THING #23!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All I can say is HOORAY!!!! I finally finished, and it was a long push to the end! I gave into the idea there was no way I would get it done, but I didn't want to give up so I pushed through today after work. It is VERY late my time, and I am a tired girl. But at least I'm a more informed girl :) I think it wouldn't have been as bad today if I didn't have technical difficulties that took up a lot of time trying to figure out, which I never did...i couldn't post on other people's blogs, I needed to download adobe flash player but it wouldn't work on the computer I was using, and then on the last project I couldn't get my Photostory onto my blog. SO if anyone out there has ideas to help me, then it will truly be a completed project! But for me I feel successful and feel I did all the work (and wrote a lot of notes...i'm not one who can just read and take it in; i have to read, take notes, then process...making the process oh so much longer.)

I am really looking forward to sharing and using Photostory for Booktalks and as a read aloud option for storytime; as I learn more I may try it with a grade level on a project idea in history. Other fun things were Delicious, Rollyo, TeacherTube, and Glogster (I can't remember if that is from this or my other training, but either way, it's fun!!!). But an added bonus is that I found a few sites to gather information on my personal interests outside of school :)


This program has really pushed me to learn things that I may not have seeked on my own. I need to continue to learn, but I also need to keep practicing and use the skills I have been introduced to in this program so I don't forget it later. I need to revisit a few I really enjoyed and implement at least a few each semester and /or as the opportunity arises. I know me, and I can't overdo it, or I will feel I'm not doing any of it well. But, if I use a few that work well, that success will encourage me to try more as I go. And, just sharing a few ideas will spark others' learning :)

I do feel better that I know some of the "lingo" I have been hearing and that I can actually use a lot of it now. I actually feel a little ahead of the game (from some).

Truly I'm surprised I finished it and wanted to to finish it. With the deadline approaching with so much still to do, I just didn't see it happening. But I really wanted to expose myself to more so I pushed through even if I wasn't going to make it to deadline...and look, i made it :) I'm also glad that I am brainstorming ways to use what I have learned instead of feeling overwhelmed and tucking it away for later.

I think the format was great and very user-friendly. I'm so impressed with the amount of effort/time the team put into this discovery!!! At times there was a lot of reading, but I needed that for some of the harder tasks to connect the information to action. I especially loved when a tutorial video was included so I could preview the process before I ventured on my way into the unknown.


I would definitely participate again! I appreciate Spring Brach ISD for letting learners form outside the district participate. Many others have benefitted from your sharing!!!

"in the know now" is how i feel!

Thanks so much for all your hard work! Thanks also to all the peole who commented and/or sent support my way! This discovery has enabled me be a better teacher and inspired me to be a lifelong learner!!! Read on...

THING #22 HELP!!!!

well of course i am to the end and i can't get my photostory into my blog. I can't find an embed code so i'm not sure what use besides the edit html. I may not have saved it correctly (the two ways); i have 2 things in my video file but one of them is just a black screen icon and i can't use it it seems. It too late to call anyone so if nayone sees this and can offer some help i would love to finish this correctly even if past deadline...

THING #22

I'm glad I got to paly with Photostory at the end. It is something fun and useful (and I can do it overall) . I have seen projects done using this and had planned to use it this year so I am glad i got a little practice to get me started. I love it for book talks, esp if we can work our way to the studnets doing it versus me. I will borrow my coworker's idea of doing my 3 read aloud Bluebonnet books through Photostory so the story can be read to them without me having to read it live over and over again.
I created a short clip using theonly photos i had on my computer from ohter projects and music i only have as samples (this computer got wiped out and i'm too tired to go gather photos/music for practice. Not sure if i can post it though...

