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!

Thing #7a

I decided to follow a few of the blogs of my fellow classmates. Little did I know it would add them to my google reader. Well, it did and that is the part of my google reader I have enjoyed the most. I scanned the couple of feeds I have saved but nothing struck my interest like the blogs of my friends and co-workers. I work with Angie Helms, she is such a great teacher. She is on like Thing #20. I am so jealous but I won't hold it against her. I enjoying reading her blog for Thing #18. Her video for literacy centers is perfect to help show the kids a good example of how they should work.