I truly believe that I could spend days on this Thing….oh, wait…I have. I have looked at the Gadgets that are part of Blogger plus I explored Widget Box and Widgets for Free blog. I found several widgets that I thought were interesting, but I measured what purpose would it serve placing them on my blog. I already had a post-it calendar and a shelfari bookshelf, so I decided to only add one additional widget - an age timer.
During this Thing I also considered changing my blog template. Several other bloggers – 23 is my favorite number, Debby's Doodles, and [2 + 4 x 6 - 3 x 5 + 6 x 2] THINGS – have made some creative changes and I think their blogs are charming. I have made specific choices in the items I have put on my blog. Though I love the templates and I think many of the widgets are adorable…some of it just does not go with this blog…maybe on my next blog!
I did play around with some of the avatar makers, but I don't think my avatars look anything like me. There may be some disagreement with that statement with my Wild Self.
Creating a screencast via Screencast-O-Matic was quite simple. My problem was that I could not do the task that I was trying to demonstrate. I know I spent an hour recording the same task. I finally decided to just do something else. I have a personal license of Camtasia, but I want to stay within the Web 2.0 tools for this project. I looked at Jing, Wink, and ScreenToaster, but thought Screencast-O-Matic was the most straight forward to use. I think students would love to use this. I just happened to have a student ask me this week if it was possible to record her manipulating Google Earth.
VoiceThread can be a powerful Web 2.0 tool in the classroom and a way to connect to our global world. VoiceThread is collaborative, multimedia tool. Through either images, documents or videos a user can leave comments in a variety of ways – record their voice, type text, upload an audio file or video by way of a webcam. This tool is perfect for Tablet users by inking on an image while recording.
I can think of countless ways to use VoiceThread in a classroom: peer review of art work, examination of master art work, view and discuss original source images and video, revision or review work, identifying objects using a world language, book talks, digital portfolios, poetry performances, and the list could go on and on.
One use of VoiceThread I would like to investigate further is digital portfolios. An example of using VoiceThread for digital portfolios is in the VoiceThread Digital Library. This might prove an excellent resource for student-led conferences.
I had the opportunity to comment of some of my colleagues VoiceThread projects as well as the Hello VoiceThread. I also created my own VoiceThread. I found the commenting and creating my own VoiceThread very easy.
YouTube is a video sharing website on which users can upload and share videos. YouTube was started by three former PayPal employees in February 2005 (this fact alone is amazing to me). By November 2006, YouTube was part of the Google family. YouTube is free and available to everyone on the Internet.
TeacherTube is an online community for sharing instructional videos; a mixture of classroom teaching resource as well as others designed to aid teacher training. TeacherTube was launched in March 2007 and was initiated by Jason Smith, a veteran teacher from McKinney, Texas. TeacherTube is a free resource and seems to be mostly geared for teachers.
Launched in November 2006, SchoolTube is a teacher monitored video sharing website. It is dedicated to supporting educational institutions and all of their students to broadcast, and share original videos through a web experience. SchoolTube provides many opportunities including: free SchoolTube Channel for your classroom as well as video hosting for educational and scholastic organizations. You can sign up for a free SchoolTube account. This site has a different “feel” than TeacherTube. There seems to be more content dedicated or created by students.
Discovery Education Streaming has 5,000 full-length videos segmented into 41,000 content-specific clips tied directly state and national standards. Discovery Education Streaming requires an annual subscription; the Academy has such a subscription. When you view a video there are several tabs – segments, related materials, citation of the video, and quick access to more videos in the series (if there are any). Teachers can save a video (or segments), create lessons, writing prompts, and quizzes which students can access via a uniquely created URL.
TED is a small nonprofit devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading”. This movement began in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: “Technology, Entertainment, Design.” TED Talks, widely disseminated on the internet, are subject to a strict time limit of 18 minutes. I found many TED Talks on YouTube. More than 500 TED Talks are provided for free viewing online; I found many TED Talks on YouTube.
I have used all of these resources plus Google videos and Yahoo videos to supplement my classroom teaching and my professional development. I know many people are concerned with the content on YouTube – some is disturbing, but here in the US we operate under the right to free speech. If I come across content that I do not want to see then I stop the video. Sites like TeacherTube and SchoolTube have content that is monitored. Discovery Education Streaming content is of high quality plus there are many tools that educators can utilize to enhance the viewing. I have a high opinion of TED Talks. These are my personal free professional development opportunities. The fact that our school does not block these sites is a testament to our belief in Goal V – “personal growth in an atmosphere of wise freedom.”
