Reflections

Wow where do I even begin, what a journey I have been on over the last few months. This  was reccomended by someone I met this summer at a staff development. She told me it was a great resource and everyone should take the class. It is a lot of work and hard to stay focused on one task at a time but well worth every minute. My internet went out at my house for 2 weeks in the process and I thought it was the end of the world I missed all these things like blogging that I had never done before. Thank you for bringing me out of the dark ages. I fill like I can not only carry on a conversation about technology but use resources in my classroom and even teach others. I have 2 friends tha have now started blogging and they love to check their google readers that I showed them how to set up. YEA ME!!! I can not thank you enough for allowing us to embark on this adventuer that will now be never ending. This class will keep going even after the deadlines. I have so many new ideas and I am very happy that I feel more comfortable with the internet world and have resources to help me continue to learn.

Thing 23

Classroom 2.0 has so many resources available for it's members. I could easily spend hours just under one topic. I used the videos and searched for videos on antibullying. Bullying is a big deal these days and I was lookig for anything that I could possibly use to help my students. I like all of the comments that can also be posted to go with the videos. I read the comments before I watched the videos. Most comments were positive and gave some great ideas as to how they might use the video in their classroom. I'm glad I watched the videos and did not just go by what was posted. I found  a few that I can use with my students next week for our teaming up against bullies week. I have writen this post twice now because I had a computer issue and it did not save so I'm having to go back and reread to see if I have really already typed this or if it was on my lost post. I definitely see the benefit in joining 2.0 for collaboration with educators who are using technology in their classrooms.

Twitter is also a great site for collaboration but just like I posted in my last blog I cannot join something else that I want to check continuously. Unless, I just make it for work and do not allow friends or family onto this site. Educators would hopefully limit the amount of sharing on my twit. I think you could do a school twitter and keep up wth meetings and things happening in your school and the lives of the people you work with if you are a close campus and interested in the lives of the people you work with on a daily basis.

Thing 22

I already had a facebook account and probably spend more time than I should checking out what people are doing on a daily basis. It is important for educators to share ideas and to see what is going on around us through these social sites and also to see what is out there for our kids. So we can know what they are doing and interests they may have. I did not create a myspace account I have never had one and honestly think I cannot handle another site that I feel compelled to check on a daily basis. I like the sharing and seeing others pictures but I think people need to be really careful as to what they post because it is writen documentation that could be held against you in a court of law. Myspace and facebook really seem the same to me form looking at other peoples sites. I just stick with the one because I already have it and again think I should just focus on one instead of 2. I am more familliar with facebook and I think it has a lot of graet features. I can see how educators can keep in contact with each other and send messages like email but in a different fashion that will probably be checked more frequently than an email because everyone checks facebook.
My profile is under my name on facebook.

Thing 21

Google has so many resources available for so many different aspects of our lives. I explored google sketchup and google sites. I think google sketchup would be a fun place to play around but I'm not sure how I would use it for my everyday life or in my classroom. I sould possibly use other peoples creations of areas to show my students what downtown dallas looks like but that would be about the limit of how I could see myself using google sketchup.

Google sites would be another resource like google docs that I could definitely see myself getting a lot of use out of for school and home. Again, if I could get my family onboard with a google site we could keep up with each others lives better and stay in contact and know what is going on and when. I could also see this as a great way to keep classroom parents informes. we could post our school newsletters, PTA newsletters, and classroom newsletters and save paper. I can only imagine the amount of paper that is wasted due to newsletters taht are possibly just thrown away. I think parents who would want to stay up on school news would definitely be excited to see an internet friendly way of sharing and conserving resources.

Thing 20

Woohoo something I was a little familiar with before this class. Google docs have become an everyday part of my life over the last few months. Our principal loves google doc so we have to send questionaires and responses all the time. She had us take a quick class to make everyone familiar with the application so we could use it school wide for our newsletter and calendar.

I like how you can send it to anyone and you get the responses. It is an awesome application and easy to use just has all the bells and whistles with spreadsheets, powerpoints, word documents and you can easily share and get feedback. I have easily downloaded party letters to parents and sent them to the new room mom to view and make changes. This is so much better than just emailing a document and then making changes and sending it back.

I like the background options and it's easy to post a whole school document questionaire. We had one last week about buncco. We have also used this to find out who wants to participate in a Christmas party for the staff.

