Del.icio.us - Thing 19

My del.icio.us username is calvamom. In fact, I use that name in most public web 2.o apps. I have been using the del.icio.us for several years. I have found it most useful for sharing with peers and setting up sets of web resources for teachers or classes in my school. One quick link can get them a whole set of good things at any computer with internet. The open nature which lets anyone see your tags anywhere is, in my opinion, one of its greatest strengths. It also makes it easy to find good related things by looking at who else bookmarked the resources you think are "best" in a particular subject. Those people have often found other very good things. These days (and maybe it always was) it is all about good, smart connections. I joined the Social Media Mafia group in Facebook just to make connections and pick the brains of the smart young social media guys. The added thing about social media is that you also feel an obligation to the community to share good things yourself and be a useful part of the community. At least for me, this spurs me on to work harder and smarter to locate and share good resources, so that I will get some in return. The synergy allows me to do more with less. In today's education world, that can only be a good thing.

Tagging - Thing 18

Yes, I know, I skipped thing 17. It is blocked here at school and I have time to do a thing now. I have had a deli.cio.us account for several years. As a librarian, with an actual MLIS degree and many years of cataloguing experience, I'm actually a trained professional in catagorization. When I look at my tags, I'm shocked and appalled with myself! I have done a horrible job of using the same tag to group similar websites. I know the importance of controlled vocabulary, yet I didn't control mine.
On the up side, even though I find it to be a mess, it still works. I have all sorts of interesting things available to me on any computer with Internet. I find my tag cloud reflects my interests quite well. And my professional use websites are easily shared with others in my department by tag to communicate a point. This is very important when your peers are in different locations. My take is that tags are useful, even when badly done. Imagine how useful they would be if I really did them well.

Collaborative Web Tools - Thing 16

Miracle of miracles, it appears that Zoho is not blocked at school. This will solve my GoogleDocs problem, as I can use the related Zoho apps which suits me just fine. I think this will also be my solution for the teacher who is having students login to computers using other students logins so that they can collaborate on Powerpoint projects. I have had a Librarything for a couple of years. Of course, I am a librarian, so it figures that I have lists of books all over. If you would like to see my books click here.
I actually like Goodreads.com better because it has so many great and active reading groups and you can get a daily feed from the groups of your choice. Here are my Goodreads books.
Bubbl.us seems like a fun and useful thing that could work sort of like a shared Inspiration project. I've seen some interesting ones made by others and now have taken a crack at it myself. I would be a good way for students to map out and plan group projects. Not sure if they all have emails though, so that could be a problem. Most seem to have them, but what about those who don't? Once again the digital divide rears its ugly head. Great set of tools. Lots of possibilities

GoogleDocs - Thing 15

I found GoogleDocs to be quite intuitive. It works very much like Office or Openoffice, with the added benefit of being able to collaborate with others just by opening it to them with an invitation. I made a spreadsheet that I can use this summer to collaborate with 3 other people who are working with me to gather, repair and catalogue the district's Alphasmarts for the Special Ed department. The down side is that, once again, it is blocked in my district, so I can't use it with students. The one doubt that I would have in using it with students is that I hope you can track and undo changes that are mistaken or malicious. I'll have to work with my documents a bit more to find out I did fix the formatting so all the spreadsheet entires looked the same. Anal of me, I know, but I really like the ease of doing it.

Middlebooks goes Podcast -Thing 14

I had a great time figuring out how to do a podcast with some middle school students. I used Audacity to record and edit and podbean.com to host. Here is the link.
Middlebooks podcast
You can also find it in ITunes by searching calvamom. My students are excited and so am I. I think middle school kids are much more likely to listen to a book review on their computer or ipod than to read it , even online. this will really open some new avenues for my teaching and the promotion of reading among my students.

Subscribing to Podcasts- Thing 13

I was sort of underwhelmed by the search tools offered. I already subscribe to more podcasts than I have time to listen to and it doesn't get much easier than Itunes for locating podcasts. I did subscribe to ICTWeekly from the Education Podcast Network. I had a previously existing web relationship with those interesting Aussies anyway, and I am glad they are now offering audio as well as print web. Another favorite of mine is "I Love Librarians"podcast made by Harper Collins publishers. It was easy to find as I got an email invitation when they began it. Part of my Web 2.0 experience is that the more cool things you know about and subscribe to, the more are offered to you through your existing social networks. That is why schools need to be mindful of what they are filtering. They eliminate the connections to the exact resources that they need.

