Finished!

This has been a lot of fun. A little frustrating when links won't work...

There is so much free stuff available out there - using it productively is the key and that requires more time than most of us have in our already busy lives.

If there is a web2.2, I'll be there!

Thank you, Jen and Shirley for all your hard work.

Thing 47 Jam Studio

This is fun and I don't even know what I'm doing! For someone who knows about music, this is great.


http://www.jamstudio.com/Studio/index.htm

Click Here to take survey

Back to school survey

Thing 45 Survey Monkey

I added Survey Monkey in June and have only had 4 votes (and I voted to see if it worked), so I have had fewer than that. The results so far are John M. 3 votes and Barak O. 1 vote.

This would be a fun way for students to vote on favorite books.

Thing 45 Flowcharts & Mindmaps

Maybe this link will work - my others have not been working.

This reminds me of inspiration and kidspiration.
http://bubbl.us/edit.php
I like this one, but could not see how to post it in the blog.

Thing 44 Jott.com

This is really kind of scary - how do they do that? I probably won't use jott, but I may be wrong. I prefer to make little lists. I could see using it in the future - homework reminders?!

Thing 43 MIdi Files

The site web 2.1 takes you to is now a subscriber only site, so I searched midi and found a free one that I like. It is: http://rock.mididb.com/beatles/ (that is the song I was listening to).



I don't know why my links are not working - they did not work yesterday either.

Thing 42 Google Groups

Went to the library site then moved on...rediscovered that I am part of a group from a workshop last summer. It has been a year...anyway, I found some things in this group that I will be able to use for Social Studies, so this exercise turned out to be valuable for me!

Searched Houston Astros -- not too popular right now. Was disappointed to see "junk" posted where it should not be.

Thing 41 Live Mocha

Seems like fun. I had a conversation with someone in China. She wanted to know about my impression of the Olympics. Then someone wanted to add me as their friend to practice English and Spanish for me. I declined - just don't have time right now.

Thing 40 Retroland

It is cute, but I probably won't use it. I listed a few favorites. I had not thought about Chatty Cathy in a long time (or Raggedy Ann). Kool-Aid was a favorite in the
50's and at my house it still is a favorite!

Botanical Gardens

Botanical Gardens Animoto

Thing 38 Comic Relief

Toon Doo is cute - the homepage is a little busy...but pretty easy to use.

www.toondoo.com

Welcome Back!

Thing 37 Music to Your Ears

Pandora is great. I am a George Winston fan and when I put in his name, I immediately heard a beautiful song. Did the same thing thing in LastFM, and also found an artist named Felixdroid who I enjoyed listening to. I like the way both sites have recommendations for similar artists and that people leave shouts and comments.

Thing 36 Picnik

Picnik is so much fun! I could spend all day on this site. It is easy to use and free (and easy to email the pictures!). I sent a picture to Shirley to see if it works...

Splashup is more complicated (seems to be more for pros), but it is fun to use, too.

Here are my pictures - Picnik (butterfly) and Splashup, previously Fauxto (garden)

Thing 35 Twitter

I signed up for Twitter, but don't think I'll use it. If I want to know what someone is doing, I'll call them or text them. I can see how young people would like this (especially high school and college kids). It would be easy to get together with your friends if you knew where they were (studying at the library:]).

Thing 34 Better Health

I tried both FitDay and NutriDiary. I like FitDay better - it seems to be more user-friendly. Both of them have so many ads on them that they look cluttered. I like the chart for weight on FitDay because you can see where your weight is in the healthy range (or not in the healthy range).

Thing 32 OmniDrive

I have tried to signup for OmniDrive more than once and I get the page not available screen. I can go to OmniDrive just can't create an account, so I am moving on...

Technology Applications Teacher Network

Technology Applications Teacher Network (a collaborative project between the twenty Texas Education Service Centers and the Texas Education Agency)
http://www.techappsnetwork.org/

This site helps Texas teachers implement the Technology Applications TEKS in the classroom. It contains resources for integrating the K-8 TEKS in the content area classroom, and it lists resources for the six High School Tech App courses. There are links to state adoptions, certifications, discussion boards, tech events, and training sessions at region service centers. I think the best link is to “Model Classroom Lessons” where teachers can search by subject and grade level to find lesson plans developed by other Texas teachers. I also like the "Concept Cards" link.

Some people may think that having to “join the Technology Applications Teacher Network” to be able to get to certain menu options is a disadvantage of the site. However, the site states that registration is to maintain the integrity of the site.

This site is valuable for 21st Century education because teachers need easy to locate lessons that incorporate technology. These lessons have been tested in the classroom and submitted for use on this site. Teachers can search 545 lessons. One drawback of this site (as with so many sites) is having time to look around at everything the site has to offer.

