Thing 22: Ning

My initial reaction to Ning was that it felt very overwhelming and confusing. I wasn’t exactly sure where to go when the home page popped up. However, once I found the Forums section, I was a little more excited. I enjoyed reading some of the conversations. I read one conversation about whether or not a teacher should try blogging with his 7th and 8th grade class. I think it is beneficial to be able to bounce ideas back and forth with like-minded professionals. I really do not have any ideas of how I would personally use Ning in my classroom. With a class the size of ours, I think we would be more productive just using a Wiki or a blog to communicate information.

Thing 21: Pageflakes

Pageflakes seems to bring everything that we have learned about together. It’s basically like having your own, awesome website that people can come to and be redirected to many different types of media–pictures, blogs, videos, etc. In fact, I was just thinking yesterday that the only way to really use many of these Web 2.0 tools would be to have a class blog to serve as a “headquarters” for the students to go to. But now that I know about Pageflakes, I think that it would serve as an even better “headquarters”. Pageflakes could support classroom learning by providing a place for me to upload specific videos, articles, blogs, etc that I would want students to use as we are learning about a specific topic. Students would be able to easily access these things even at home–which would open up many new doors for home assignments! I am very excited to know about Pageflakes.

Thing 20: Google Docs

Google Docs is so practical and useful! I really like it and plan to use it. Below I have listed some of my ideas for incorporating Google Docs into my classroom:

This is the most obvious idea, but using Google Docs as a means for my students to turn in their Grammar Papers would be great. I could write notes and make correction using the computer–which is much faster. I think I will definitely implement this for our research papers that are coming up–it will be much easier to grade/edit these sing my computer. Google Docs is especially great for a homeschooling model of schooling. I could assign more collaborative assignments on the days that the students are at home. For example, the students could edit each other’s papers using Google Docs. They could also create a collaborative slideshow. I am thinking about having my students create a slideshow about WWi using Google Docs.

Thing 19: YouTube

Yay—finally a Web 2.0 tool that I am somewhat familiar with! YouTube is something that I can handle, but unfortunately it is not something that I put to great use in my classroom. As I explored YouTube, I first watched a video of someone mushing sled dogs across an open field of snow. It is really beautiful, and these dogs are very fascinating. We will be reading the book, Snow Treasure in a few weeks. This would be a great video to open up the book.

Next I watched a video of a Titanic Survivor telling about his experience This is so chilling to hear a real person tell about the real experience. My students will begin a project this week in which they will be writing a journal as if they were one of the passengers on the Titanic. I will show this video as I explain the directions for the project—it will be a great way to “whet their appetite”!

Thirdly, I watched a video on “how to sew a zipper”. Sewing is something that I want to begin doing. I have a sewing machine, but it just sits in a closet. YouTube may be a great “teacher”.

And lastly, I watched a video of a little girl at Cinderella’s Castle in Disney eating breakfast. We are going to Disney in April, and I am looking forward to taking my little girl to the castle for a “princess breakfast”. I just wanted a sneak peak!

Below I have posted the video about the Titanic Survivors…

Thing 18: My Podcast

Thing 17: Podcasts

 The world of Podcasts is new to me. The only exposure I have really had to Podcasts up to this point was watching some sermons that had been “podcasted”. To begin my adventure, I looked in the PBS archive of podcasts. It appeared that there were some very quality podcasts, however I couldn’t find anything that I could use in my classroom, so I continued to keep looking. Next I looked in Podcast Alley. I liked this site because it was easy to search for topics. I tried a few searched and couldn’t find anything I really loved. I ended up finding some sites under the category “Creative Writing”. The first podcast I listened to talked about the creativity of an author that began his book with “the president was killed last night by a 4 year old.” So, needless to say, I had to stop that one. (That’s not exactly the type of creativity that I am trying to foster in my classroom!) Next I moved on to the Learn Out Loud site. I found a Proverbs Podcast. I thought that this was pretty interesting since we are learning verses from Proverbs. I also found an interesting site that has a variety of Podcasts under the umbrella of “ Stuff You Missed in History Class”. It had some pretty interesting things such as “ How did a shipwreck double the size of the U.S.?”

Thing 16: Library Thing

I am beginning to feel a little crazy over how many tools are “out there” that I didn’t even now about.  Library Thing is a useful tool. It’s wonderful that at a clic of a finger I could find out about a variety of books on the subject that I am interested in This would be a great resource for students who want/need some enrichment too.  By using Library Thing I could provide a list of book that students could read to gain more information a unit of study.

Thing 15: Delicious

Delicious is an interesting tool. I definitely see the benefit of it as a teacher. I could post a series of websites that I would want my students to explore,and they could simply go to my Delicious account and view them.  On my Delicious account I created a collection of Titanic  websites that include real pictures of the wreck, stories form survivors, and even a video. This would be an interesting collection to share with my students during our current Titanic unit. Continue reading »

Thing 7b: Reader

I realized that I really do  not have anything good on my reader. My favorite thing is my dictionary site. I don’t know why I get so fascinated by that!  I looked at a few of the educational blogs that I subscribed to, but honestly I didn’t find anything appealing. I think I need to add some new sites to my reader. Any suggestions?

Thing 14: Web 2.1 Tools

I finally got my hands on www.wordle.net. I have been wanting to play around with this site ever since Chanisse briefly showed it to us at our staff meeting.  I created a word collage for my husband to encourage him. I have been thinking about doing this in my class as well. This isn’t really “academic”, but I have something in my class called “Class Star”.  We ask God to tell us encouraging words for that person (The Class Star), and then we pray for them. I was thinking that it would be very meaningful if I could take some of the key words that are spoken to the kid and create a Worlde for him/her.