thing #17

• Which podcasts did you preview? Self Improvement Tips Podcasts  and Cool Teacher Podcast Podcasts.
• What did you think? I think these can be useful in and out of the classroom.  Especially with teaching as a career, it is important to always stay a step ahead of your students.  The podcasts are just another example of gaining knowledge through technology.
• Which directories did you search and were you able to find podcasts of value?PODCASTDIRECTORY.COM and iTUNES
• Do you have any ideas about incorporating existing podcasts into your classroom or professional learning?  I can tie anything I need to into a lesson to make it both challenging and fun.  Students could use this as a bell ringer, for projects, research, etc.  The possibilities are endless.
• If you already use iTunes (or other podcatcher) and/or have an iPod or other MP3 player that you use for podcast listening, please share a bit about your experiences.  

          I live by my ipod.  I download tons of free podcasts and music.  We are supposed to prepare our students for the world.  We should use any and everything we can to make learning fun.  I am very down to earth with my students and believe the best way for them to learn is through things that are familiar and relevant to them.

thing #16

So.....how could we not use this in classroom learning and organization?  I like that this site encourages knowledge as power.  It is a community platform for books discussions and suggestions. 

 
"LibraryThing knows a lot about books and how books connect, providing some of the best recommendations on the web.
LibraryThing gives you library-quality data for your books, and is also full of social information. Each book page shows you which members have the book and what they think about it — tags, reviews and even links to conversations about the book."

Another cool thing about this site is that you can keep track of local events and fairs, etc.  You can keep track of your favorite libraries and other local things.  We can use this with our students to encourage knowledge and sharing ideas.  It makes reading fun and you are able to read with a purpose depending on the list you put together.  A fun assignment might be to have students create book lists and trade with a partner.  They could pick a couple of books from that list to read throughout the year with assignments.  They could then post reviews on the class wiki.  I like it!! (FYI: I always blank when I walk into half price books.  I forget all the books I have been keeping a mental list of.  This site would enable me to keep track of these and discover new ones!)

thing #15

I really liked this 'thing'.  I can think of a zillion uses in and out of the classroom to use this site.  It helps with organization and compiling resources in one central place.  Students could compile lists as an assignent that they can use on another.  I love that I can search and get resources I never found on google!
Have fun checking out my bookmarks!  I found many publishing and music related sites, I hope this is of interest to others too!
http://www.delicious.com/theotherotherpov

thing #14

The first site I visited was:
http://tadalist.com/

I think this is a very useful tool for teaching, or everyday life.  I would love to have the students have maybe weekly or monthly lists and grade them on their progress.  This is a great organizational tool and it helps to keep your goals in  plain sight.  I like the fact that people can share lists because it is interesting to see another person's goals.  It might challenge you to expect more from yourself.  With this site, you are able to create your own lists, assign lists to other people, share lists, subscribe via RSS, and more.  I would recommend it.  I've already created two lists!

The second site I visited was:
http://polldaddy.com/

You are able to set up an online survey in minutes and start collecting responses in real-time!  A feature I found that was cool was the ability to interact directly with facebook.  So...I could create a facebook strictly for the classroom, post quizzes in real time and have the students take them and post comments about their reactions.  To stretch their thinking, I could assign them the task of creating their own quizzes and collecting the data on the posted responses.  I am very excited about this one (I know, I'm nerdy!).

THING #13

I used one of the links on the 23things page for images generators: http://www.customsigngenerator.com.




I had fun playing around with different images and comic strips. I think we forget how much fun we can have and how creative we can be, until we are forced to recognize it again! I saved several images to my home comupter that I plan to use in my classroom. So many kids are visual and they appreciate humor. Why not cater to that and utilize tools that could possibly excite them to learn a lesson?!

thing #9

1. I think the sandbox experience was fun. It was like a parent sending their child out into the world to explore on their own. We had a blank slate to combine all of our lessons and create without rules (somewhat)!
I never really thought about all the connections we can make as teachers on many different digital platforms. I am going to utilize the web more than ever in lesson planning when I need a fresh idea. I love all of the new things I have been exposed to!


http://misd23sandbox.wikispaces.com/Finally+I+figured+it+out%21

thing #12 continued...or done right!