image chef's Word Mosaic tool and decided to create a tribute to a favorite song of mine. Finally, I could help myself by making a work of art out of my newborn son using Dumpr's sketch feature.

I think the trading card creator could be used in my classroom as part of a research assignment on animal behaviors. I created a (very very very) simple one for a dog below. I can also see myself using some of these tools to create images to enhance some of my classroom presentations as the ability to personalize animations, comics, etc could make a lecture more entertaining and applicable.

Here are a few of my creations

Big Huge Labs- Trading cards


Image Chef-- Word Mosaic -- Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon"




Dumpr-- Image of my son taken from photo on my desktop

Thing #9-- Search me

After a week long hiatus, I am back in full swing to tackle the the next thing-- searching for (quality) RSS..'s...es?

I played with a few of the listed tools and have comments for each:

Google Blog Search: Not surprisingly, using this engine returned the most results for my search term which may be good for getting an idea of what's out there on a topic. It might prove to be overwhelming though if you are not exactly sure what you are looking for. Additionally, other than the Google Blog home page that details "popular" topics at the time... there is no rating system and would therefore make it difficult to find quality work as emphasized by the post on enlisting a "circle of the wise" on the Cool Cat Teacher blog. Out of the few that I played with, I think I would definitely give this one the credit for "most confusing". Sorry Googs... though I did find an interesting blog of a middle school science teacher entitled Mr. Brovont's Science Blog. I wonder though how many others I am missing simply because they don't have "science" or "education" in their title.

Edublog Award Winners: I found this site to possess what I was lacking with the Google Search... a list of blogs that have been validated by a third party as quality work. After looking at the winners (and subscribing to a few... most notably Free Technology for Teachers) I have found useful information to enhancing my practice as a teacher as well as seeing examples of how I might incorporate blogging into my classroom. Look forward to the 2010 winners. Note: the link on the Library2Play page takes you to 2008 winners.... here is the 2009 page.

Topix: I admit I didn't spend much time with this guy... but I did think it was worth mentioning that just by clicking on the link it brought me to a list of new stories for my zip code. So without in-depth exploration, I can only see it's use to keep abreast of local news stories which was interesting!

Technorati: I liked this site as it seemed to be a prettier and less overwhelming version of Google Blogs. It advertised the most popular posts at that time and seemed to cover many topics including entertainment (a commentary on the television show Big Brother), world news, and health. It kind of gave the vibe of being the YouTube of blogs... I think this one was my favorite and was the easiest to use overall.

So the results:
Most Confusing: Google Blogs
Easiest: Tecnorati and Edublog Award winners
Newly discovered feeds: Mr Brovont's Science Blog, Free Technology for Teachers

Adios!

Thing #8-- RSS this!

no really! :)

I LOVE RSS AND READERS. The main reason is what the first S stands for in RSS.... SIMPLE! Find someone/something you like... and BAM! you're a part of the fan club... instant access and notification to all new postings! It's like having a daily newspaper delivered to your door that is custom tailored to your interests!... sans annoying shrink wrap. Excellent.

I have already used this technology personally for following podcasts and my friends' personal blogs, but its potential professional use is clear. As I have mentioned before, science is such a dynamic field that using RSS to keep up with findings and discoveries is an easy and efficient way to stay current in your field. Additionally, it provides an easier way of finding pertinent information to share with your students. I think this concept also applies to educators in other content areas.

For the purposes of this blog, I subscribed to a few science-related news outlets such as National Geographic and NASA as well as an science education blog. Instead of a link to a public page of my Google Reader... I added a widget to the layout of my blog that updates with the things that I choose to share. It can be found on the right column underneath my blog archive.

Sidenote: I truly love the "sharing" feature of this technology... after all... sharing is caring. :-)

Thing # 7-- A gaggle of google

Growing up in the generation where "google" became an addition to the dictionary, I feel pretty confident in my google tool use. My personal e-mail account is through google or g-mail and since opening it I have utilized a variety of these tools including the iGoogle homepage, calendar, and (most notably) google documents.

