To sum up our learning experience in one word:  eye-opening!

Also, we all know that its virtually impossible to learn technology without actively participating.  This on-line class forces you to dive in, make mistakes, and keep clicking until something familiar happens.

I would highly recommend this Region 12 on-line discovery class.  Summer was the best time to “attend” the class too!

Because  I couldn’t wrap my head around all of these communication avenues,  I searched for a quick, visual presentation that could better explain.  http://www.commoncraft.com/twitter

(I have a much better sense of these social networking sites now that I’ve completed the class.  Although I did sign up for twitter, I only used it once to follow a band.  I had many offers from exotics attempting to “follow” me.  Spam in its worse stalker form.)

Week 3, thing 6

Mashups

Fantastic, another great tool for teaching.  I love Flickr Color Pickr because it allows you to not only find images in the same hues, but by catagory.  For example, I clicked on “other color pickrs” and chose grafitti–it brought up images of grafitti.  The coverpop group images are amazing!  You can hover over a particular teeny, tiny image and it provide you with a larger image and details. 

Wow!  I’m huge on cutting letters from magazines, making home-made cards, etc. so I think this mashup is the coolest!!!

Here’s one for my husband, Shannon.

ransomizr
Boy will I use this!  Just gotta play with it some.

Next, I used a flickr toy that pulled pics in from my flickr account and created a cube.  I thought the finished product would be a graphic, but its not.  This would be a cool tool for a class to use while studying a certain topic….like the Civil War, or while writing biographies.  They would import images of their person, print, and fold to form a cube.

I imported pictures from my 2009 BlueBonnet Voting Party.

You could play at BigHugeLabs all day.  I made this fun motivational poster in a matter of minutes.  Great for a bulletin board, huh?

This site is so much fun! 

Here’s an oil resist I did years ago under the spell of artist David Hockney:

Thanks for fun and functional links, Sherry.

Really enjoyed the youtube video on copyright.  Ok, so our instructor built her class upon  Helen Blowers’ Learning 2.0,  program. 

Wanna Work Together is an amazing creation on Creative Commons.  I’m not sure if I need to be instructing my teachers on this topic.  If so, it would be a great tool for a quick presentation.

I’m pretty sure that I will use the intellectual property/copyright resources at Join the CTeam when teaching students about copyright.  This is a dry concept to teach to little guys.

On WorldBookFair.org, I searched for occupational outlook reference books, but found little current information.  The children’s ebook collection included mostly classics or books with historical meaning.  I did do an advanced search and find some audio files of Aesop’s Fables, which could be useful.  I would like the site to allow for filtering or sorting by copyright date.  I found it a little challenging to find anything of use.  (Sorry for the negativity:)

My favorite link (or database) off of World Book Fair by far is Myebook.  Its much easier to find newer titles, as well easier to browse in general.  They have a nice collection of adult comic books and general magazines.  After a few minutes of searching though, I realized that I was mostly viewing exerpts or previews for soon-to-be-released books.  Need to keep exploring…

From the “Best Places to Get Free Books”, I found PinkMonkey to have great potential.  Free book notes on the popular and classic, study guides, test prep, etc.  I also found a link to free textbooks.

I’ve never explored Podcasts before today because I felt like I didn’t have the time to go back and listen to anything.  My life is so consumed with work, kids, bills, planning, lunches, dinners, pets, house…etc.  However, I approached this assignment with an open mind because I will soon be getting a different cell phone that I believe will be more condusive to streaming audio.  I could plug my new phone into the car stereo and listen to radio shows that I’ve missed! So, I immediately visited npr’s podcast directory  and chose my favorite shows.  Adding them to Google Reader was quite easy and certainly a smart way to receive the info (along with other news feeds). 

On one podcast directory, I found a show called The Power of the Positive Mind…and subscribed to it.  I added the official Dave Matthews podcast and got to listen to a live show!  Super-fantastic.  There’s even a nicely done HarperCollins cast that interviews popular authors.  Great for Book Talks.  I liked Podcast Alley’s interface and was pleased to see that I could view the details of the podcast without subscribing to it.

I had a feeling this week’s assignment would be fun.  Although I’ve known for years about youtube, I’ve only visited it a couple of dozen times.  A few years ago, my highschool students were sending me there monthly for me to view the goofy movie spoofs they were creating.  Well, obviously YouTube isn’t just for entertainment anymore.  I laughed my head off at Introducing the Book!  Then, I sent my husband a link to Web 2.0 so that he could get an idea of what I’ve been doing for class.

After searching for a video intro to the library/dewey, I found a useful one that gives a quick summary of the 100′s, 200′s, etc. The video is divided into sections…. Research at your library pt. 1.    I found that in general, the videos are of poor quality and not worthy of being used in the classroom.  Also, take note that you seriously need to preview everysecond of the clip for questionable languge before using.   

TeacherTube is fantastic…less junk, more opportunities.  Immediately, I found a fun, useful clip on the dewey decimal system using sock monkeys that only 4 minutes long.  Well done.  I found a fun animated clip on the state capitals that could be used for review.  My teachers are always asking for short videos on historical figures.  This 5 minute animated clip on George Washington is VERY well done and could serve as an intro or review for a unit for 4-6 grades.  TeacherTube allows you to download the clip directly to your computer as a flv file.  Windows media player will NOT play this type of file unless you have the correct codecs installed.  I think this could be resolved quite easily.

I believe Teacher Tube is easy to use and could be a viable option for teachers.  The “Most Viewed” and “Top Rated” buttons can help you view the cream of the crop.  There’s a channel search that organizes videos by topics and grade levels.  If your class is involved with video production, this would be a great site for suitable examples.

Wow!  Did she save the best for last?  I love LibraryThing.

I joined a group on there called Librarians who LibraryThing and found tons of discussions revolving around book recommendations, reviews of non-fiction, etc.  One post said, “What do you recommend for fans of Twilight?”   And another, “Beyond HS musical”.   It took me probably 15 minutes to join, edit my profile in detail, add 5 books, and find something interesting.  There were discussions on some of my books and I immediately was led to a Doris Lessing book that I want to read.

A small step:  http://sites.google.com/site/sislibraryinfo/

So very easy and fun to do with all of the “gadgets” they let you use.  Six years ago (the last time I touched webcreating), these tools weren’t available.  I’m thrilled!  I will have the school’s webmaster link my page to the school’s homepage.  Now, library news doesn’t much exposure.  Google sites will let me have a little more control over content.