My Thoughts on the Process

I can't believe how much I enjoyed this once I got started. The learning curve was steep at first, but now I think it was worth it. I learned how to make an avatar (my daughter doesn't have one) and how to make a video with pictures putting music to it. I can't believe all of the amazing sites that are available to the average Joe Schmoe for free use. Although time-consuming, I think I will use so very many of these web applications and tools.
At first I didn't think I would keep up with this blog, but now I just believe I will. I'll turn it into a blog for my library. I also subscribed to a couple of other social networks that I will be able to keep up with. That goodness for the RSS! Now I will stay current.
So, for now......so long!

One Last Thing - Creative Commons

Copyright is such a quagmire! I read the comic book about copyright from a TV/movie industry perspective and agree that the realm of copyright has become far too restrictive. And with so much material put on the Internet, the issue is just going to get more difficult. Either the laws will have to change or the great idea of the Creative Commons will have to take off. I love that idea. As an educator, I find that I take ideas I've read and make them my own by making changes that facilitate my unique situation. What a great idea to register it and spell out the particular rights you give so that you don't have to rethink the issue each time someone requests to use the material or, you find out, just uses it or when you end up in court. This would keep many of the lawsuits out of the courts.
With our unique perspective as teachers, this concept of Creative Commons could lend itself to producing some fabulous materials for all to use. Contribute and share. Go ahead and improve on my ideas and then let's both use it.

Video and Audio Sites

This was such a fun exploration! I searched on You Tube for library themes and laughed until I was crying at several. I particularly liked the one with Mr. Bean at the library. I really think this could be such a fun way to teach what NOT to do with books. There was another video called No Cookies in the Library (Sesame Street). Cute! I have tried many ways of teaching book care and it's so difficult to make something stick. Perhaps spaced repetition of the concepts with these videos would help. Can we get You Tube through our district's filter? Hmmm.....
But I absolutely loved the Animoto where you can put pictures into a slide video with music. I've already done this once and can think of lots of applications in school as well as home. I think this would be a great promotion tool.
We have a theme each year school wide and the principals wanted it to be Mission Possible (a take on Mission Impossible). I have been racking my brain to come up with suitable ways to promote this theme. I thought I would utilize some of the applications we learned about to make up "agent" identification cards. But this morning I finished a great book about the Apollo 11 space walk team, called Team Moon. It's a Texas Bluebonnet nominee for 2008. I read all of the nominations over the summer and had put this one off because it looked like a snoozer. To my surprise, I was so very inspired. Throughout the narrative about how the mission came to be and was executed, the theme of teamwork was just blaring. The author told of all of the components necessary for this mission to work, all of the potential problems, all of the actual problems and how this mission came off miraculously. Every teacher and student should read this book and learn about team work, but also how each of the 400,000 contributors were responsible for the success or failure of the project. Bravo!!!!!
Lots of podcasts available. I enjoyed finding out how this works. Found one site that I subscribed to called Rachel's Reviews. I'm not sure that it will be a great tool for future purposes, but it was fun and perhaps it will prove useful. I think that the whole idea of sooooo many podcasts available will make them less used by me. To find exactly what I'm looking for to add to my curriculum might be dicey. Maybe at some point, I'll be able to create one if I collect the right tools. Again....how much of this will be available through our district filter?????

ONLINE PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS

My brain is a bit muddied from the billion options I have just read about. After looking at these for a while, it becomes difficult to remember which had which features. I chose to use i-Google just because that is the search engine I use most and I figured I would access it more. I probably also liked the features - surely. Of all of the tools I read about, I think I like the Jott the best. I am such a slow text-er that I tend to avoid it. I answered an incoming call from my phone the other day before I had finished a text message and was quite put out when I returned to a not saved blank message screen. I just gave up and decided to wait and hoped to remember to call later. How cool is it to be able to send the text message without any alpha strokes? I love that all I have to do is call a number (It's a 866 number - I sure hope it's toll free!) and speak into the phone with my message. As far as I could tell, you can only have five contacts, but maybe that's per group. Well, at any rate, that will be so awesome!
I am a list maker, so Remember the Milk and Ta-da-list are right up my alley. I made a list on Ta-da-list and looked around for great ways to use it and I was a little disappointed. Perhaps with a little more exploration, there would be more to be found. But Remember the Milk did a better job of selling the features on the home page and therefore, I'll probably be utilizing that one. Plus, there is a mapping feature. Might help the time line. As I see it, the pros versus the cons of using digital lists are....
Advantages:
You'll never lose the list.
Can prioritize the list on an ongoing basis.
Can keep the window open to add or edit the list as you think of things.
Can access from any computer.
Good for long-term project planning and implementing.
Can keep multiple lists at the fingertip.