I use it with my teammates, parents, and would love to use it with my family if I could get them all on board with filling out the calendar we would never miss another birthday or family function cause everyone would have a live calendar when they clicked on it to check it out. This could save so many family fueds!!!

Google docs rock!!!

Thing 19

I've never heard of voicethreads until now and I can see how this can be used in educaton. I really enjoyed the first grade book that was done for the alphabet. What a great way to get the kids involved with the writing and recording their voices which means that had to read. I could see doing the same thing with my kindergarten students. We publish a class book every year and this way we could have our own little voices to go along with it and the parents would treasure this forever.
As educators, we could teach a concept and use videothreads to teach our students but one person does not have to do all the talking and kids would like it cause its a voice change.  Kids love to hear voices and I think would really enjoy using voicethreads to help others learn or to learn themselves.
Very interesting concept that I will have to explore some more so i can use this in my classroom.

Thing 18

YouTube is not a new resource for me. I've been sent numerous emails with videos or logged onto facebook to see videos that others have posted to their page. I have seen many how to videos related to technology, teaching, and home improvement. I will try almost any type of repair as long as I do not have to pay someone to come out and fix something of mine and there are many helpful videos that I have used.
I am new to TeacherTube, I am very excited to learn about this resource. I just spent a few hours researching and watching videos on teachertube. Educators truly amaze me at the things they will post to help others. It is greatness, I appreciate their bravery and abilities. One of the videos that I found very interesting for my age group was MORE Kindergarten Power Teaching with NEW PHONICS RAP!. This teacher has her kids using gestures to learn and this is a great tool. I love how they have memorized and practiced the rules. They all interact very well with her and each other. I am interested in her methods of power teaching and ready to do some more research to find out other strategies that are used in this type of classroom environment.
I can most definitely see myself using teachertube with my students. The resources are amazing and video clips are a great attention getter for all ages.

Thing 17

Yea this was something I had actually done before this class. I have listened to a few podcasts on how to do things. Very informative and specific podcasts to certain computer programs or radio podcasts. The podcasts that I vivsited for this activity were tech teachers which give some great helpful resources on how to. I really love the grammar girl podcast. I could see myself using that one to teach, tutor and help my kids with their homework. Grammar is a weakness of mine and I'll be happy to use this site again and again it is now a part of my google feed. It's amazing how one podcast can lead you to so many more. I work out a lot and have started training to run a 10k. While checking out grammar girl I saw a podcast on running. Now I have a get fit feed that I get running tips and dieting tips on. I know it has nothing to do with education but I still found it while on an education site. It's amazing how we happen upon so many wonderful things by originally exploring something completly different.
I do have an itunes account and have podcasts on the account that I can listen to while I run or work out. I enjoy listening and it's a great resource to have available for any one young or old. I have not used podcats with my students yet but I can definitely see me doing this in the future.

Thing 16

So may resources avaiable to us this world of technology just offers every resouce imaginable. I'm feeling like I'm coming out of the dark ages and actually have a clue about some of the things that people who were right out of college are talking about and doing. Exploring Library Thing was a very well organized and easily accessible site. The suggesters and search categories make it simple to use and easy to get lost in time exploring.

I could definitely use the catalog system to organize my classroom books. I have atleast 10,000 books and I continue to buy more so it would be nice if I had them each logged somewhere so I would know for sure if I owned a specific book. However, this could take years of summer breaks to accomplish this task. I have the books categorized at school by different times of the year when I need them but occassionally I get new books that are good anytime and I would love to find an electronic system and classroom real world system that could together help me keep up with all my books.

I love to read so I can also see myself using this site to see what new books are out that I might be interested in reading outside of my classroom.

Thing #15

Delicious was an interesting adventure.  I like how I can tag any website and easily find what I have tagged and then send it to others. My link is http://delicious/kimhearn81. I found a lot of awesome phonics activites that I can now easily share with colleagues. It was easy to explore and play around with tagging any site by numerous tags. However, you have to be careful not to tag to with too many different key words because then you might forget what exactly you were originally looking for in the first place.

This would be a great resource to use for partner work in graduate courses because you could tag and share with your partners all that you had found on your research. I would have loved to use this site during all of my research based days.

