Friday, July 25, 2008

Thing # 23

I can't believe I am at thing 23. This has not been easy or quick. I learned so many new things. I have more confidence in my ability to improve my knowledge of technology and I'm less afraid of it. I really want to try and use some of these strategies in my lessons. I hope this stays on the Library Resources page so I can go back and review if I forget how . The avatars were my favorite thing. Those are just fun. Lifelong learning is part of what I do. There are so many ways to apply that as a lifestyle in school and out. This exercise shows me that I am capable of learning on my own. That is my unexpected outcome. I think it might be nice to offer some classes on the harder exercises, specifically podcasts. I would participate in another online class. One word - Excellent.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Thing # 22

The Nings are so interesting. I have never subscribed to a social network and spend plenty of time chasing kids off of them when we do use computers in class. I really have no use for an unlimited number of "friends". These are different. The ning could be used to use technology in a constructive way. I can see using it for my Child Care class. We spend part of the week acting as classroom assistants at a preschool. Students could post entries about experiences at the preschool. They could answer a specific question or just do some journaling. This might encourage participation and lead to discussions that would enrich the experience for the entire class.

I visited the three nings. I was amazed at the numbers of participants on each one. I liked teacherlibrarian the best. It had the most interesting layout. I could have sat in front of that map all day. So many people have so much to share and I hope I will take advantage of this resource.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Thing # 21

Have fun? This is not fun. It is confusing and frustrating. I checked some other blogs to see if I could get some direction there, but was not able to find any help. I read through the information and watched the videos. The one on podcasts did a good job of explaining the concept. The book report was boring and monotone. I, for one, don't want to hear myself so I would probably never do a podcast and play it in class. This is something I need to see demonstrated in order to be able to do it. I'm going to have to get some outside help. I hope I can do it by July 30 since I am leaving town and won't be back until Aug. 6. Grrrrrrrr!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Writing From The Woods

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Thing # 20

It is official. I have reached my level of incompetence. I was able to go to youtube and teacher tube but I don't understand how to download and embed. I really think this is too hard to do on my own so I'm going to go and get some help so I can finish. Youtube has much more than lots of embarrassing videos of kids. I looked at several but didn't find anything that was particuarly useful for me. I found one called "Balanced Diet" on teachertube. It has pretty good information on food groups and is not too long. I could use that. I do hate the way they start and stop. It is annoying!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Thing # 19

This one is amazing. There are so many categories represented. This tool allows users to spend less time looking for the best sites. I went straight to food. My two favorites were imcooked and urbanspoon. I'mcooked is loaded with things I can use for my classes. There are hundreds of videos on technique. Most aren't professional chefs but there is a very good and short one on knife skills. Several I watched were funny and useful for pointing out mistakes or health violations. There is also a search engine to help me find exactly what I'm wanting to demonstrate. I'm going to show these using my projector. This is really fun. I love to read about restaurants and urbanspoon is all about Houston. Restaurants are grouped by price, location and type of food. This is a real find. Naturally I tagged them both!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Thing # 18

I looked at openoffice and google docs. I'm starting to feel overwhelmed by all these options. Both sites have pretty good tutorials but I would really like to take a class on these so that I could weigh the advantages of each. I'm a visual learner so I prefer to see how things work. I really don't want to register or download these. I am still learning to use the programs that came with the computer. I am amazed at what is available though.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Thing # 18

Today hasn't been my most successful day with 23 Things. I went to Openoffice and tried to learn about it. My computer sent a message saying "Your browser cannot display this site. Ask your vendor for an upgrade". I didn't try and do anything else because only the right half of the screen was visible. I tried out Googledocs. I watched the video and tried some of the subheadings. There was a pretty good explanation of an advantage to googledocs if you work in such a way that editing by others is helpful. I'm not sure it would be for me. Again, this site wants me to register to use it and I have a problem regestering for so many sites. I didn't do it.

Thing # 17

This was frustrating. I couldn't make it work. I clicked on firefox but was told I need Mozilla - version M15 or later. I don't know what that is. I was also asked to register. I don't want to register for another search engine. I'm already using del.icio.us. I don't think I need another similar tool. I don't see any advantage over tagging and I'm already doing that. I'm moving on to thing 18.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Thing # 16

I found the wiki idea to be really interesting but have some questions about the practicle applications of this. How do people know where t find it? I guess if I play around with this one I'll get an answer. There lots of ways to use this both as a department and in class. Our department is scattered all over the school so this would be a very good way to communicate rather than so many e-mails. In class it could be used to post comments by students. It would allow all of us to see what was said. Sometimes it is hard to remember. I think it would encourage discussion. It could be used to make vocabulary more of a game and generally make things more interesting while adding visuals.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Thing # 15

I just returned from the Educator's Conference at the Texas Culinary Academy. There were some great websites that were suggested. I came home ad tagged the one fron the Beef Council. I'm using these tricks!
Now about thing 15. The teacher tube video was powerful. I have wondered about how relevant it is to expect classes to continue to learn using the model from the past. Interactive learning seems so much more interesting. In my small area, we are trying to get five more computers operational so that we can pursue more interactive projects. (Right now we have 10 student computers). Library 2.0 reinforces the idea that we have no choice but to respond to the challenges of how retrieving information is being revolutionized. If everybody is invited to the table, than as a teacher I had better set it! Librarians have the added responsibility of catalouging search engines and tools that make these advances possible and to attempt to make them available to students and educators who need them.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Thing # 14

Technorati is overwhelming. I had never thought about how much editing goes on by commercial websites or even news websites. I like the idea that everybody now has an opportunity to express themselves without filters. That video made me think. I did the keyword search for School Library Learning 2.0 and got 665 results. I looked at the tags and blog directory and results of each are different. My favorite was the directory. I did some searches of my subjects and there were many blogs. I think if I were to find favorites or opinions close to my own, tagging would be useful. The main drawback is that there is so much to read and so little time.