The first tool I decided to play with was the Alert mechanism. I decided to use the terms "science" and "education" to be searched once a day with a maximum of 20 results. Here are the first five that were sent to me immediately in an e-mail:

Google News Alert for: science education

Evolution, Life Sciences, Science Education, Human Evolution, and Stuff ScienceBlogs (blog) Such as: The following Wikio Widget gives a 'toplist' of science blog sites. If you feel that any one of these sites is not really a science blog site (a ... See all stories on this topic

CONNECT partners strengthen focus on science New England Business Bulletin The collaborative program was developed to highlight the need for science education throughout the K-12 curriculum and to promote the many camps and ... See all stories on this topic

Pinhead Punk Science: Silly Science Fun for Kids The Daily Planet Pinhead is committed to providing the highest quality of science education available to local youth of all ages. “The Pinhead Institute believes strongly in ... See all stories on this topic

Thoughts From the Interface of Science, Religion, Law and Culture ScienceBlogs (blog) He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations ... See all stories on this topic

Forced to Hire From Within, Principals Balk Wall Street Journal The department estimates it needs 1000 new special-education teachers this year, and 200 science teachers. Last year, it hired 1200 special-education ... See all stories on this topic

This tool has the potential to be very useful to science teachers as our subject is quite dynamic and although are trusty textbooks are excellent in many ways... they are unable to keep up with the constant ebb and flow of findings in the topics that we cover. An example is Pluto's demotion from planet to dwarf planet... no more "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas. Tragic.

Next, since I had already created a new google account for work, I decided to use Google Documents. I uploaded a previously created rubric for one of my projects this past year. The google version can be accessed here:

Overall, the transition between Microsoft Excel to Google Excel was pretty smooth, though I have had other experiences with Word that did not reflect exactly what I wanted. As an educator, I think the greatest advantages of this tool are A) the ability to be shared and B) an alternative to downloading every document received in e-mail to your hard-drive.

Ok.. I'm all googled out.

Thingr #6 -- Bookr

Ok... so the "mashup" that struck my fancy was Bookr. Just by its description I could see that it could potentially replace some of the paper projects I had assigned this past school year. Well... after working with it I see that there are definitely some limitations such as limited control over the book's appearance, a less-than- comprehensive search engine, and limited space for text. Nonetheless, my attempt is embedded below:


So while it does not possess the capabilities it would need to be a project for one of my classes... it definitely could fit in as another unique way to check for student understanding with visual concepts!

Thing #5-- Flitting on Flickr

I have had a little bit of experience with the Creative Commons of Flickr as we had our kids use it as a source of images for animoto projects they produced last year. I did not, however, know about the ability to create groups. It seems that this component has the potential to be an excellent tool for checking for understanding on topics in science that are harder to grasp without visuals. Our unit on weathering, erosion, and deposition immediately comes to mind as students often struggle with distinguishing the three when attempting to identify the processes in the world around them.

I decided to search for the tag "cell" and selected the following image of a red blood cell from the results:


Flickr, Andrew Mason

Thing #3- Let there be BLOG

Well, I have to admit... this is not my first rodeo. I am ashamed to say that I have tried my hand at blogging in the past, but as I admitted in my previous post, my failure to have the end in sight caused me to give it up again and again.

Luckily, my experience with creating blogs-- not finishing them-- allowed the process of creating this blog to go pretty smoothly. I am not set on the layout yet and hope to find something a little more exciting in future days. I also enjoyed creating my avatar! My young son and dog would be happy to know I have incorporated them into my online persona.

I look forward to the remaining things!

Thing #2

Alright! Let's get this party in a blog started! :)

Concerning the 7.5 habits... I would have to say my weakest habit would be beginning with the end in mind. It's not that I begin projects with no insight into what I want to accomplish... it's more about solidifying EXACTLY what my end product might be.

The habit that I believe I most "have a handle on" is accepting responsibility for my own learning. I am constantly seeking new ways to get involved or be trained... very rarely do I wait for opportunities to present themselves. In fact, I was relieved to see that "Patience" was not one of the habits...