I definitely recommend this site for teachers who are looking for ways to use technology in their classrooms. It is also useful for administrators to be able to see what type of training is available at the region service centers.

Thing 31 Plaxo and ical

I visited Plaxo and put in some calendar entries as well as a task list. What really surprised me about this site was to see that other people in my hotmail address book are Plaxo users. When I went to ical to find a calendar, I chose the Astros schedule. A couple of times the site could not be found. When I got it to work, I really didn't know what to do with it (where to send it?), so I decided if I need to see the schedule, I'll just go to the Astros website. There are some interesting calendars available - it would be nice to have more time to look around. If a person does follow a certain band, it would be fun to have the schedule.

On the task list, I put Plaxo and then checked it off since I made my account. It disappeared, but there is a tab to keep completed tasks viewable which I like because then you have a sense of accomplishment.

Plaxo has ecards and I sent a couple out (I think it worked) - I'll see if I get a response from the people I sent them to.

Thing 33 Mr. Picassohead and more

This is a fun site. I enjoyed playing around with the person I was "painting" - even tried blue hair. I tried to upload the file to my blog, but it said it was either corrupt or had an unrecognizable format. I will try the snowflake maker for fun next. The snowflake maker is like a kaleidoscope (good thing this has spell check)and the 2D and 3D views would be good to use in the classroom for perspective. I drew with the spin art, but mine looked bad - probably would need some practice.

Thing 30 "The Catz"

I sort of like the one that says, "I sense danger." I'm not sure if the cat or the bird senses danger, but it's a cute picture. Most of them are mindless dribble and a person can really waste a lot of time looking at cats. There seems to be a large following- they must not be in Web 2.1 or they would find lots of other things to look at besides cats.

Scrapblog Problem

I put this in more than once to get it to work. It did work, but now it wants ID and I have no ID to give it!

Thing 29 Scrapblog

Really nice artwork in the Scrapblog scrapbooks. You can add stickers if you don't think things are decorative enough already. If you have pictures in Flickr, you can use them in Scrapblog. Another one of these sites where there is more to do than I have time for.

Thing 27 Photobucket

I tried to link to a logo I saved in Photobucket, but it would not let me. It would show me the preview, but has an error when I try to post. Photobucket has a lot of stuff - more than I have time to do. I will have to go back to Photobucket when I have more time - I did make a cute avatar (but is that really necessary?)...

Thing 28 - Magazine Covers

OnCoverPage.com - Create fake magazine cover pages with your own photos!

This is the link to become your own big rock star.

Thing 28 Rickwood Field

I had a hard time uploading my cover. When I tried, I would get the link to make a cover -- even though I had a cover made. After several tries, here I am at Rickwood Field in Birmingham. It is the oldest continually used ballpark in the U.S. - it has been used in movies because it has the old stadium lighting. Willie Mays played here with the Birmingham Black Barons.

21st Century Learners

This is required watching in my college class. It is interesting...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8&feature=related

Sorry, I could not get the video in. I will have to work on that skill (it told me there was an error on the page when I tried downloading).

Enjoy!

Thing 26

My addition from yourminis is the Angleton weather. I had to try a couple of times to make it work. Once there was a server error and another time it came up with San Diego's weather (and yes, I had put in 77515 - I guess maybe I went back too far).

Classroom Learning Web 2.1

Thing 24 impressed me! www.zamzar.com
I did not actually convert a file yet, but the list was much longer than I could have imagined. A person can convert things all day if they use everything.

Thing 25 Letterpop looks good, and there is a free version. The template choices are ample and cover a wide range of subjects. The paid subscriptions seem reasonable for what you get especially for businesses. You can try it out at www.letterpop.com .

Week 9, Things 20, 21, 22, and 23

20. YouTube is great, but it is a good thing it is blocked at school! I know there is a way to upload safe things and open them at school, but right off the top of my head I can't remember what I was told. Introducing the Book is great!

21. I really like the idea of family history podcasts that was mentioned.

22. eBooks and Audio eBooks are great - the first book I saw was one my sister had as a child (hers was a newer edition!). Grimms Fairy Tales could come in handy. Lots of good things to look at and listen to.


THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS PROGRAM:

This could be a semester-long college class if you could spend more time looking at and working with everything presented. It has been very informative and fun, too. I want to thank Shirley and Jen for being innovative and offering this to us.

Week 8, Things 18 & 19

I like googledocs - this is useful since many home computers do not have microsoft office but the home suite.

I went to Library Thing, created an account and put in six books. One of my sisters will love this site (she will never have enough time to get all her books in!). This would be a good way to recommend books for students. A classroom account would work nicely.

