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.

Thing #18

Well, I have to start with nostalgia,

RIP Michael!!!!! His music added so much joy to my youth!

I explored You Tube and Teacher Tube. I found the best stuff on You Tube. I found a video that shows how to play a math game to teach students to compare numbers.

When you watch the video on You Tube it has links to other videos from the same people that are useful as well. The same goes for the other video I found that is a learning story about the 10 Little Pigs.


The "How to" video was about how to mediatate. Very relaxing and calming.


I didn't realize that You Tube had these types of videos available to me. It is so amazing the resources available to out there these days. WOW!

Thing #17

I listened to several podcasts. I listened to a few podcasts from PBS because I have a lot of respect for Public Broadcasting. I subscribed to John Merrow"s weekly cast in my reader. Several of the podcasts were just to difficult to try and listen to, you have to subscribe to some new site or download something and I just didn't fell like it was worth it. I found some bedtimes stories that were easy to access through the Education Podcast Network, Miette's bedtime stories, but they weren't bedtime stories for students. Her voice reading would put me to sleep though. But it gave me an idea to try to find some stories for my students. I found a Learn a Song site that podcasts songs and it has the text on the screen. Here is Baa-Baa Black Sheep. I should be able to access this song off my blog and then find others for our Fluency songs and poems in CSI. I can then put it up on the Promethean board and the kids can see the words as well as listen to the pod to learn how to sing the song.

Thing #16

Library Thing, Library Thing, Library Thing.........
I don't really see the relevance for me. I already have a Library Thing or two. One of them is called Alice Swank. She helps me gather books and isn't that what the Library Thing is to be used to do? I also have an extensive library of my own. I have them organized and grouped several different ways so that my students and I have access to them as we need them. I tried to think of some of the titles I have but since I have the memory of a flea I used the internet and some of sites I have found thus far in this course which brings me to the relevance of what this Thing has brought. In exploring the sites I had already saved in my new Delicious account I found several more sites to add. I have saved them in my account and plan to use them in conjunction with my Promethean board this year as read alouds that my students can enjoy. I can always try to catalog my books on Library Thing that I have in my personal library at school once I get my hands on them this fall but what for? Anybody have any ideas let me know.

Thing #15

Playing in the wiki sandbox is a little more fun for me than playing in a real one, the sand can get all over the place. I had already set up my own space on the wiki from the activity before. I just kinda played and looked at some ideas from other wikis. I added a site I like, Starfall, but I don't think I did it right. My sandbox is a work in the making check it out. My goal is to create a wiki space with Dayla McDaniels for this coming school year and then teacher our students how to access it and use the links for them to explore and learn. I played around with some more generators, I think that I will have a lot of fun with generators in the future. I added a new image that I generated to my wiki space.

Thing #14

Although Vicki's Wiki experience seemed very exciting, I just don't see it in my teaching future. I teach Kindergarten. I could see maybe a Third or Fourth grade class creating a Wiki page and we could enjoy experiencing some of their pages but teaching a Kindergartner to do one on their own is not practical (i don't think).

I explored:
The Kindergarten Counting Wiki. I am confused as to weather it is a wiki or a blog or a page on the wetpaint website. I did add it as a bookmark on my delicious account because it is pretty cool and an example of something we can this coming year in my class to integrate technology in my Kinder class.

The Salute to Seuss wiki. I can definitely see that this is a wiki. I look forward to learning about how to make my wiki have those links on the sides. I see myself making a wiki, adding some of my delicious sites there and teaching my students how to access my wiki then clicking on the places they want to explore.

The Code Blue wiki. This to looks like a wiki to me. This will be a personal web site for me. My son loves this kind of stuff. We spent a lot of time following the links and I think his Science will thank me when they start back this fall.

In conclusion, I have had the attitude of "What in the world do I need a wiki for?" but after exploring the different wiki's of other teachers I can see a place for wiki's in my future. Thank you for providing those to me.

Thing #13

Delicious is such a great tool for school and my personal life. So often I will find a great web site that I want to share in a lesson. In the past, I have had to write down the web address, try to keep up with it until I needed to use it, type the address in the address bar the day I want to use it, and then keep my fingers crossed that I actually wrote down the correct address (so often I didn't). Now, I can just tag it in my delicious account and access it from any computer, home, teacher computer, student computers, computer lab computers or anywhere.

I am still exploring with delicious. I want to start adding my personal bookmarks so that I can access them from anywhere. I am also still trying to figure out how to share with MISD23THINGS. I added it to my network. I looked at the wiki but don't see anything. Maybe it is there and I just don't know where to look but I did manage to link my account to this post. I had tried to do a delicious account when I took the intell class but unsuccessful but was very interested in it so I am very happy that I have one now!