I DID IT! I DID IT! IDID IT!

Oh gosh! I have had such an enlightening experience in this course. It would be so hard to pick just one thing that I can use the most. I love the generators they will be so fun to use this coming year. I think my students will love them. The Google calendar is going to be such a great tool for me to help with planning and to stay organized. I guess if I have to pick my very favorite it would be Delicious. Finding cool and useful web sites and then being able to find them again has been a challenge to me in the past and now that problem is solved.
I feel that this class has helped me become a life long learner through basically forcing me to learn on my own. Boy have I had some challenges. Some things just took me way to long but I did not give up and that has given me confidence as a learner. Right now if you asked me if I would do this again I would have to say, not right now. I need a break, but it was the same with getting my Masters. The Intel class I took was the first course I took after a year and half. My batteries just need to recharge.
I want to try to continue my Web 2.0 learning through RSS Feeds, my own blog, others blogs, and looking at some Webinars every once in awhile. I won't wait so long this time though.

I want to send a heart felt thank you to 23 Things for exposing me to all this new stuff. I feel so confident in my learning, so equipped with new tools and ideas, as knowing how to stay informed with new and exciting ideas.

Thing #23

I have just explored several social networking sites in the past two assignments. By far my favorite for me personally is Facebook which I explained in the last post. I am now a part of the "23 Thingters". I had never in my life heard of Ning. I feel the Classrooms 2.0 will be a great place to continue building my knowledge base for teaching. As far as the networking sites are concerned for my students it doesn't apply. I don't see at this time any reason a 5 year needing to explore an online social networking site. Maybe a child being home schooled could connect with a parent and build a network of friends they could learn from and meet with for social activities. A formal school Kindergartner's parent could do something with them but as far as it being a part of what they do in my classroom let say is just manageable. In conclusion, social networking will be very valuable to me as a teacher. Staying in touch with my co-workers on a personal and professional way is so important and can easily be done through social networking. I am using it now and will continue to use it in the future.

Thing #22

I have both a My Space and Facebook account. I don't visit my My Space account very often but as far as my Facebook account goes, it is one of the best parts of my life right now. I see no educational value in it for my Kindergartners and feel that it is just not appropriate for 5 year old at all. All I can do here is report a couple of my ABSOLUTELY AMAZING experiences on Facebook. I have connected with several of my fellow teachers and we stay connected through the account. It seems like it brings me closer to them through their comments and pictures. It is just plan fun. But, the most amazing parts are the following: I lived in Aspen, Colorado in the ski season of 1989/99. I was a maid at a hotel there. I had just the best time of my life. I had a roommate from Sweden. Her name is Asa Cronheden. After the season was over, she came back to Oklahoma and our plan was to look for our next adventure. Well, she meet a boy. I started school and yada yada yada. I think you can probably guess what happens now. Yes! She found me on Facebook some 20 years later. I just think that is amazing! She is living in Sweden and I would have never been able to find her because I didn't remember her last name but she found me. CRAZY!!!!! I have had another friend from Louisiana find me and several friends from high school. Since I am recently divorced it has truly been a godsend!

Thing #7b

I really haven't been that overwhelmed by the feeds to my reader lately. I have kept them to a minimum in the first place and still enjoy the feeds of others blogs the most but did find an interesting article to share. Will Richardson posted a blog about Digital Inclusion. It resonates with me because including more technology into my classroom is exactly what I am trying to do with this class and other classes I have taken this summer. The blog is mainly about the issue of its not what can all this technology add to education but rather what can education add to tools that are available. That it is up to parents, educators, and the school systems to demand something new. I really need to find a way and start looking at ways to help even my Kindergarteners to become more a part of the tools that are available. I think I can do this with the knowledge that I am gaining in this class through exploration and discussion. I can't wait to explore more while my students watch on the "big Promethean board". I think it will be awesome to see what they might start doing on their own. Between this class and my new Promethean board I think I can lead my students into 21st Century Learning.

Thing #21

I have explored the Google tools. I had no idea they had so many tools available. Before this class I just thought Google was a search engine. I had heard of Google docs and my principal has used them a couple of times and I will no doubt be seeing more of them in the future, but I just can't see myself using them. Never say never though right?

I added Cowboys Stadium as a Google alert. I have recently landed a job as a Suite Server at the stadium and will be working the Cowboy games. I can also work the concerts and events (Paul McCartney is coming August 19th, how cool?). I am hoping that by setting up the alert I will see new events as they are added. After adding the alert I checked my e-mail and haven't gotten anything yet. Maybe it takes a day. So.....I don't know how to link that. Well, as I was looking around my google account I looked at manage alerts and was able to add the alert.

I like the iGoogle page much better than my Yahoo home page but it won't link here. The iGoogle home page seems to have a lot more things that I would be interested in keeping up with.

I am going to use this calendar rather than the calendar I found in the Thing 12. I will use this calendar this coming school year. I can edit it from any computer. Home, school, computer lab, or anywhere else. This should be very helpful for this upcoming school year. I am going to keep working with the calendar but want to get this blog over with!

Thing #20

I can use Google documents to create newsletters and calenders for parent communication. I can also use Google documents to communicate with my co-workers on an array of different topics as a collaborative effort. I know that I only needed to state three things but I can also make my schedule, end of the year certificates, flash cards, and word studies on a Google document. Those are just a few of the templates that I found useful as a Kindergarten teacher. I would imagine if I look in the Fall there will be even more. I would think that the possibilities would be endless. I have some pretty smart people on my campus. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them adds new templates themselves. Google docs have personal applications as well. I am recently divorced as I've mentioned in I don't know how many other posts, but is center of my world right now. I need to make a budget and I see that there is an application for this purpose. I also see that I can create a Christmas card to share with friends and family. Who thought of this stuff?

Thing #19

I watched "Going and Coming". What a great way to integrate technology into a Kindergarten class. Each student can look at a picture and describe what they see. I could make a voice thread for pictures. I could then even use the thread to guide my students through a piece of writing. I could make a hard copy of the picture so that they could add their writing underneath. What a great way to build vocabulary as well!

OMG!!!!!!! The Venn Diagram. How cool is that? I see projecting it on paper and writing down what they have to say as well as recording their responses. Or, can I write in the voice thread some how? I am definately going to put voice thread on my to do list for back to school. I will apply for an account and play with it at that time. I found a mini tutorial that I can use to help me.