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.