Thing 18 Slideshare

What did you like about the presentation you embedded? How might Slideshare be useful in the classroom? out of the classroom?

I like to read quotes as they make me think and see things in a different light. I have several perpetual calendars that have quotes written on them so, this presentation is a good one for me. I found it interesting that this slideshow was listed under education and entertainment. Yes it is both. Hope everyone enjoys it and it adds some entertainment and education to your day.

Quotable Quotes

View more presentations from Trinity Blu.

I watched several slide shows on what makes a good presentation and I know in the future I will view powerpoint presentations very differently. This is a way for students and teachers to present information. I haven't used any but, it is something I will think about. I didn't find any slide shows that I felt I just had to download to use but, a couple were entertaining. This is a resource I will keep on hand in case it is needed. Myself, I prefer the video versions. I guess I like the additional sound and movement of the video clips.

I read Carma's post about the problems she had and I hope I have not picked up some viruses. The slide shows were very slow to load and kept rendering when I would advance quickly. One show had a video clip in it and I thought it would take forever to watch.

Thing 17 Online productivity tools

Give a review of the tool you explored - what worked, what didn't work, how might it be used in your personal or professional life?

I explored all the tools to see what they had to offer. I really liked zoho show as the video clip explained the features quickly and easily. It would be great if all the tools had done that. If I ever need a presentation I will for sure use this tool to save me time. This would also be a good tool for students.

I do want to take a closer look at Remember the Milk and 30 boxes as it would be good for me to be able to be more organized with my to do lists. Our school website does have a calendar for putting my appointments on but, I really don't want to use that for all the little things I have to keep track of and do. At this point Remember the Milk looks like the one to use. I will do some networking with a couple of people at school to see what would work the best for me.

Library Thing will come in handy for me as I will use it to write up a quick review each time I read a new book from the library. I have read so many books I am starting to forget what I have read and what I liked about the books. I should have been using this a long time ago. It will be a good resource for my students to check, they always want to know what I think about a book before they read it. I can also see me using this for the students to write a quick book review recommending a book to their friends.

I loved Trailfire! I found so many useful podcasts, and student resources relating to library issues that I could have spent days looking and using this tool. It will be something I will use in the future unless someone suggests something better.

I briefly looked a Knowtes and like what it does. There was even some flash cards that could be used for library lessons. One person had started a card stack on Library expectations but, they never added cards. I feel elementary students would find this lots of fun. It would be so much easier if they did some video clips to demonstrate how to use the tool. I feel I spent a lot of time just figuring out what to do. I am glad I spent the time looking at all the tools and not just one.

Thing 16 Google Docs

How might you use this tool in your personal and/or professional life? What issues come to mind about using this tool with students (ie, they need email addresses to log-in)?

Okay has the spreadsheet disappeared? I couldn't find it but, I have sent out help messages to a couple of the other participants. I will go back in and do the spreadsheet later. I visited "20 ways to use Google Docs in the classroom" from the posting on another blog. After reading that I have lots of ideas, I just need to check into the ways to do this with an entire grade level and not just a class. I will do some more networking to see what a couple of others are doing at school. I also looked at photos, calendar etc. and understand all the uses. Wow the templates are endless. The next time I want to create anything I am going to check here first.

I have done the spreadsheet as it appeared after Carma shared it with me. Thank you Carma. Not sure why it didn't show up the first time.

Thing 15 Revisit RSS

Is RSS becoming easier to understand? Do you recognize new benefits of using this tool? Do you remember to check your feeds regularly? Has it become a habit (or obsession!) yet?

Not only is it getting easier to understand, I also see many more benefits for using RSS. I really like the idea of subscribing to tags from delicious. Now I understand how you can keep up with so much and learn about so much. I just didn't see how anyone could spend all that time surfing and adding to their delicious accounts. With every "Thing" that I do I am learning additional tricks from connecting with others and reading what the others in the online class are doing and experiencing. I am going to have to pace myself to finish this class on time as I get sidetracked so easy. RSS has not become a habit but, I have been there several times to get updates. On to Thing 16!

