THING 23 - Good Night, Gracie

It's not the end - it's the beginning, right? I learned SO MUCH. I'm slowly but surely getting over the overwhelmed feeling. I don't have to do it all! I just need to be open to doing it all. It won't all work for me but I have to remember our students are living it. Right now. Social networking is EVERYTHING to them and we had better jump in or we're going to miss the chance to make an impact. I am walking away (see me? My Avatar does have on sensible heels, even though they are cute) with a considerable amount of new info to process. I need to figure out how to weave these tools into my life. I'm optimistic. But I have to give myself a break if I don't take to some of these environments immediately or easily like I'm used to doing. I have to remember way back to Super Mario Brothers. I could not get past that stupid 2nd level but my 1st grader could. That really still drives me insane. I'm not good at most video games - only the racing games. But I still want a wii...

And at least I know how to hook up a data projector...so there! HA!!

Thing 22 - Ninging it

Ninging it. MUCH better than that atrocious MySpace thing I got sucked into by my college-aged children who insisted I have a page of my own. NEVER got into that scene. But I did get to peek in on their pages so it wasn't a total loss. Found out that my daughter liked to quote me on her MySpace page. Cute, you say?? Nope. She wasn't citing my quips of maternal knowledge and wisdom. Noooooo. She was telling the bajillion people that visit her page about the FUNNY things Mom said and DID - in detail. And NO I'm not going to tell you how to get to her page. But back to the task at hand. Ning. Like I said, MUCH better. Very low CREEPY factor. I hadn't set paramters on my now-removed MySpace page so I regularly got, shall we say, invitations to share my space. No thank you. But with a ning - I'm in a specific circle of "friends" - explored the Librarian nings and then a golf ning and now I'm thinking I'll start a ning of my own. Subject to be determined at a later date. I could see using a ning for a specific school project - like an inter-disciplinary project. It's a bit more cool than just a wiki or a blog, you know? :)

Thing 21 - Podcasting

In case you've been in a coma for last year, I guess you know how HOT vampire books are with the teens and adults alike. Steph Meyer started it - and now girl-falls-for-werewolf, boy-gets-the-vampire genre is exploding. We can't forget Buffy, though - she did for TV what Bella has done for reading. Anyways, there are so many people out there wanting to tell a story and I ran across it looking for new vampire writers. The author reads it herself - and for free. Smart marketing move? But BEWARE - it's a tad bit on the adult side. OK, more than a tad. But perhaps this will be one you could recommend to the older students and not necessarily put it on the shelf? We'll see...it's Forever Fifteen by Kimberley Steele

http://www.mediafly.com/Podcasts/Episodes/Chapter_1_Lucy_Gets_a_Detention

I've done a couple of podcasts of my own but I still can't get past hearing my own voice. It's creepy. Next move will be to coax a student into doing one for me...

Thing 20 - YouTube

The YT video I decided to embed is hilarious - it's about the perils of powerpointing your audience to death....I wish I had his speaking skills..AND his powerpoint skills...LOL OK, maybe not so much. I found TeacherTube to have TONS more than the first time I played with it. I can't wait until You Tube is unblocked!

Thing 19 - Web 2.0 Awards

It's stuff like this that freaks me out and makes me crazy because I feel like I'll never catch up: "There are about 500 2.0 tools on the web. You have explored just a few so far thorough this series of activities. "
Anywho, I explored LuLu and shared it with a budding teen author that hangs in the library with me every chance he gets. Everyone has a book in them, as far as I'm concerned. Whether or not anyone else would want to read it...different story, but at least we know that self-publishing is an option, right? I also looked at WriteBoard - I could see using this and I could see kids using it for group projects.

Thing 18 - Open source stuff

Love the free part. Love the Google part. Love that I can just hop on and not worry about version this or that of popular Microsoft software. Like the powerpoint knock-off but had problems importing clips but I'll deal and learn to love it. Did I mention it's FREE??

Thing 17 - sandbox

Now "sandbox" is the perfect descriptor for these wikis. I play in a couple of sandboxes - one that is professional and one that is a creative outlet. Both are equally gratifying and easy to get to. Sometimes I forget to make my way there but once I'm reminded, it's always a good feeling to connect.

Thing 16 - wikis

I've been a big fan of wikipedia since way back. From a professional point of view, I've suggested to students that it's a great place for ideas, keywords, concepts when starting a new research project. I do not however, suggest that they use it as an official cited source (yet) but that's only to keep my teachers happy. They STILL think wikipedia is the devil even though I've pointed shown them how useful it can be and that it is monitored more closely now. And besides....you can find just about ANYTHING on wikipedia. Love it. By the way, pbwiki.com looks like a great place to easily start up an educational wiki...

Thing 15 - David Warlick

Now. If we were going to use "authority" correctly...it would be to label David Warlick apparently. What a find! Could you imagine having him on your faculty? He's probably inspired me the most out of any of the blogs I've sampled recently. He's not preachy and his ideas are do-able but just far-fetched enough to challenge me. Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:
“Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do…” Christopher Morley

Thing 14

Who knew that there are two faces to tagging? Technorati's philosophy and Joshua Schachter's philosphy of the purpose of tagging is polar different. I also learned what "authority" is...I personally think it should be called something else...like "connections" or "taps" because it's the number of times your blog is linked. I just think "authority" lends a false air....of well....authority. Maybe I'm being too literal again....