Web 2.0 Lifelone Learning

Wow! Is all I can say! I have thoroughly enjoyed this class! I feel so tech savvy now There were a few times I have to admit that I was frustrated, but it’s not the class itself, but my computer was acting up….which should NEVER happen right? Anyway, I will definitely take what I have learned and use this with my lessons and the new technology club. Stacey…Great job! Thank you for helping me during times of need! Will I have access even after this class? I would like to to have a reference to go back to. Thanks again!

I love the Classroom 2.0 website. I am starting a technology club at PS, and this website has a plethora of ideas that will help me. I am very impressed with this website. It has videos, discussions, and pretty much everything for 2.0. I enjoyed browsing through the discussions. I actually joined the website. We are also talking about getting e books for our school, so I found a discussion about htat at this address: http://www.classroom20.com/forum/topics/e-books-in-the-classroom-yes. It was interesting to read the thoughts of other educators of what they think about the e readers. There’s aslo discussions as to how Ning could be used in the classrooms. For fun, I saw a cookie exchange discussion. We are talking about doing this at work, so I enjoyed looking at this for ideas. Lots of good ideas at this website!

I have used Youtube.com several times.  I am a visual learner, so I love this website if I need to see how to do something or to learn about something.  I have viewed funny videos and informative videos.  One video I watched was about sign language. I think that this is a great website that students and teachers can search for just about anything and how to do something. I am planning on starting a technology club, and this is a great website I could use to teach the club about technology, and we can also make a how to video ourselves. A funny one that I would like to share is about the Dewey Decimal system.  It is a rap video about the Dewey Decimal system.

As I scrolled through my reader, I came across something about the Berlin Wall that I thought was interesting since I’ve been to Berlin a few times, and I actually have a piece of the wall.  This link has a video from CNN that talks about today being the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down.  This would be great for a teacher/librarian to show to a class or group to students.

Pageflakes is really neat!  It was already the homepage for my computer at work.  I guess Leigh had this up and going , but I just made my own page…or started it.  It’s like designing your own webpage I guess in a way.  This is great to have on the SmartBoard ready to go so the teacher can just click on the weather or the local news, etc.  Some “flakes” I added was the weather channel, podcasts, and the top news to name a few.  It’s a quick glance and makes it easy to see what you want right there on one page.  Teachers can put their favorites on this to pull right up to teach or discuss something.

I have never used google docs before.  A friend of mine was using it this weekend with a description of his job.  He shares it with some other colleagues and they edit it.  I think this is really cool.  I think that this is neat to use for teachers who team teach.  They can work on lessons or presentations together.  Teachers who do not team teach can use it by sharing lessons and ideas and presentations.  It’s always good to get another eye involved.  Sometimes other teachers can point out mistakes.  Like the media handbook….great way to edit and share.

I really like the podcasts!  I have never used them before.  I subscribed to a couple of different ones.  One podcast is a daily Spanish podcast.  I’ve been wanting to learn Spanish since we have a lot of Hispanic students, so I thought this would be a fun one to subscribe to.  The other podcast I subscribed to is an educational one.  This podcast discusses 21st century learning.  I saw another one for C-SPAN that I thought would be good for teachers to use in the classroom.  It’s for kids.  They could listen to the latest news each day in class.  Podcasts work well with auditory learners.

I joined Library Thing because I am a new Media Specialist,  and I love to read.  New or not new,  Library Thing is very informative because I can now look up books to find reviews on it before I buy it whether if it’s for the library or for me personally.  Library Thing is very interactive.  I can see how students can get involved.  One thing I did look at was a book game.  Here is what you do with this one:  “Take the book you’re reading.
Find a quote which answers the question in the post above yours.
Tell us what book you are quoting.
Find another quote from the same book (a question this time) for the next poster to answer.”  I think that this is fun and students and adults as well would enjoy this.   I liked the “50 Book Challenge” as well as Stacey.  I can see how this can be used personally and in the classroom as a challenge.  I couldn’t find the “Suggester” or “Unsuggester” though.  Does anyone want to share where to find that?  I tried to find it using “Help”….but “Help” wasn’t much help! I’m sure this tool would be helpful for Media Specialists and teachers or anyone who loves reading to search for related books.  I enjoy reading Nicholas Sparks’ books, and would like to find more books similar to his style of writing.  I could see students using this tool as well by looking up books about subjects they enjoy reading.  Very good website!

I have used  ikeepbookmarks.com for the past 5 years.  This website allows you to store your favorite websites and place them in folders.  You can look at your favorite websites from any computer anywhere, anytime.  I have heard of delicious, but I haven’t looked into it until now.  I guess because I’ve been using the other website for so long and have all my favorites stored there.  I definitely like delicious because it allows you to search for keywords and you can see other peoples’ tags.  ikeepbookmarks.com doesn’t have this option.  I think that delicious is a good website for professionals because you can share your favorite websites with each other.  Media Specialists and teachers or anyone for that matter who have something in common can share their favorite websites with lesson plans, ideas, online games, etc.  I honestly saved some of my “fun” favorites on delicious.  I am a personal trainer on the side (or use to be) and I love exercising….and shopping.  So….I have saved some websites for fun for now.

Word of the Day

This is an online dictionary and provides a word of the day.  This is great for students.  They can learn a new word each day and use it in their own sentence orally and/or writing it in a sentence.  Great tool to build vocabulary for students and teachers as well!