If you did not take the time to watch An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube – you should do so at some point. I found the video very informative. I was fascinated by this comprehensive study of people and their interactions with YouTube.
Diigo - Diigo is a social bookmarking website. It allows users to highlight any part of a webpage and attach sticky notes to specific highlights or to a whole page.
Doodle - Doodle helps scheduling meetings and other appointments. Doodle is simple, quick, free, and requires no registration.
iKeepBookmarks – iKeepBookmarks is a web-based bookmarks manager.
jott – Jott’s voice-to-text services let you capture thoughts & reminders, send emails & text messages.
Line Rider - Line Rider is a fun online game where you draw tracks and ride the lines.
mosaickr - mosaickr is an online service which allows creating great looking mosaics from flickr photos, download them or even print them on posters.
My50 – My50 allows you to create a list of things that you wish to do in your lifetime, set deadlines, add pictures and descriptions, read our suggestions and other peoples lists.
Protopage - Protopage is a free RSS news reader and start page.
rockyou - rockyou.com is a social media site that allows photo sharing by adding music in slideshow format.
Thumbstacks - Thumbstacks is a bare bones but functional application that allows users to build presentations online and present them via a permanent URL.
Vyew - Vyew is a live collaboration and web conferencing tool.
Wetpaint - Wetpaint is a web page that a group can edit together.
One of new favorite Web 2.0 tools is JigZone. Completing the digital jigsaw puzzles allows me a few moments to forget what I actually should be doing and relax doing something I really enjoy – jigsaw puzzles.
I feel like the 23 Things project was created so that I could achieve some of my personal goals. It seems like all of the “Things” that I have put on my to-do list are part of the 23 Things. Such is the case with Delicious. I love exploring the Internet and finding websites to share with my colleagues on their current topic of study. I have tried a couple of ways of sharing my wealth of sites. Years ago I exported my sites to a word document and emailed them to the appropriate people. They spanned so many pages that it really was a cumbersome document. Then I tried an online bookkeeping site, ikeepbookmarks. The problem with this site is that I still had the bookmarks on my personal computer and only uploaded to ikeepbookmarks periodically. During the Christmas break of 2008 my husband bought me a new personal computer and I upgraded to Office 2007. To move all of my favorites from the old system to the new system he stored them on my external hard drive. I thought – this is it, my time to organize my bookmarks in a usable way. As with many of my little pet organizational projects, something more urgent trumped the process. I started keeping track of the sites I wanted to bookmark in a word document (it is not 192 pages long) – truly not efficient. I played with Delicious for only a few minutes and I was hooked. This is exactly what I wanted. Up until watching the video, I could not articulate my personal need for tags. I have so many sites that fall into several categories (in my mind). In my past methods of tracking my bookmarks I would bookmark the same site under different categories. Delicious is so easy to use. I immediately started with a set of sites I found in the latest issue of Tech & Learning, Web Tools for Enhancing Collaboration.
It is sad, but true, that I did not understand the concept “mashup” prior to completing Thing 10. I have played with many of the Flickr toys in Big Huge Labs in the past as well as Spell with Flickr, but I did not understand these were mashups. One can easily get trapped in these two sites playing with photos (at least I did). I envision students using some of these tools to really spice up some of their projects. I discovered applications that I emailed to friends and I was able to sketch out some future gift ideas for family members. I thought that Flickr Color Pickr and some of the items in Flickrbits.com were interesting, but I could not see a use for them. In exploring the non-Flickr related mashups I found the similar results. Taking up the challenge to find my own mashup, I discovered Obamiconme. This site allows users to make images in the style of Shepard Fairey's iconic "Hope" poster.
I truly believe that I could spend days on this Thing….oh, wait…I have. I have looked at the Gadgets that are part of Blogger plus I explored Widget Box and Widgets for Free blog. I found several widgets that I thought were interesting, but I measured what purpose would it serve placing them on my blog. I already had a post-it calendar and a shelfari bookshelf, so I decided to only add one additional widget - an age timer.