I could also use this now with my team mates at work. When we are teaching a new concept like nouns. I could tag all the good sites I have found on nouns and they could do the same and we might get some new games or resources to try with our friends.

I will most definitely use this resource with my colleagues in the future and maybe even parents of my students.

Thing 7A&B

I have been following a few blogs about Ireland and teachers who have set off on a journey to teach there for a few months or years. I have learned many little idioms that are used daily in Irish culture like half 2 means 2:30. Also, they say good boy or good girl when a child answers a question correctly which makes me think of how I talk to my dogs. I am learning a lot of good things to know before I journey over there in March. The blog that I received  all of the facts from was 2 weeks of full teaching in Ireland.  I even joined this page on facebook so I can see what she posts on either to learn all the new things as she experiences the culture.

I am very excited about the google reader because now I can join anything of interest and find out more through the blogs. I can join readers for school or travel. I find this so incredibly overwhelming yet exciting at the same time.

Thing 14

I created a comic strip using my vacation photos and even put it in my family scrapbook by using  http://pikistrips.com/.  I'm sure my students would love for me to use this in there scrapbooks or even to create them for different holidays using there pictures. This would be a great way for them to practice reading. I'm sure the kids would love to also create their own.

I also used  http://letterpop.com/ I made a newsletter of our Kindergarten fieldtrip and a page for our PTA scrapbook. It is very easy to use and has a ton of backgrounds that are categorized by themes. I will most definitely use this for parent letters and scrapbooks.

Incase you have not noticed I love scrapbooking. I make scrapbooks for each kid in my class and my family so any time I find something that I can use with my hobby I am thrilled.

I really enjoyed exploring each of the sites but these two listed were my favorites.

Thing 13

Using generators to make almost anything is a great way to spend an evening being creative.  I think I could use the generators as writing prompts and use the signs to post rules for centers or numerous other things we need rules for in our room. The comics would be great for the kids to create their own with a reading buddy because I think it maybe to hard for them to do on their own.

Here is an example of a sign I made with custom sign generator. I made the license plate under license plate and sign under construction signs.

Students could make their own license plates as name plates for their tables. The steps to create these are very easy. Each step is labeled 123. It is well written out for all to follow and the best part is you do not have to join a site and remember yet another password. Anyone can go on and explore, create and save their creation without passwords. WOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!

Thing 12

I downloaded pictures to use for this but thought it would be more fun and useful if I used my own photos for this activity and now I can use this in my family scrapbook. My scrapbooks have just become so much more amazing over night. I am really enjoying using our family vacation photos to make comicstrips and slideshows. My students would love seeing these at school. Also, the kids who love comics would eally enjoy reading about themself or creating their own comic to share about themself or a topic of interest. This is so much fun! I have spent the day playing with pictures in between printing my creations off and scrapping them... scrapbooking is my favorite past time so anything creative I can do with pictures seems to keep my attention. I cannot wait to make comicstrips to use with my kiddos word wall words that are on their levels. The possibilites are endless.

Thing 11

Picture by Pepe50 was found by searching Flickr Creative Commons for dogs. I love flickr!!!! I am so excited to search on this site and even download my own photos. I use pictures a lot in kindergarten. We use pictures to write stories and to develop vocabulary. Well the list goes on and on. This picture above would be awesome for writing is he tired or sad or possibly both?

Flickr is very easy to use and easy to spend hours searching to find just the right photo. I like how the photos have tags so you can find a photo to match ezactly what you are searching for very quickly. Therefore, I can find get pictures that can teach sequencing, different sizes and they are real pictures. kids love to learn using real pictures. I could find a bunch of pet photos and we could create a class book about pets that we would like to have at our home. Seriously the ideas are neverending. I knew about photobucket because i have had emails form friends to go check out their pictures on photobucket but I did not realize that there were sights were you could just search through peoples photographs. I will most definitely be using Flickr with the little people either by printing off some pictures or even going on site with the kids and showing them how I found the pictures.

Here is my example for the stretch activity. I only spent a few hours playing around with the shape collages and will use this one in our school scrapbook. It is all the pictures I took of our health fair.  I love the mosiac maker and I can use this in my kiddos scrapbooks as well and the kids can make collages with pictures of any topic that they present to the class.

