Thing #19 Microblogging

Twitter, I made myself an account. I twitted to it several times. I went and looked at FanWiki and saw a whole lot of toys for twitter. But when I read so many of the posts it is just too much immaterial stuff I don't want or have time to read about." Quick-ping media can be a massive time-suck," a direct quote of Clive Thompson from Wired, but he thinks it has its purpose.


I use a twitter account here at work for a specific purpose. I like it because it's a fast way to add a update to a page. I really don't think I want to use it any other way.

Thing #20 Social Networking

Social Networking is what I have spent a great deal of my time trying to get the students off of. To use it as a instructional tool is a whole new twist. I have not been able to open any of the public libraries myspace's to see what they are doing. I have however opened my own Orkut account and may try using it. I would feel more comfortable if I made it a fictional account, perhaps of a dead author. Now that would be fun with a class, other dead authors and poets writing in. https://img1.orkut.com/img/doodle/orkut_logo.gif

Thing # 18 The Homework

Jott

http://jott.com/myjotts.aspx

This is sure 2.0. Multi media. It takes your cell phone, or land line, and allows you to transcribe a message into your email. I am working with it to see if I can get it into my blog or igoogle.

Two Big Two

I went seeking and I found
Mr. Lawrence Lessig. He is

pretty darn impressive.

Thing #18 Youtube, Teachertube, and User Generated Video

Streaming video is something I don't see much of. Having it blocked by the district and being in a Citrix environment it is few and far between video clips. I have been able to get into teachertube a bit. I like how it has a browse so I can snoop around. I have not seen a lot that I can use, or think of using with students. I just hate how you would get it all set up, than it does not work properly. That is why right now I would not even be game to play with it and kids.

Thing # 17 Explore Web 2.0 Award Winning Apps

http://www.seomoz.org/ I think this site is awesome. There are so many thing to explore. I was delighted to see many that I had used, or our library has used. It is looking a little familiar here and there. This one site I liked was onesentince.org. I already had a English teacher sit and look at it with me today. I think it is great for story jumpers, and so did she. I hope to explore this site a great deal more.

Thing #16 Learning a Language

This was something I had not thought of before. The one site I was looking at had it broken down into levels. And it claimed to be free. Somehow the idea of retirement seems more interesting when I think I may have time to finally take advantage of all this free stuff to learn and take advantage of. For here at school I have no idea if the style of learning the sites use would work for our classroooms, but for personal interest what have you got to loose. Especially the open blog ones. That would be cool to be chatting away with someone on a beach somewhere far away in a different language.

Thing #15 Audiobooks and ebooks

Audiobooks and ebooks are gaining a lot popularity in recent years. Our library has not spent any of our budget on them yet. The one we have, a playalong, sits on the shelf. I was amazed at how many free downloads there are. I can see myself getting into these. Oops, do you need a ipod? I was lucky enough to sit next to Kim on that day and she really knew a lot more about them than I. I think I see the wave of the future coming. I

Thing #14 Podcasting

Podcasting is like a little perk for the techie type. Once you understand the basic principals it doesn't seem like a hard thing to do. Again it is manipulating the data from here to there, but it is quite impressive when done. The only one I have done from start to finish is my voki on my blog. I have listened to many on technology in education, and like the ones where I see the little picture of the person talking on the side of the blog. It's great, the sharing aspect is relevent to what we are doing with technology. At our school we let the kids do voicethreads, then we post them to our library web site. Although we don't have more than a dozen doing them, the kids love it.

Thing #13 I Google

I love I Google.Right now it still is very hazy, mainly due to the fact it is so loaded with goodies. But this is also what makes it so attractive. I would like to get to the point where I open to my computer every day to my I Google page. On this page I would have quick facts and links to what I want to view daily. I will give this some free time just to play with it. I can see using this with the more techie kids. If they gave themselves a page and used it for school, with links to school page, databases, their teachers links oh what a timesaver it would be. I would love to get to the point to be a pro on this application and give the kids mini classes in the IMC.

Thing #12 Open Source Applications

I have been using an open source applications for over a year and never really understood what I was using. We have our IMC schedule for both lab and library sign up on Google calendar and Google Doc's has our AV sign up. It has been working great. We have a teacher here who seems like a guru on anything open source. So now many of these pieces are fitting together. I love the idea that open source is being used for such things as government documents in other countries. The idea of a document always opening up no matter how it was formatted is just a dream come true.

A View from our Library

Thing # 11 Wiki's

Wiki's have a great purpose. I admit I have had negative feeling about Wikiopedia from the beginning. The idea of anyone editing it has alway had me frozen in fear. I am much more confortable with it now. I understood the concept of the Wiki before we started on our Clerk Wiki, but by doing the assignment I see how wonderful the collaboration piece is. We are going to have such a great document to show when we finish it. I would love to see a class use this and be able to watch it develope. I love how it is free, such a bonus!

Thing #10 Working With Photo's

This is a picture of our

Library at Silver Creek.

I found Picnick pretty

easy to use, basic but

fit my needs at this time.