Thing #23

Wow! Phew! I did this class in one weekend, instead of 2 months! For me, this is the best way for me to learn new things, and learn I did! I started out this class with the thought, "It's free and I can earn 3 CEU's." Boy, did I change my mind as I went through this journey.
Years ago, I used to teach computer classes on Saturday morning to elementary students on an apple computer. I though I was so savvy, and up to speed with technology. As the years passed, I became aware of the fact the the technology was moving faster than I was, and it became quite scary! Before I knew it, my students were way ahead of me, and I have not been able to catch up! They were coming to me with computer knowledge and experience, that I became the student. They were helping me! If I had a question or problem, I would ask them. They knew their way around a computer, and were experts!
This class has been a great experience for me. I have more knowledge about what is out there in cyberspace, and I am loving it! There are so many avenues that I can take to expand and enrich my knowledge as a professional and in my personal life. I am fearful of some of the things that kids can get into on the web. I am so glad that my own children are grown-up and responsible for their own Internet usage. I hope that parents are monitoring their children's computer usage very carefully.
The one thing that I am most excited about is the wiki and pod casting. I am planning on taking one tool at a time, use it until I feel successful enough to move on to the next tool. I am hoping to use the pod casts with my students to read their oral reports, reading the tall tale they created, or the poem they wrote about a color. Nevertheless, I feel more knowledgeable about the tools of the Internet than I did before I started with Thing #1.

Thing #22

There are so many useless videos on YouTube, that I am very particular about what I view on this website. I dislike many of the videos that are on here. I find them very inappropriate and a waste of time. The ones I do like are the instructional videos on knitting, sewing, cooking, etc. YouTube is blocked from usage in our building due to the inappropriate content that our students could possibly view. Our district has banned so many websites, that we can hardly pull up anything these days. We can get Teacher Tube some of the time. It depends what we type in to view. There are so many wonderful ideas on Teacher Tube. My favorite is Grammar Punk. I love the ideas he has for teaching grammar, and have used them in my classroom. I would be afraid to give the kids an assignment that uses YouTube. I am sure that I would hear about it from parents. I don't think it is appropriate for school when there are so many other sights kids can use to find out information.

Thing #21

Respond with a blog post reflecting on this question -- After exploring these services, how do you think you might use them in your life at school, work, home, or out from your mobile phone?How do you think you might use Twitter to connect with your Personal Learning Network?

Twitter can be used in the classroom to keep up with current events, to find out results of play off games (my class are really into sports these days,) the presidential elections, etc and would use it sparingly. Personally, I probably wouldn't use Twitter because I am on Face Book, and this reminds me of the postings I see on this website. I really don't care to know if my niece is feeding her baby at that moment,or my girlfriend is painting her living room. I hardly have the time to get into Face Book to see what is going on with my friends and family. Sometimes I would use Twitter on my Blackberry for news items, but that is it! I am wondering how many avenues do we have to have to find out how our friends and family are doing! Privacy seems to have gone out the window! No wonder letter writing barely exists these days!

Thing #20

My del.icio.us user name is kmhteach50. Bookmarking can be used by my peers to find websites that I use for power point presentations, grammar websites, etc. Hopefully my peers will add to del.icio.us as well. We can save so much time by using this one website, rather than emailing each other with this information. This is what we do now, and it takes time to go to individual website, when we could be using one spot to store our websites to share with each other.

Thing #19

In my opinion, tagging is a wonderful way to organize information and websites. I am so tired of looking through favorites, emailing what I find at home to myself at school, or losing websites by mistake. The advantages are that you can go to one site to find your tags, and you can do this anywhere. The information is at your fingertips. Being specific when assigning tags, is a good way to wade through information. Looking through my Word program is like looking for a needle in a haystack. I can't remember how I labeled it, and have to spend so much time looking through all of my files. Again, I worry about inappropriate material or viruses being tagged on social networks.

Thing #18

Social networking has unlimited possibilities. It is a good thing to see what others are doing across the globe! I found some of the groups to be more specific to their own group of educators. There were others that offered ideas, and strategies to use in the classroom. This is also a place to ask questions to teachers who are doing that specific thing in their classroom. I would worry about viruses, and inappropriate people accessing my information. Social networking felt a little strange to me when I was looking through some of the sites. It felt like I was "out there" without any protection. It felt a little creepy. It almost seemed too easy to use with the potential for misuse.

Thing #17

The website that I chose is Etsy. I love this website! Here is a place where you can buy and sell handmade goods. I am a crafter, and it is a great place to buy supplies, and to get ideas to create new things. The only thing that is hard about Etsy is that there are so many things to look at on this website! I could spend hours here looking, and buying! It is a bit overwhelming, but addicting. I purchased something as I was browsing through for this activity. Ugh! This was a personal tour, so no, I wouldn't use it in school.

Travel IQ was a lot of fun! Definitely one for school! I can't wait to use it again!