Thing 10

Creative Commons is very important for our profession. We create things daily that we share because we are educators and our job requires us to teach all and this happens through sharing. I have not created anything and placed a copyright on it because anyone should be able to benefit from educational ideas. I do find it interesting how easy it is to use many things posted in the world technology.

I have noticed CC on some of the videos I've seen and thought I understand how they would like for others to notice how it can be shared. Yes, I use video clips a lot with the little people because they can pay attention to clips easier than listening to me. I also use promethian lessons and powerpoints that were created by others for educators to use freely with students.

I feel as if all educators have rights to teaching materials that have been made public. Ideas are out once they have been shared with one student or one person. Then everyone has the right to use those ideas to help others learn.

To go right along with the above comments that makes me excited to see websites like the OER Commons. I like how educators can access websites like these and share ideas and help our kids be successful. I can not wait to play around some more with this site and find some new ideas for certain concepts that we teach in Kindergarten.

Thing 9

The wikispaces sandbox was a bit scary at first. I saw all of the directions and became overwhelemed so much so that it has taken me weeks to get back on and actually accomplish this task. I don't think my sandbox is cool...I just posted what the directions stated and I liked visiting the other sandboxes to see how creative fellow classmates are at this task. Like I stated earlier it was a bit overwhelming at first but now I think I can wiki developing a few skills here and there. I like how anyone can join that is accepted and edit the page.
It was neat to see how everyone could add websites or really anything to the wiki and this helps everyone by giving new ideas for us to use with our students. I really like the concept of the wiki and can't wait to become more comfortable so I can cvreate one for teachers at our school. My sandbox page is http://misd23sandbox.wikispaces.com/crazy. The process at first was making my head go crazy so hints the name.

Thing #8 Stretch Activity

I feel completly lost and confused on the wikipedia site. On the main page was a poem about Autumn and I clicked on the discussion tab and it just had links to other wikipedia news and references to the main page. Nothing related to the poem itself which is what I think I was supposed to be looking for through this activity.

Wikipedia has a ton of information and I feel a bit overwhelmed just by the thought of going back to look for anything. I looked at the history and clicked on a few that had current article and previous articles related. Just like I posted in the beggining of this responce I felt a little lost throughtout this process. I'm not sure what I'll be using the wikipedia for in the future but hopefully after I play around with it some more I won't feel so frustrated.

Thing #8

Wow who knew this world of wiki's would be such an amazing resource for teachers? I am intrigued by just the few that I visited from the list that we were given in this activity. I wish I had many more hours in the day to keep researching new wiki's and blogs. This can start to consume all of your not so extra time. It is very exciting but scary at the same time to look up and realize how much time you have spent reading and searching on the computer just for one topic.

I have been trying to figure out a time and way to incorporate the Kindergarten Counting wiki into my math centers. I think I can have a counting center and the numbers that are missing we ccould count out objects of that many and take a quick picture. Then when they rotate and go to computers we could load the picture and add to the wiki. The kids would enjoy this... the actual wiki did not have very much to it... it was very simple compared to the other I researched. Great for simplicity for the little ones not a lot to click on or distract them, however not a great one for adults to disscuss or find links on to other resources.  This wiki made me feel like I could create one similar and use it with the little people.

The next wiki that I visited was Salute to Suessand this one was a little overwhelming to a newbie. Tons of links, resources, disscussions, kids examples, dates as to which to skype and celebrate Dr. Suess. Great ideas and a very creative resource but maybe a bit much for someone like me just getting started. I do like how it was organized just tooo much information.

The last site I wanted to mention was primary math wiki. Great idea to help teachers post lessons and love the pictures and videos to show others how to do the lessons. This wiki has a lot of information but is easy to follow and I even find it welcoming to educators to post leesons on for all to enjoy. It is organized in a way where anyone can follow a long and not feel stressed trying to find a lesson.

I do feel like I could create a wiki for Kindergarten that students and techers could possibly use together. I have all of the ideas spinning in my head right now as to which one i would want to create first. I think we could easily do a themed writing one and it would even be easy for the parents to follow at home. The best part about it is it's free for all involved.

