Last Thing #23

My favorite discoveries were Delicious, Flickr , The library thing , PhotoStory and Wikipedia. I also enjoyed making my avatar, my skin, and learning how to manage my blog which at first was a bit overwhelming but once I crossed that line everything got easier.
From here on I have a countless amount of resources to satisfy the needs in my classroom. I know I will be sharing it and using it at school this year.
One thing that kind of surprise me was Google. I knew that it was a great search engine but I was not aware of its amount of applications and how interconnected they are with other tools. It made it easy to navigate from one place to another. One thing that I had hard time was getting permission to place my comment in the Wikki's sandbox.
I think 23 things is too much. In my opinion, half as many tools would be better with more specific assignments to practice in each one.
I would love to participate in another Tech program. As a long life learner, in this ever changing cyberspace, there are always new tech things to cultivate myself.
23 things is an amazing opportunity to grow in the field of technology. The amount of useful technology at the teachers and librarians' hands lends itself to provide the desired or needed information to satisfy the demands required at work. Even though it is time consuming it is worth it.
I enjoyed reading the comments in other participants' blogs and seeing the creativity in their skins and blog design. I will do more on that now that I have completed all my discovery assignments.

Thing #22

This is the first time I have heard of Ning, a social network for teachers. One of the features I liked is that Ning is easy to use and that it has interesting posts to learn from. http://teacherlingo.com/ I Like this teacher lounge in Ning. It is a place where you can share your good and not so good days, get ideas for lessons, find other teachers in your field, etc.
At school, this tool lends itself for collaboration and vertical alignment communication among teachers. I don't think I would use Ning with my students in my Kinder classroom. However, I will keep it in mind to share it with my team mates. I like that you have the option to keep it private and allow participants to join in just by invitation.

Thing #21

I created a small photostory about my daughter's first MS150 tour from Houston to Austin. I used the pictures that I had at hand. I can't use my student's pix w/o an authorization, but I can see that this is a wonderful tool to create a photoStory CD to give parents as a memory of their children's activities done in kinder throughout the school year.

Thing # 20 continues

CRI-CRI (LA MARCHA DE LAS LETRAS) This song has been one of my students' favorite througout my teaching career. The students sing it and role play it using a large visual of each vowel. I found several thematic songs and stories on video that I could use in my dual language kinder classroom.

Thing #20

Action Poems and Songs Printable (Pre-K - 3rd Grade) - TeacherVision.com

Thing#19

The useful feature about this tool is that it provides easy access ; it compiles all of the best search engines and resources in one place without having to bookmark them individually.
I think this tool is useful for libraries because it allows librarians to provide a more thorough service to its patrons in the sense that it has all the best search engines and websites with all categories from business, to cooking; therefore it targets every type of consumers, students and people who like to stay up to date in current events.
This tool is useful at school to find, in one place, all the search engines depending on the type research aimed, to find educational resources, technology resources such educational games, videos, communications with other teachers and schools, etc.
I could use this tool in my classroom to find teaching resources such visuals, ideas, current international trends related to my daily work. However, I believe I will use, more consistently, other tools previously joined such as delicious, Flickr, Wiki,etc.

Thing #18

In this discovery exercise, I explored Google Doc as well as the multiplatform and the multilingual office suite which I liked. I am in the process to download it but it is taking a bit too long. I like the fact that I can work in other language and use the conveniences of dictionaries and editing tools as well as other nice features.

I also looked into Google Docs and I noticed that I already had two items in this place, a calendar and a resume. A prospect employee, for an organization I belonged, sent me a resume created in Google Docs, to my gmail account and it stayed public. I see this as a disadvantage for personal information is disclosed. One of the advantages of Google Docs is that it can be used as a platform for collaboration among team members when writing a common paper/project, unlike Microsoft office where it requires e-mail communication for this type of collaborative work.

Thing #17

I created my own customized search.It still work in progress to add more good sites to share with other teachers. The video was a great help and easy to follow. As any other tool training it is time consuming and it takes time and practice to master it. I will keep adding more sites to my Rollyo to make it more efficient.
http://rollyo.com/index.html

Thing #16

The Wiki video helped me to clarify my concept of this site. I had the wrong idea thinking that it was just another encyclopedia. It is a lot more than that! I had visited Wikipedia but I had no idea that anyone could edit the page by adding reliable facts.
I think Wiki is a great tool that I could use with my grade level team for planning to give specific assignments and to share activities for the lessons; this way, we make sure everyone is actively participating by adding something to the board. I like it and I am sure I will use it as one of my resources this coming school year. It will be good also to add comments from assigned book studies.
I opened an account with Wiki and posted my experience with the 23 Things in it, but for some unknown reason, I can't get my comments of the #16 thing in the Sandbox with the other participants. After I read some of the comments, it was nice to see that I share the same feelings and ideas as all the other participants.

Thing #15

First of all, I watched the video from the Kansas State University. I hadn’t realized the amount of time college students spend every day using all sorts of technology for different purposes such as school, entertainment or just socializing.

I read the post " Away from the Iceberg" by David Warlick, and he made me realize how hard librarians work to meet all the needs of the patrons. He mentions that it is important to educate the patrons on how to use the new technology so they can help themselves locate the exact information without having to waste time searching and spend more time reading and learning. But first, librarians and even teachers have to be knowledgeable of google applications, like Flickr's, Blog This, and other easy to use programs like page creator, so they can to convey it to others and make the library services and research more accessible from any where.

Furthermore, Chip Nilges mentions in " More Powerful Ways to Cooperate" the importance of Web 2.0 in the libraries functions where WorldCat plays a very important role bringing together world wide up to date information accessible to the touch of a button. Like other bloggers mentioned, Library 2.0 is also being actively used at my school,. My librarians stays up to date in technology and in the cyber world. She is always willing to share with the teachers new discoveries in technology that benefits everyone's job. We're lucky to have someone who wants to grow and learn, and enjoys sharing with her patrons, teachers and students. She inspires us as classroom teachers to be opened minded and a little daring in incorporating new technology into our teaching.

As a teacher and student I can live with this to make my life easier now that time is so scarce. I am able to do my research without leaving the classroom/home. I like to implement technology in my teaching, and by becoming aware of all of this programs and resources, I can present the students current digital information of any given theme.