Thing # 13

This one is really fun. I have tagged some websites that I use for my classes. This way I won't have to go and look for them. I'm sure I'll use this for all three of my subjects. This is a great way to keep up with information without having to rely on memory for where it came from. I can't wait to add more stuff!

Friday, June 27, 2008

Thing # 12

This activity was hard for me. I read a number of blogs but had little to comment on most of them. I finally found five of the summer players to comment on. I was able to leave comments on a food network blog and a movie trailer blog. My biggest difficulty was that some of the blogs I wanted to comment on wanted me to register and I am not going to do that. I don't want any more junk e-mail. On to the nest thing.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Thing # 11

Librarything is amazing. I spent some time looking at the tabs and familiarizing myself with what this has to offer. I am thrilled to be able to see what others thought of books I would like to read. I'm in a book club so I immediately added the books for this year to my list. Later I can go back and see how many others have read it and their opinions. I might enjoy the books more if I have insights from others. It looks as thought the books my book club selected are widely read. I've just finished "A Thousand Splendid Suns". I'm going to read some of the comments on it and see if I can get some discussion questions for our meeting Monday by doing that.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Thing # 10

I have spent two days (translate that to about three hours) on this one. I looked at all of the suggested sites and some that came up when I googled image generators. I liked sparesomechange.com. I managed to make and copy one into my pictures folder and somehow got it onto my blog from there. These are fun and I think could be used to make Power Point slide shows more entertaining. I need more practice. I would also like to know how to move pictures around on the blog. My image generator picture is all the way at the bottom of the page!

Friday, June 13, 2008

Thing # 9

I am really impressed with Google Reader. I spent some time looking at my account and was amazed at what is there. After I read through thing 9 I visited the suggested sites. The School Library Blogs page was not available so it automatically is the least helpful. I liked Bloglines. The drop down menu was easy to use. I tried a couple of topics and got several hits for each.
Edublog was confusing. It appears to be a list of awards. I don't know how I would use that.
Topix and Technorati were more like newspaper pages and were comfortable and easy to use. The easiest way to get newsfeeds is to look for the orange icon.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Thing # 8

Google Reader is so big and there are so many options to explore, plus shortcuts. Yikes. I am not sure what I did but did create some folders and tried to subscribe to blogs. I do like the idea of streamlining information that I look for regularly. I subscribed to a couple of sites that could help me with new and innovative recipes for my Nutrition and Food Science class. I like to offer the classes opportunities to try new foods or presentations that they haven't tried. RSS could be used by libraries as repositories for information on almost any subject and tailored to the age groups served by the library whether it is a school or public library.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Thing # 7

The Google tools are amazing. It took a while to read through all the tools. I can see where most would be useful. In my particular case the calendar and the notebook were the most appealing.
There are three of us in our area and our needs can overlap. The calendar would supply a way to schedule using the kitchen and the computer lab. When we have labs, it means the teacher using the kitchen as a classroom has to move. It can get confusing. The calendar would allow the three of us to schedule and share the information. The same would be true of the computers. More than once I have planned a lesson around the computer lab only to find that another department member is already half way through an assignment using the computers.
The notebook looks like a great place to store more information on subject areas. I could have a section for each subject. It would be much easier than trying to print copies and keeping up with the copies.
The advanced search option could more clearly refine a search and cut down on the number of pages that will show. I liked that one too.

Thing 6

I've spent some time looking at the applications on thing six. Again, I was lucky enough to get some exposure to some of these at the class I took last week. I actually attempted to make a trading card. I really liked this particular application because it is quick and easy to use. We have 10 computers in our department so I could use this at the beginning of the year. I'd like to have students in each class make a card of themselves and display them as a way to get acquainted with each other. It could be done within the context of the subject the student is taking. It might be really useful for the ninth graders. They are less willing to share verbally when they are new to the school and are in class with so many new faces. I'm always amazed at how original and how fast they are. This could be fun!

Thing 5

Flickr was a bit of a review for me. I took a class that included Flickr last week. The site is so vast that I need to refine my searches so I get more exact pictures and I don't have to look at quite so many.

Thing # 3

The avatar nearly finished me off. I didn't have any trouble creating it but moving it was really hard for me. I still don't know how or if I did it right. I think it is easier for me to learn by demonstrations than by trial and error. I guess I'll move on the the next thing. Surely it won't be as confusing!

Thing #2

Life long learning is a concept that is unavoidable. Everyone learns throughout life whether it is intentional or not. I think true life long learners are the ones that eagerly seek new experiences and knowledge. As a teacher it is impossible not to be a learner. Material gets stale and students get restless. In my subject area I have so many opportunities to grow and improve. I am lucky to teach three subjects. That is the beauty of electives. This summerI am going to two culinary conferences and will have the opportunities to learn from the chefs at Art Institute here and Cordon Bleu in Austin. It is so exciting to see and practice new techniques and to taste the end products. It is also a little like Halloween since we are required to dress as chefs.... pants, jackets and hats. My new adventures with food start next week. I can't wait.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

June 6

I can't believe that I am doing this. I am not particularly good with technology and I am trying to learn new skills over the summer. I went to a class a couple of days ago and saw some really amazing things I can learn for free! There are some applications I can use in my classes, especially at the beginning of the year. I hope i can catch on.

I went to the Pompeii exhibit at the museum today. It was incredible. It makes me wonder if in a thousand years someone will dig out an old computer and be as amazed by it as I was by the artifacts and frescos from so long ago.