Disadvantages:
You have to have a computer to use it.
It might be more work than it's worth for short projects.
You would have to print it out in order to take it with you or leave your computer.

I guess the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

Here's what I'm thinking after a day in front of the computer. Which of these really amazing tools will I really learn to use and become productive consistently? It seems that I will have to narrow my initial thrust of energy and time. One application at a time. However, it just may be this one.

Social Networks

MySpace is scary! There don't seem to be ways to guard your information and those who respond. I like Facebook much better and that's where I created an account. I like the fact that you have to be invited to have access to someone's account. ( I added my college-age daughter as a friend. I know she'll be thrilled!) However, both of those seem sort of fluffy - if you have time- just for being social. (Yes, I know. It is social networking.) But many of the MySpace entries look like they are looking. And I think many who use Facebook already know each other and possibly see each other regularly. But Facebook still seems safer and a bit more layered. However, since I am a mile away from being a young thing, I really like Ning because there is a more purposeful reason to join one and can potentially create value based on a targeted interest.
Tagging is sooooo helpful in trimming down the fat of Internet searches!!!!!!!!! I subscribed to del.icio.us and have already used it several times. But I also liked the way you can save a copy of a web page using Ma.gnolia so that even if the page becomes unavailable, you can still see it plus I like its bookmark ratings feature. Furl's main advantage, I think, is that you can save portions of a page so that you don't have to find the particular "thing" on the page that you might need in the future. USEFUL!

Wikis and Such

The idea of online access to word processing and spreadsheets is quite intriguing and hopeful. After trying to create a word document, I realized that the capabilities of editing and creating the documents are more limited than with Microsoft applications. One concern was that the "help" feature was not present. So, you could not search to find out how to solve problems. This in itself makes this application not useful at all. Perhaps if I investigated other application sites, I would find one that was easier or if I took the time to really work with it a while, I'd figure it out.
Wikis are kind of fun. I have personally gotten some information off of Wikipedia. (Funny thing is that I never realized that Wikipedia was a thing called a "wiki". Didn't know there even was a wiki.) But, I am mortified to think that anyone can change anyone else's work! That makes the source not a credible source for research or information. Does everyone know that? I doubt it, so that means that lots of people get information that may or may not be valid. However, that said, I can see a real advantage to this application. For instance, I am always trying to learn from gardeners how to propagate plants or take care of them. Consulting a wiki is perfect for this need. The wiki as well as the spreadsheet and word documents could be quite helpful for companies or schools to do internal business. Committees could input into a single document and plan for events. Lots of uses....AS LONG AS the unconcerned parties could not obtain access. That's my concern. Is limiting access a capability with all of these?

ONLINE APPLICATIONS

I was very excited about using ZOHO and being able to publish documents that can be accessed from various locations and about being able to give read/write rights to others. I feel like these will be particularly useful when we try to track student AR points or getting feedback from teachers. Collaborating on documents will be soooo much easier when we need to do so instead of e-mailing back and forth or using Faculty Share document system. When I tried to export my document, however, to my blog site, I couldn't figure out how to do it. AND what I discovered was that there was no help feature. Even though, as my husband says, Microsoft Help is often "no help", at least there is an attempt to provide guidance. As I suspect, using these fun tools will take a bit more work than it looks like from the initial introduction. I just have to prioritize and figure out which of them I want to focus on first.

