Thing 23

Finally made it to Thing 23, and I can tell you it's been a HUGE learning experience. I considered myself "up" on most of the computer-technology out there, and this has shown that there's so much more out there that I never knew existed. I had no idea that blogging/podcasts/Library tools were so popular.

I've had many people at school ask me what I thought of the course, and I'll tell you what I've told them. It takes TIME---I could sit for HOURS and look at everything that's out there, but I had to make myself move on. Make sure you have a couple of hours each wk (usually took me 3 or 4) to look at everything. There's so much to explore, and I've only hit the surface.

I plan to go back over my blog this summer, looking at the sites, and REALLY delve into podcasting and upgrading my teacher website. I would LOVE to get some podcasts on my site!!

Loved the course...Loved the experience.. I'm telling everyone else about it.

Wk 9: Thing 22

eBooks & Audio eBooks:

Great resource. I used LibriVox last year with my 6th graders...we were able to download one of our novels and listen to portions of it. The World eBookFair's site is a bit hard to navigate. I finally scrolled all the way down to find the "hint": Click on "Browse Collections" page. The Gutenberg Project has free downloads on their site, but it's linked to iBiblio.com. You can't view any of the books on WorldeBookFair unless you pay for access.

This would probably be most useful to Intermediate and HighSchool/College students.

Wk 9: Thing 21 Podcasts

WOW! I found the cutest podcasts from an Elementary School in
Omaha, Nebraska! It's called WillowWeb, and on podcast #30, Second Graders are giving information on what they learned from their research on Volcanoes. They do a cute "radio spot" and even "hand off" the reporting to different kids.
Definitely an inspiration!

It's easy as pie to get the RSS feed onto your blog...Just copy and paste & it's THERE!

Some other podcasts I found interesting / useful:

GrammarGirl and Just Vocabulary --- Two of my favorite things!! :)

I really enjoyed this assignment....SO many things to listen to out there.

--Oh, The Places You'll GO! :)

bb

Wk 9: Thing 20

I've seen YouTube MANY MANY times before this assignment. It's got SO many things to look at, but you really have to be careful in searching or you'll get something "that you didn't really ask for"...

One of the first things I remember seeing in YouTube was a skit on ComedyCEntral. Clean, of course. Now, we find things all the time to look at!

:)If I only had a digital video camera for the classroom....oh the possibilities!

:)

Wk 8: THing 19

Library Thing!! VERY good site. I've added my books and plan to add more and more.

This would be a great place to add all those children's books--bluebonnet books, and more!!

Here's the link to my library: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/bbuck Right now, I just have the books that I've read recently, or the ones that I want to read soon! There's quite a lot of discussions about Evanovich---she's pretty popular! :)

--I like this site!!

Wk 8: Thing 18 ZOHO Docs

OH COOL!!!! This is similar to Google Docs, but I think I like THIS even better. One of the BESTthings about this (and googledocs) ?? Any document/slide show, etc.. you create can be accessed from anywhere!! No more "wishing I'd brought my laptop home" (or to school) or worrying about saving a document to a Pin Drive/Vault.

I found the picture below when we taught "Cactus Hotel" in our Reader this year. I thought this cactus looked "human-like" because of the position of the arms.

I couldn't find the Font Color at first, but ah! There it IS!!

I can see using this A LOT!!! The program, I mean...not just the font-color.

Now, let's see if I can "publish" this document to my blog...hmmm...

:)bb

YEAH, it worked!!! :)

Wk 7: Thing 17

It took me a little while to figure out "adding an entry" to the sandbox/teacher's lounge, but
I finally figured it out.

You have to look way down at the bottom of the wiki-page and view "comments".

By the way, anyone else notice that the posting times are not correct (viewable on the blog page)??
I guess it's really no big deal...I just noticed it.

:)