Thing 6

Wow! It only gets better. I tried out many of of the Flickr toys. I really liked the badge toy. I was thinking that I could use this one for creating a voting badge for Bluebonnet book voting. I also liked the motivational poster maker. We could make some of these with our kids and frame them in the school. There are many wonderful tools here that I can't wait to use.

Thing 5

Marlin & Dory,
originally uploaded by Wyscan.

I really think that I have a problem. I am obsessed with looking at this site now. I love pumpkins so I searched and found 48,000 pics of pumpkins. I can see this being a useful tool for teachers and librarians because kids are visual learners. Some of these photos show kids places that they may never see without a site like this to share. Flickr is a cool site that is slightly addictive.

Thing 4

I would love to see teachers use blogs to hold book talks. The teacher could post a question or thought and kids could respond. This would increase reading and writing about literature. The students would love it because it is kind of free form and internet based. I am using a blog on my campus to allow teachers to respond to various articles about reading and education. I like this better than a book study because teachers can respond whenever they like, even in their PJs.

Thing 3

Now after careful reading, I realize that I am supposed to be posting as "things" instead of "numbers". I am just like the kids, I have trouble following directions. :0)

Even though I have just this semester created two blogs for my campus, creating a new one can still be frustrating. I have to write down all of the passwords and usernames. I love creating the avatars. I could spend hours just doing that. After creating the blog, it seems pretty easy to use. I created my campus blog with blogger.com and the teachers didn't want to override to log in, so I switched to edublogs. This is kind of a pain, but I have had 3 teachers post comments about articles. I love using blogs and I hope it catches on with all teachers.

Number 2

After watching the 7 1/2 habits of lifelong learners, I feel pretty confident that I am a lifelong learner. The hardest habit for me is be ability to see problems as challenges. I see problems as huge drama and I really should calm down. The easiest habit for me is to accept responsibility for my own learning. When I need to learn how to do something, I read a book or take a class. I formly believe that I can learn anything.

Number 1

I hope to learn as much as possible on this technology journey. I love the idea of the 23 things. It seems very organized, which I love because I am slightly OCD. As teachers we are expected to use technology but are not really ever given the opportunity to explore and play like this.