Final Reflections

Wow! What a journey this has been! It feels great to be be done. I feel good about this big accomplishment! I can honestly say that I'm not so intimidated by computer technology anymore! It's just finding the time, but I have to say that having a laptop will make a big difference in being able to spend time learning more and just getting the everyday stuff done. I just need to hook up to wireless in my home and I'll be all set! I definitely will continue to explore more tools on my own and if you offer other courses, I want to participate! I found that I can print while off line and when I connect at school my stuff will print. How awesome is that!? I am so thankful that we had a year to get this done as my computer's hard drive crashed last summer and I had to get it fixed, which took about a month and then it was time to get ready for the new school year. As you can see by the late hours that I post that this computer thing is getting addictive. Trying to get through this course was challenging when I worked by myself. I seemed to be mentally and physically exhausted by Thursdays when your help was available. I really enjoyed working with a partner for a couple days this month, as we got each other going and motivated to finish! We each approached the tasks along a different path and shared our discoveries, which made for twice as much learning!
My favorites include Gmail, Pageflakes, YouTube, United Streaming, Google Maps, and blogging. This class has made me focus in on how to use technology in the classroom and our new computers will make it doable. I am really excited to get started. I am so happy to know how to download videos from United Streaming! I'm glad that I can look back at other participant's blogs and your comments and suggestions. They help all of us with suggestions and lesson ideas. If I see something cool that they did, I can ask them how they did it if I can't figure it out. What surprised me most is that I really enjoyed this course and that I actually feel that I understand most of what I'm doing.
Thank you Beth and Ryan for all the work you've put into putting this course together, the help you've provided and all the feedback! Don't feel guilty about the time we've put in as it's been long overdue. I would recommend this course to others.

Google Maps

I liked this site. I enjoyed looking at the Mashups! I found a lot of info on colleges. My daughter was accepted to Williams in Massachusetts and Reed in Oregon, on the best list, and to Mount Holyoke in Massachusettes, where she went to school, was on the most beautiful campuses map. We teach about Skagit Valley and use a map unit to do it. In fact, it's a third grade performance task. I created a map to help teach my students. I'm hoping that they can add their own text to help them study. They can start with a map and mark locations on the map. I was unsuccessful in adding a picture, but I see that you can click on the more button and select photos and it puts them on the map. I checked it out and they really are photos from that general location. Although they may not be something you'd want them to focus on! I know this is a site students can use for many science and social studies activities, such as looking at Google Earth and such.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=114800169785942233300.0004554464dfed6117d41&ll=48.483846,-122.537384&spn=0.461498,0.869293&z=10

Rollyo

I spent a few sessions looking this over and I didn't get it at first. I guess it's hard to wrap your mind around something that's confuses you. I was sidetracked down many sites I didn't really want to look at, but then I took a look at what you wanted us to do, and I think I managed it. It's just hard to think of a search engine I want to create that I would use. I ended up with a health topic. There are many sites I use on a regular basis ans some new ones I want to take a look at when I have a chance. I can delete them later if I find I don't like them. I don't think I'd use this for students as I didn't find it very easy to navigate. I'm getting tired of setting up accounts and this one was not very easy to follow.


http://rollyo.com/winbent2/health_advice_sites/

Orang Utan -- Mutter und Kind

Orang Utan -- Mutter und Kind
Originally uploaded by realwidia

I did all kinds of fun things on flickr. I wish I hadn't gotten so sidetracked. I posted pictures of my granddaughter on a private setting, but then I felt really uncomfortable, so after emailing and sharing with Beth and my son. I deleted them. I plan on deleting my account since I had to sign up for a yahoo email address. I'm not comfortable having so many accounts! I noticed that Gmail has a photo sharing application called Picasa web albums, that I think I'll check out. The Yahoo homepage for the email was pretty cool. I may explore more later. Anyway, I did learn how to upload pictures from the web, iPhoto, and the photos from my computer, (are they public?) onto flicker and/or my blog, so that's pretty good for me! I can see how adding descriptions, tags, titles, and grouping pictures on flickr is a great way to organize your photo collection and share if you want to. My father-in-law would have been blown away by this technology! He always use to be a stickler for dating and writing a short blurb on the back of every picture he took!
At first I thought this might be a fun way to share classroom photos, but I realize this isn't appropriate, so I will definitely be use flickr for myself.