THING # 22

Nings...
Ok I skipped 21 for now because i'm not so sure about podcasts and it may take me awhile. But I have played with nings already in another workshop so I'm going to kind of "cheat" and talk about that experience since we used a few of those resources in our class plus other things.
I participated in a tech workshop this summer in our distict doing in person the same thing we are doing online. It was less involved due to time constraint, but the idea was similar t0 introducing us to a few choice 2.0 tools to take us into the here an dnow of teaching "digital natives". I realized i am nowhere near a digital native but i'm working on being a digital immigrant...trying to get there as i learn.
In this workshop we became part of a ning (iinnovatenetwork.pbworks.com) so that we could blog as we went through our "lessons"/ "explorations" and to post products we did and comment on others. Now that the workshop has concluded, the ning is there for us to share ideas as we continue to play with what we were introduced to briefly. It is also a place for us share frustrations, questions, and celebrations as we all try to make this change towards becoming a better "teacher"/"librarian". It is nice to know I have "company" as I continue this adventure. From there we are starting a campus ning so we have a support of our closer coworkers. Fortunately for us we have a person who loves nings so she is going to continue to support our learning in this area.
Outside/inside of school I can see using nings for book talks as a starter and then for projects where you want collaboration. I looked at a few of the example nings that were posted in this exercise and can see that some of the library ones could be a good source for big library issues, but for now, I like belonging to smaller nings.

THING #20

I have mostly watched youtube videos sent to me vs. searched them mostly because it is blocked at school and by the time i'm home i have other things to do. I haven't seen much from teacher tube except in a few cases for in service. I have used united streaming a lot so maybe now i need to mix it up a bit.
I didn't search a lot due to time constraints but what i did find gives me an idea of what is out there and how i can use it. I think lookng for historical events on teacher tube is a great way to introduce a topic or book we are going to discuss that day in the library. I chose the Alamo and found actually a nice pictoral history of the battle with a nice song in the background. I t sould lead to a good discussion at beginning of a lesson or as an ending thought after reading something that involved the alamo. From youtube i searche library 2.0 and found an instructional video on picasa. I like finding these little instructional videos because they make it simple for me
I still can't figure out how to comment but I looked at my friends postings and I love both the ones they picked..so much i may "borrow' them. One of my friends chose a parody on library "Library of Tomorrow" and it got me thinking...i wonder if that is how Alamo Draft House gets all their parody clips from the "past" to go along with their movie themes...hmmmm???


TEACHER TUBE:









YOU TUBE:

THING #19

Since I'm already overwhelmed with just the sites I've been exposed to so far, seeing more was a littel intimidating at first. but what i really liked is how it is organized by catagories so you can explore for your interest/need. Most of te ones I could use in the library are ones i already knew or have explored a little with this "class": Delicious, facebook,google maps, google search blog, and the one i've seen the most used in my setting so far, pbwikis. But by recognizing those i looked at the other winners in those catagories to see if i liked any features of them better or if i wanted to stick with what i knew already. I still love delicious but i may explore stumbleupon more inthe future. I love the name/concept but need to see how easy it is to search and if it as useful to elementary library as delicious is. Organization also caught my eye but it does have a fee so i didn't explore. I like the concept though...something to help me organize all my documents (I do not use folders on my computer well and i still do paper files to hold a copy of my electronic documents i use...maybe startin with a new tool i'd actually get it organized (yeah, right).
I found a few for my own personal use to explore later in my free time - istats for workouts and i saw n my friend's blog that she liked a coking one so i may check that one out.

THING # 18

I explored GoogleDocs in another tech workshop our district sponsored this summer. We had a brief introduction to the highlights of it (through a common craft video i think so it made sense to me...so i thought). I really liek the idea of everyone being able to edit the same document and the same time from anywhere. That is a lot easier than email! I can really see the benefits when groups are working on projects - saves, paper, time, and it is a true collaboration. It sparked an idea for me to use it at our school for what we call our "pink Calendar" - a calendar that lists all of our events for the year. This way instead of people sending info to one person in email and that person then updates the document, the new inforamtion can just be added by the person who needs to add it and it's instant updates. We have a lotus notes claender that our principal uses but it is not a user friendly page to view. I think this will be great. Teh only problem though is i still need to practice with it because we didn't get enough learning time in my workshop. I tried to use it with my roommate when we were planning our shopping list for a party we were throwing so we could edit back and forth. I thought i did everything correctly but she never received it (I received it so i'm not sure why she didn't). But at least i tried to use what i learned :)