Week 6 - Thing 15

I began exploring some of the exercises for Thing 15, but will need to come back to this. There's so much here!

Week 6 - Thing 14

We worked on the VoiceThreads during one of our workshop sessions so, I didn't feel the need to recap everything we did in that class. I like VoiceThread and spent a lot of time during our class looking, listening, and commenting on them. I'm not sure, yet, how I want to use this in my classroom.

Week 5 - Thing 13

I watched the Google Docs in Plain English video. This makes so much sense. My question is, though, will others actually be able to view/edit a document posted if they don't have a google account? I would think not. Then, you have to try to convince others why they need to have an account. Folks are so used to email attachments that I think it will take many more years for this great concept to "kick in." We could begin by using this more in schools between teachers and administrators. I like the idea. How many times do we think we've attached the attachment to an email only to click send and then have to send another one WITH the actual attachment!

Week 5 - Thing 12

At this point, I am using my wiki for classroom use. I loved the Woodward Academy wiki and actually shared it with my students back in the fall. We began typing up information, recording novel videos, and a PowerPoint that could be loaded onto our wiki to demonstrate our reading understandings. So, my students are all editors on the wiki and we're finding ways to make it meaningful for our reading class. They love it. I also like being able to comment on their work during the evening right online. I know I have much more to learn about it, but I'm loving what we're doing for now. This is one tool, I know for sure, I will continue to use to showcase student knowledge.

Week 4 - Thing 11

I like the Wordles. I tried creating one using words to describe this class, but it wouldn't show up once I tried to view it. Something is wrong with my javascript or other application needed on my computer for it. So, no luck with a finished product. I'll have to retry it sometime on my school computer. I can see many uses for this with students. It would be great for a review of content material. I also think it would be fun for students to actually help create a Wordle that describes positive attributes about their classmates. Each student could contribute one word per classmate. This would make a nice end of the year gift.

Week 4 - Thing 10

I can kind of see how this whole idea of social bookmarking could be a real time saver. But, even though I looked around a bit, it seems confusing to me. I'll have to come back to this and spend more time here. I don't really care for the cogdogblog. I don't really understand how this is different than just doing a google search for something. I would have to spend MUCH more time on my computer before I could even find this regularly useful with my elementary students. I don't think I'll be "getting into this" for quite some time. I see other tools much more useful. I remember really liking Flickr but can't even remember all that was there. I think this is all a TON of information.

Week 3 - Thing 9

I've had my own Twitter account for probably a year and never use it. I find it confusing. I've tried to follow KRDO TV and Pride Soccer Club and just can't seem to find it handy enough for me to continue using. At this point, I can't see how I would use this with my elementary students.