Image Generator

This was an interesting site for different generator tools. I tried a text generator tool that I thought would be fun to add pop to "My Space," but I'm blocked out here at school, so I haven't tried it. The comics generator was fun and I could see third graders, especially boys having a lot of fun with this. I think this site is just for fun, a great place to spend some free time.



http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/

Newsletters in a Pop

I like this tool. I can't get over that it's free. The advantage I see is that I can email pictures and news to parents and they can read them! Many times parents do not have the programs to be able to view what is sent, so this would eliminate that. If parents do not have internet access, I can print a copy and send it by kid. This is a fairly easy tool to use, though I think you said that you could move things around and I couldn't see how to do that. This tool would be very easy for students to use. I could upload photos of their artwork or of them (perhaps of "student of the month"), or just photos of them at work and then have students write about the photo. They can construct a paragraph to go with the photo and type it in. This way they are part of the newsletter writing process. Here is a link to a "pretend newsletter," although it has the ideas that I want to use.

http://letterpop.com/builder.php?action=begin&title=Third+Grade+News

Swivel

Rosa and I are still working hard! At first I didn't like Swivel, since I'm not very fond of looking at data and I majored in psychology, imagine that! The more I played around with it the better I liked it except that I'm concerned that anyone can look at your data. I would consider data collected from my class to be confidential. I think though that I could use this as an activity for students to manipulate fake data for practice using this tool and for practice with technology. Is ther a way to keep data on swivel private?

On the Fly Concept Mapping

This one I love! I can use this tool for beginning a new unit as a KWL map, for summarizing a story or concept mapping in art, science, social studies, and just about any curriculum area. Rosa and I played around with the concept map together. It was great to manipulate the boxes and arrows so easily. I like the highlighting feature and being able to import a picture and being able to draw free hand. I'll use this as a whole class activity using the above ideas and for brainstorming ideas such as report writing, poetry, art, and creative writing ideas, paragraph writing, (topic sentence, details, and conclusion). What I don't like is that it may take too long for students to do their own concept map for individual or small group work. All in all, I like this tool.

#10 Moodle Part 2

I looked over and viewed the tutorials in #10, enroll students , add groups, moodle course settings, student enrollment, and creating groups. It looks like I could do it if I had a moodle course! There is not a place to set up a course, so I'm assuming that this is for those who are interested. I've looked over some of the courses in "Sandbox" and I have to say that there are some talented, ambitious and dedicated teachers in our district. WOW! This is not something I'm interested at this time, but perhaps Susanne and I might set something up if the need arises.

Google Docs

Boy do I ever spend a lot of time exploring and then I feel guilty for not doing other things, like sleeping! It's 1:00 am and I've been looking at "Google Docs" for over 2 hours. You can sure get side tracked and it's why I don't let myself click on too many extras. I found a cool template to make your own calendar for 2009, but I'd like to take some current photos of my grandkids and get them uploaded on my computer so I can make a calendar. I also looked at a spreadsheet of a school calendar and typed in some entries. I tried to find it later, but was only able to locate older versions. I don't know what I did! My favorite is Google Reader as it's how I spend most of my time when I'm on the computer. I looked at Obama's reading list and got hung up on that! I can see how creating and sharing a document in Google docs would be useful in keeping and securing it in one place!

YouTube & Teacher Tube

Due to the slow speed of my laptop, this was a frustrating experience. The videos took a long time to download, so only showed in bits and pieces, so that you really didn't get the jist of the video. For example, On Teacher Tube, I was trying to look at a multiplication rap, but you couldn't get the full effect of the rap. The comments for this video were great, so I think it was a good one. The other thing that I found frustrating, was that I couldn't find age appropriate items even though I looked at groups, then searched "elementary, and grades K-5. You Tube is always fun to spend time on, but again this was frustrating due to the slow speed of this computer today. I can't think of a way to use these tools as a way to promote reading and writing except to show a clip as a starting point for writing or find a clip that has writing for students to read, such as the science clip Rosa found that had clues, and students tried to guess what the animal was. Here is a clip I 'll use from School House Rock.

United Streaming

I am so happy to finally learn how to download videos from United Streaming. Susanne uses this a lot to enrich our curriculum. She always USE to say , "Just download it from United Streaming." I was too embarrassed to ask for help, since I could never remember what my user name or password were. (I registered a few years ago) In order to download videos this time, I was forced to remember! Thank goodness I didn't get locked out and was able to try several combinations of user name and password to get in, only I can't remember what I typed for the password! Trial and error will get me back in! I was successful in downloading a video about making friends, which I plan on using this year. There a lot more videos I saw that I can download later. I started a folder in my content, but only the download date appeared. I'm thinking that the video will take a while longer to show up. Do you know if this is correct, or did I do something wrong? At least I know how to use to use United Streaming now. Since this is an election year, I'm going to have students look at some suitable videos on Schoolhouse Rock and YouTube.

web 2.0 awards

I had a great time investigating these sites. I spent way too much time looking over craigslist, a site I've never looked at before. I found the cocktail builder site most useful as I was looking for a receipe for mojitos, which I found, made, and enjoyed on a hot summer day! I don't think either of these two sites would be useful for school use, but fun for me. Lulu or Flickr would both be useful in making photo books or calendars as gifts for parents, but costly. Flickr is great to share photos online and wouldn't cost teachers anything and parents could purchase photos if they want them.