Thing 14 Social Bookmarking

Include your Delicious username in this blog post so that others can view the bookmarks that you have chosen to share. Then reflect on how you think social bookmarking can be used in your teaching. Does Delicious seem to be a tool that can enhance your productivity?

My user name for Delicious is librarydragonkb. I was introduced to Delicious several years ago and I just didn't take the time to get an account set up. What a mistake. I would have saved myself a lot of time if I had done this earlier. Did we get some instruction on organizing these in folders? I know my list will get very long. I do need to spend some more time on this but, it will be easy as I will go to a couple of media specialist lists first to see what they have done. They have been using Delicious for a while now. I learn so much from others.

Share your thoughts about tagging. Is tagging a useful way to organize your digital resources and why? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages? What is important to think about before assigning tags to bookmarks or other Internet content?

I found the suggestions for tagging confusing but after watching the videos and saving some sites it was seemed easy. As I look at my tags I begin to see how the organization is taking place and I will probably go back and edit some of my tags. I am going to look at some of the other Delicious accounts before I add any more sites. I know that I need to think about who might want to use the tags before I assign the tags.

Thing 13 Online Social Interaction

What applications appeal to you? Now that you know more about Twitter and Facebook, pay attention to where you hear references to them in the every day world. How do you think you might use these tools?

I never thought I would create an account on Facebook. I really thought it was for the young kids and not something I wanted to do. After reading all the reasons to do it, I am now very excited that I have created an account. My account has only been out there for less than 24 hours and I have connected with friends I haven't communicated with in a very long time. In fact I had received an e-mail that a group wanted me to join Facebook because that was the way they were going to start communicating. (A friend even before I became connected!) Does this appeal to me, Yes! I am so glad I read the suggestion to not get carried away with this. I will have to set my limits or will get nothing done. I am trying Twitter but, this is a little more difficult to find other tweeters. I will give this a little more time and see what happens.

I will be using Facebook for family and friends at this time. I'm not sure what I will use Twitter for as I don't know if it can be used at school.

Why do you think MySpace and other social networking sites are so popular with kids today? What safety tips would you share with your students who are talking about using social networks?

Students love to stay connected with each other and the social networks are the ticket. I had my fourth and fifth graders signing up for the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge and they went wild. It allowed the students to create a profile which included creating an avatar. They could message by selecting a response and there were tons of other games and activities to do. I could not believe the excitement. The site also included safety tips that I discussed with the students.

I really liked the suggestion, only put on your facebook what you would have on your desk for your boss to see. It gave me the idea that all students should be required to have a facebook account and they should be assigned to a teacher who would "walk" by their desk. Wouldn't that be a real world experience. If we are going to instruct students for real world experiences, let's give them one.

Twitter can be accessed by phone so, I can see this as a great learning tool if we allow cell phones in school. I know our high school has been discussing allowing cells phones at school. Someone suggested that students could respond to what books they are reading on Twitter and this sounded like a good idea. My question is, how do you limit the users on your twitter account? As I said before, I need to explore and network the ins and outs of Twitter.

This Thing has been fun and I look forward to doing more.

Thing 12 Widgets

Review the widget you selected. Are you getting comfortable with embedding code? Do you belong to other online communities? Are relationships formed online as meaningful as face-to-face relationships?

I really liked looking at all the widgets! I took notes and know there will be teachers who will find them useful for their school website pages. I really want to explore Voki's more as I believe this is a technique I have seen used for book reviews. I tried to look for something that was library or dragon related and didn't find anything. I decided on this silly little one just for fun. (Whoops it is not so little on my blog.)When I'm a little tired and need to get pumped up I am going to beat on it to fire me up and gain energy. Sure hope it works!

Embedding this was not easy. I did it so many times but the widget would not show up on my posting. I returned to the site and used the instructions on the site and this is what I got, a big set of drums. I may try something else just to see what happens. (I played with this some more and decided to move the widget to the bottom of my posts. Look for it there.)