Week 9, Thing 23

The final thing! I have discovered so many cool and helpful sites through this program. Among my favorites are flickr, del.icio.us, and technorati. I am glad to know about mashups, librarything, rollyo, and the RSS google has. My gosh, just listen to me! At the beginning of these "things" I didn't know half of this vocabulary!

An unexpected outcome is more confidence in my computer skills. I was a little afraid that I would be getting in over my head and not understand how to use some of this new information I've received. But, classroom 2.0 was very user-friendly, and I am happy for that.

If classroom 2.0 were to have a second installment, I would gladly sign up for it. I feel so much more savvy for completing these "things," each of which was rewarding in its own way. Yay for classroom 2.0!

Week 9, Thing 22

I had heard of Project Gutenberg before doing this "thing," but i was not aware of the vast amount of free download sites for books. I investigated several, including manybooks.net where I found I could download Joyce's Ulysses in several formats, including PDF and audio! I also looked at bookcrossing .com and found that there is a lot of book sharing going on in my own fair city of Camarillo, including out of a motel just a mile or so away!

I had no idea that I could go on the internet and find all of these free sites and places to share books. I am in heaven! I use the library, but I still end up spending tons of money on books that I now know I could be downloading for free! I love this "thing"!

Week 9, Thing 21

Podcast.net didn't really have anything for junior high history, but I did see several podcasts on book reviews that I will go back and listen to. At podcastalley I found a history clip of the week podcast which I added to my RSS reader. I found gabcast through yahoo's podcast search engine, and it had many podcasts on topics I teach-- something new to try with the students. I think a short podcast could help with their listening skills in addition to adding to their knowledge of history.

I noticed that a lot of podcasts were weekly. The ones I listened to were pretty well done; after years of listening to NPR, I really enjoy a good audio broadcast.

It would be interesting to have the students do oral histories as podcasts. So often they tell me things that older relatives have said about topic areas. I would love to collect their recollections and put them beside what the students have learned from their text and other resources.

Week 9, Thing 20

I have been familiar with YouTube for about a year now and have used it in my teaching on many occasions, most recently to show my students an example of the Khoisan or "click" language of Africa.

I had not viewed Web 2.o before now, nor had I viewed Introducing the Book, which I found very funny and not too far from the truth. Many are as intimidated by the new technology as that poor monk was by the book! I know I am very lucky to have been willing to try new things-- 23 to be exact.

Week 8, Thing 19

I posted five books on LibraryThing, then checked how many other people had listed those books. As I expected, popular fiction like Wicked had a lot more than obscure science fiction like The Mind Parasites. I checked out the Robert Jordan groups, and as I expected, most of the conversation was about the final book (when and if it will be published due to Jordan's life-threatening illness). LibraryThing would be a great way to recommend readings to my students since parents often ask me to recommend books about other cultures. I could also see what other educators are saying about these books. Nice website and a great tool!

Week 8, Thing 18

Week 8, Thing 18

Using online productivity tools is a real eye-opener. I like the idea of being able to save as HTML of pdf and being able to work on and offline. It is also pretty amazing that I can post from here to my blog, as I hope to be doing

at the end of this document after I try out a few of its bells and whistles.

Well, I tried out some of those bells and whistles and was able to post this to my blog-- yay! I really like how easy it was to use Zoho Writer. I can see using it as a tool to edit group work (either my own or my students'), and I can also use it with my yearbook girls over vacations, since half of us are PC and the other half Apple and our word processing programs can't always talk to each other. I wish I'd known about this productivity tool sooner!

Week 7, Thing 17

Like the term "wiki" I didn't know what a "sandbox" was-- neat concept. I probably should have completed this thing before my last post, since what I would've said here I already said there. Yet, I do like the idea presented about the "kid-o-pedia"-- kind of like what I was trying to get at in my previous post. And, the idea of assigning login names or numbers to the students makes a lot of sense as far as keeping posts appropriate.