Podcasts I Like- Thing 12

I subscribe to a variety of academic podcasts. In fact my own kids claim I have the nerdiest ipod in existence. The first podcast a downloaded regularly was NPR Science Friday.
Check out Science Friday
The podcast I am most likely to use with my students is StoryNory. I like the idea of using new technology to teach classic literature. This site includes Dickens, Alice in Wonderland, Hans Christian Anderson and many more classics.
Check out StoryNory.
I believe the podcast can be our friend not our foe. We need to stop fighting the ipod revolution and get on board. Using podcasts can make our content more palatable and accessible for our students.

Middle Books Wiki - Thing 11

Here is my student friendly book review wiki.
http://middlebooks.wikispaces.com/
I had a great time looking for book reviews that weren't just the same old thing. I found some really great video and audio book reviews. I hope my students will find some things to contribute. I hope the students will feel more ownership of the wiki, because it is collaborative.
The Middle Books blog
belongs to me, the teacher. Kids can only comment, not post. I hope they will feel free to both enter text and find cool media to add to the wiki. I am really interested to see what they come up with. I will send out email invites to the teachers and paper bookmarks with the URL to the wiki in the school media center.

New Ways to Use Wikis- Thing 10

I have used wikis for various professional events, particularly to plan and organize things. It was interesting to see how others are using them more directly with students. Wikispaces is not blocked at my school and as I think it through, a wiki might be a better medium than my book review blog to gather middle school students' book selections. Maybe I will do both blog and wiki and see which one gets more traffic and which seems work better for the purpose of listening to kids opinions about books.

RSS Feeds - Thing 5

I have been subscribing to blogs using Google Reader for quite a while. My biggest problem is that there is so much good stuff and so little time. I have grudgingly unsubscribed from some very good stuff because I couldn't keep up with the traffic. My challenge is to find ways to choose the best and resist the merely good. There is so much good stuff out there that it is impossible to read it all. I need to develop better criteria for choosing the best.

Flickr Toys - Thing 9

I loved the Flickr toys. I had a lovely time playing with them. The Warholizer was my favorite. I think my students would enjoy experimenting. I'm not sure what the academic value is, but it sure is fun. I could at least teach them who Warhol is.

Sorry, I Skipped Thing 7

Strangely enough, I can view things on Flickr, but not upload them at work. Because of the blocking situation, I'm very hesitant to use Flickr in the classroom. I'm afraid I will plan a lesson and when I try to bring it up, it will be blocked. I have had a Flickr account for several years and I find it to be an excellent way to share images with groups of people that are geographically scattered. I share my photos with my extended family this way. Conversely, in the classroom, it is a good way to pull together groups of diverse photos that have a single characteristic, say a tag or a color in common. I have done several really interesting thinking and writing assignments using the color sort tool. I would also note that any photos of students that I upload are only labeled in a very vague way as to name and location. At most I put a first name and the city. We need to practice what we preach about net safety.

Rock on

This is a meez that I made and exported to my blog to see if I could. It isn't really one of the 23 things, but it is a cool way to get animation that you can make for yourself to illustrate a point in a fairly easy way. Many middle school students use this application, so they can help create and illustrate things.

Flickr Fun - Thing 8

The Flickr mashups are really alot of fun. Great way to generate eye-catching graphics. I could make some cool things for my Promethean board this way. A class Soduku would be alot of fun.

Flicker Assignment for 23 Things - Thing 6

I chose this photo from the many on Flicker because it reminds me of the state of technology in schools, as I see it. There are some really beautiful things going on both in and out of the public view. The scenery can be beautiful, especially in the wealthy places, with lots of great technology resources and savvy administrators. But some administrators, community members and others see it as an exotic place, like Majorca is to me. Because of this, and the economic issues facing education, I see a storm gathering on the horizon, like the thunderheads pictured here.

Great find in the Blogosphere- Things 3 and 4 Does this count?

I followed a link from Wil Richardson's blog in my Bloglines and found this cool application that teaches programing at a very basic visual level. There are some super educational projects, both teacher and student created. I love the paradigm shift toward students as creators of content and not static consumers. Of course it is very scary to some administrators and others in education, as it requires a loosening of control to allow creativity and freedom to think outside the system-created box. Here is a link.
Scratch