RSS and newsreaders

I like the idea of being able to tame the WWW and Web 2.0 by using the feeds to filter in what I really am interested in. I have enough trouble trying to answer and keep up with regular e-mail. But I think I love the idea of the RSS feeds to generate only the information I'm interested in. After taking the tutorials, the process to add feeds to my Google Reader was way too easy. I think one could easily subscribe to more information quickly than they could possibly peruse. In fact, I may have already done that! I try to watch the news every day since I like to keep up with what is happening. Maybe this will be easy enough to read at a glance and delve into the stories that most interest me. Those were the main ones I subscribed to. But I thought the search tools were all pretty overwhelming. I am not sure I need this much information all the time! Especially the blogging feeds. I am just not sure the time needed to read the blogs is worth the nuggets of information that can be gleaned from them - especially during the school year. I was a member of LM-Net until my e-mail address changed and even though I only received a few e-mails per day loaded with new posts, I still couldn't keep up. That said, I really did enjoy the archive feature and I feel like that maybe I will be able to use this feature with some of the sites I added to my Google Reader. I think the most confusing tool was the Syndic8. I seemed to be going in circles trying to choose just what I wanted. I ended only adding one thing, (Health Made Easy) from that site that I thought would be particularly useful. I finally went to Dallas Morning News and added the categories that I thought I would like. My plan is to take notice of news feed icons on the sites I generally use and add them. I think they will be so much more valuable to me at this time. Perhaps I will also subscribe to Flickr or some of the web applications associated with that. All in all, this has been a breath of fresh air and a hope of taming the black hole of time one can spend at the computer.

Photos and Fun

When I first started looking at Flickr and the toys, I became extremely paranoid about giving so many sites permission to access my stuff. My husband is wary of downloads and rightfully so. We have had children who tended to get their computers in a mess with viruses. So I had to call my son, who has a degree in computer science, to walk me through the levels of reason and caution. Thank you, Ryan. And thank you, Ken, for creating a healthy caution. I thought I would try to create a mosaic with some photos so that I could try my hand at uploading to one of the sites. I soon found out that unless you give permissions, you can't really use the site. So, I will have to get used to that and research the sites before trusting them. I think it was a good move to read Flickr's security cautions to avoid phishing entities. My first thought was to use Flickr as a school-wide project to upload photos for the year. But, I'm thinking that's going to be risky and perhaps not a good idea. How would you keep a pervert from accessing the codes? Not sure. I'm still thinking. But, I think I will definitely use the trading card feature. It will be a great way to implement our school-wide theme, which is going to be Mission Possible. I am also excited about suggesting the Clockr site to our kindergarten teachers to use as they teach time. They also teach colors, so Colrpickr would be perfect for them. Since my students have just discovered graphic novels, I'm anxious to utilize the Bubblr to add comic strip conversation bubbles to pix. How am I going to have time to use all of these? So much to do, so little time.

Web 2.0 - Should I care?

It's interesting how you can get a paradigm shift in such a short period of time. When I first started this journey, I had no idea what was being referred to as "Web 2.0". After reading so much about it, I feel like I'm on a different planet! I see the many advantages that this technology can have for users. For instance I like the Flickr site because it will make it easy to store my photos. My hard drive recently died and I am having difficulty accessing the pix from the past. I am wondering if Twitter might be a tool to ease children into daily diarying. Blogging sounds too heavy. My head is spinning with all of the information I have just tried to digest in the past few hours reading about it. I'm trying to decide how I can utilize these sites and strategies with my elementary students given the structure of our schedules. But the overriding feeling I am getting is that I want to dig in my heels because things are changing so quickly. I wonder how the ease of putting all of these tools together can possibly stand up to the copyright test and if it is giving license to use of anything at any time with no thought of origin. I am excited, however, about continuing to explore these new tools. Should I be wary and fearful as well as careful?

Thing #1 Again

Now that I have been able to access the 7 1/2 Habits site, I thought I would comment on a couple of them. I believe that I have always been a life-long learner, but I'll have to admit that I don't always view problems as challenges! They sometimes wear my resolve down. Standing back and looking at the situations later, I can always see the growth and ultimate advantage of problems, but they are certainly a way of throwing cold water on a goal.
Technology can leave a person behind in a heart beat. I'm glad to have this opportunity to broaden my experience and move with the times. Since my mother has dementia and I have watched my in laws suffer with Alzheimer's, I very much want to keep my brain as active as possible. There's also something quite exciting about realizing that you can communicate with the next generation so much better if you understand the world in which they are growing up. And since technology can create a huge time-wasting hole to fall in, I like the idea of trying to harness it for a benefit rather than a liability.

Thing #1

Wow! I thought I was pretty computer saavy, but creating this blog site took a little doing. It reminded me of the frustration I experienced during the learning curve doing online courses. I'll have to admit that I had a harder time than I imagined deciphering the directions. But I hope to learn all of the "new" technology buzz while expanding my own experiences. It will be fun to go back to school and speak intelligently about this new-to-me phenomenon. Maybe I'll even inspire someone else to try. I just recently listened to some tapes by Dr. Daniel Amen about the brain. New learning helps to ward off Alzheimer's Disease. So, here's to a healthy brain!