Week 7 #17Pennsylvania Curriculum Connection

The first time I tried it, I did get to the site. Now, I cannot find the site. :(

Week 6: Technorati, Web 2.0, Library 2.0

I did not get much out of Technorati. They were experiencing high traffic and things would not load for me to look at. It looks like they are popular and they do have a lot of information and places to connect to. I wanted to watch the tutorial video, but it would not load in a timely fashion, so I gave up on them.

Web 2.0 is a great idea and I am glad we are doing this in our district.

From Library 2.0 I especially enjoyed the copyright youtube video with so many Disney movies. The future looks bright with creative commons projects like Universal Education Search and the CC Portal for Educators. The first says they are trying to find free things that would not require a log-in since educators don't have a lot of time. The second one says they are hoping to launch this summer.

From Library 2.0 I found an aritcle at Newsweek. I knew about MIT open courseware, but I did not know that Yale has open courseware (I am listening to a lecture on Langston Hughes right now).

Going Back to Week 5

Thing 10. I played around in Big Huge Labs (again - it is a fun place). I tried to give myself new hair, but did not have a picture of me that would work well.

Thing 11. I went to Google Docs - I think I could use this with my students. The Common Craft Show (Lee LeFever) explanation is great. So, I watched a few more of his "productions" and highly recommend his work. I looked at a few of the foreign language offerings, but I am still of the mindset that you need to live somewhere the language is spoken to become fluent.

A person could spend days looking at the awards list.

I used Rollyo to look for Japanese Internment Camps (it goes with one of the novels I use), and I think it will be useful.

Week 7 Thing 16 & no luck on Thing 17

Wikis look very useful, but too time consuming for me with everything I have to do for school! The way librarians are using wikis looks great. When I looked at Classroom Learning 2.0 at the library wikis, I found a list of public library blogs. I went to the Austin one and it is great. I had previously stumbled across the New York City Public Library Blog (somehow Jen had something that led me to it).

I tried to find the Pennsylvania Curriculum Connection wiki, but did not have any luck locating it, so I was not able to make an entry there. I will try again later.

Time Flies - What week is this?

http://nypl.org/blog

This is a neat site from the New York Public Library - Jen doesn't know it, but she is the one who led me to it!

RSS Week 4 Thing 8

I hope I have done this correctly because I am excited about the Word of the Day from Merriam Webster. When you open it, there is a podcast with the word. I guess I'll find out tomorrow if I have linked correctly since I should have a new word.

The Poetry 180 if from the Library of Congress. It is 180 poems for high school students, but of course, it can be enjoyed by anyone.

Spring

I felt like I needed to change my template for spring - like a new Easter dress! I am excited to try out the RSS and hope to find the time over spring break. I have looked at some of the new Blogs in our class and can't wait to see all of them when everyone is finished. We have been busy here at Middle School - you can see how hard some of our teachers work to pump up our students!

7 1/2 Habits Thing #2

I'm backing up to the habits of lifelong learners. I think I missed an activity post, so here goes...

I am always interested in learning new things. I wish I had more time to devote to learning about technology. I find time on the computer goes by quickly (I must be having fun!), so I would say that time is an obstacle. I love having the digital camera in my toolbox. I also like knowing that Shirley and Jen are just an email away if I need something.

Now, the biggie on this assignment -- what is my goal? What is the one thing that I would like to learn? It would be nice to be able to get it to one thing... I guess my goal (today) is to become more proficient with the things we are learning. I would especially like to be able to get the pictures out of the camera and to the appropriate place (whether that is a folder, an email, a blog) quickly. So, I am going to get a picture on this blog right now (I think that is another "thing"). I am hoping this shot of a coral snake was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I just happened to have the camera because I thought I might try to take some bird pictures.

Week 3 Thing #7

The following link is a technology "thing" that interests me. It is a link to Kathy Schrock, and if you go down you will see Web 2.0. Now, someone with lots of time can check these sites out and let us know about them! I did see Blogger on the list.

Have a great week and a Happy Leap Day!

URL=http://discoverymail.com/a/hBHwpGoAJcM3mBzakSKAVJbyRnR/ks271

Texas A&M

Texas A&M
Originally uploaded by anboo4

Week 3
This was made using Flickr and going to the motivational poster maker (bighugelabs).

Classroom Learning 2.0

#3 Week 2

This is my first post. I hope to import my Avatar soon, but I have been having some trouble getting my post to post. I am not new to Blogger, so I don't know what the problem was. I used a picture on my Blog that I took today with the Sony (Snappy Happy) - I loved the way the color came out. If you look very closely, my husband is walking down the bank.