Thing #7

Commenting fortunately is easy for most educators. We typically have a comment for everything and have been trained over the years to make those comments positive and to the point. Which is very beneficial in commenting to blogs. Some people ramble on and on about a blog when they could have made their point in their first sentence. Luckily as a reader I can skim through those types of comments quickly and move on. I have also seen some where it is a great debate and the commenting posts are arguing with the original blog posts and those are very entertaining. I'm sure this is like a sport for some people they want to voice their oppinions and try to persuade others. Reading comments on some of the blogs are the most interesting part of the piece.

Thing #6

Wow this subscribing to blogs is so exciting. I love to travel and am now a member of many different blogs related to traveling. I've also joined a few that show educators experiences as they work in other countries. This is an amazing new adventure for me.  I love how I can read something of interest and if I  have a question post a comment and it is answered. I like how when I go to the reader it shows me all the content in bold which is definitely overwhelming but I'm adjusting. I'm spendng a lot more time reading off of the computer these days which is not the most relaxing read but I am now realizing how people can leave work and come home and spend hours on the computer. I don't watch television or typically spend much time with objects that use electricity at my home. However, since this new adventure I'm sure my electric bill will go up due to the endless hours of reading interesting posts. I'm not complaining it's just changing my world one blog at a time. I guess you could say I've lived in the dark ages at home until now. My favorite new link has to be http://www.fact-and-opinion.com/irelandtravel

thing 5

Adding the google reader has sent me a wealth of knowledge. I love to travel and was excited to see some travel information. However, some are not so positive about the times to travel due to recent terrorists attacks. This is a warning for people who intend on traveling to Europe.
Travelers are being told to not take tours or students should not plan on traveling to Europe during this time. Al Quadia people have been making threats and are targeting tourists amongst others. This is a great topic to research for your own safety before traveling. Unfortunately in todays times we have to worry about terrioism attacks and our safety while traveling.
 This article shows that and gives other links to help the people who want to visit Europe be more aware of the dangers and I'm sure a way of keeping them posted of when would be a better time to travel.
The link to this information is http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03security.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Thing #4

Blogs are like old school journaling and teachers could post comments at the bottom and pass them around for other classmates to comment on as well. Except blogs are a little more open to a larger audience then just one class of students. Blogs are more to the point and easier to just set down and spend time scrolling to read. You don't have the thickness of a book to discourage you or pages to count you just keep scrolling down so what an advantage to people who are easily distracted. Blogs are still writing for a purpose so that makes a connection to other types of journaling. Blogs can be very informative and full of strong opinions and great debates. You can easily see how there can be so many comments quickly to a heated topic. All writing is purposeful so to me it's similar to all types of writing... prompted or free writes. When someone comments to a blog they add their knowledge and it gives a deeper understanding to the subject and new ideas for all the readers. Blogging is fast pace and to the point so it makes me feel like I have time to get something accomplished and learn some new up to date info in a quick way. You have to read what is written and also it makes you question some of the things that were posted so you have to research some of the ideas to ponder hmmmm does this technique really work? Sometimes this will facilitate learning because it makes you question and search looking to justify what you have read or giving you information to contradict what has been posted via a blog.

Thing 2 Thoughts about web 2.0

I'm very excited and nervous about web 2.0... I have a lot to learn and am eager to continue on this journey. Creating a classroom blog is just an idea or way this has already changed my thinking... it would be awesome to post stories, activities and I'm sure teachers and parents use this all the time and I'm excited that now I know how. Using short clips and videos to teach the kids web skills is a great idea to catch todays digital learners. Everything revolves around technology so the kids love anything to do with videos and exploration. I even love watching the how to videos so this is going to help me branch out and search for anything I hear about in the world of technology. Instead of acting like I've heard about something I can search and go to you tube to watch a video on how to podcast or whatever it may be.

thing #1 Reflections of lifelong learning

Most challenging will be view problems as challenges because I just want to conquer a problem and solve it ... I like to avoid problems. Another challenge will be using technology to my advantage because I am trying to learn new technology to use with my students but slowly incorporating it into everyday use with all that I teach.
Habits that will be easy for me are beginning with the end in mind... because I love to set goals and accomplish them so that is the way my mind works. Accept responsibility for my own learning is also easy because I love to learn and am constantly trying to challenge myself. Teaching and mentoring others is done on a daily basis so this will be another habit that I am already on board with and trying to do consistently.
Most important habits for this course will be creating my own toolbox and making time to play.