Thing 13

The sunrise picture was enhanced with Picknik and the Museum picture of my two lovely daughters was created on dumpr.net, I can see many many possibilities for use in my classroom with these tools (especially the dumpr site) How fun!!!

Thing 12

I have been a member of Flickr for a while. I also keep photos and order through the Shutterfly site. I like it most as a photo back up (in case the hard drive decides to crash!). I also save photos on zip drives and have some printed out. It's always hard for me to envision how to use something like this with my students. A great deal of my students do not have internet access in their home at this time. I'm sure in the next few years, that will change...it seems to be a few more each year. Below I have also added a flickr badge. While the pictures don't change in front of your eyes, they are different every time you look at the blog. I wanted to do the other "checkerboard" looking badge, but it wouldn't accept the html code for some reason...kept giving me an error message. I'm not going to give up permanently, just for tonight.

Badge

www.flickr.com

Thing 11

As far as Slideshare, it was interesting to note that the service is "out there" but I really don't see any use for it personally (at least at this point). My students tend to use Photostory 3 for presentations. Those are saved as a .wmv file and can also be put on a blog. My students enjoy Photostory 3 (a free microsoft download) because they can illustrate, narrate and put music to their stories. I have a webpage through our district but have always hesitated putting student work on it...I really don't know why.

Lighthouse SlideShare

Lighthouses from over the world.

View more presentations from Roelof Van den berg. (tags: lighthouse alto)

Thing 10

Well I set up a Google Document. I remember hearing about this at the MACUL conference 2 years ago. I thought it was pretty cool then, but never had the opportunity to "play with it". I can see the advantages. First, you can have several people collaborating on a document. I instantly thought of my two daughters who are both in college and have several group "projects". It would save having to email documents back and forth. Secondly, (again thinking of my one daughter) I realized that by using Google Docs, you could work on a document no matter what computer you were on, as long as it had Internet access. My oldest daughter is constantly emailing herself a paper so she can work on it either at home, at work, on her laptop, or at the computer lab at school. With Google Docs, she would have access to her document regardless of where she was. My husband, who is anal about saving a document in several places, remarked "What if Google went down?" My first thought was, "Yea, like that would ever happen", but then I reassured him that you can save the document in multiple places. It also pretty liberating to think you can access a document without having to worry about having your zip drive. A further advantage came to me as I was listening to the wind howl in the middle of the night last night. If you had a power failure and you had to have access to a document, you need only find a PC with Internet access and power!

Thing 8

Delicious....hmmm kind of sums it up doesn't it? I always knew there must be a way of getting all of your bookmarks on the web so you could access them from any computer. My husband and I currently have 2 pcs and 2 laptops. At work I have an additional laptop and a pc. I also have been known to use my daughter's computer when at their houses. It makes so much sense to be able to access your bookmarks anywhere!! No more trying to memorize urls or googling to get the name of a site over and over!

Thing 4

The "Did You Know" clip from you tube, I had seen before maybe at the MACUL conference? It is very powerful and really makes you think. My favorite quote from the "We think" video was "Ideas take life when they are shared". It really made a lot of sense. If you don't share an idea and keep it to yourself, then it can never be acted on and become a reality. Sure, there may be plenty of ideas that go nowhere, but how will you know an idea's potential unless you share it with someone?
The 21st century videos were interesting also. There was some duplication of information, and I think I have seen at least one of these before also.

Thing 3

I have been blogging rather regularly since last October. My mom had passed away in Sept of 2007 and it wasn't until Sept 2008 that I took a "adult loss of a parent" class through Arbor Hospice. During that time, we had talked about the importance of making journal entries or some type of outlet and I decided to start a blog for my siblings and myself (it now extends to nieces and nephews also). I invited all to participate but fully decide that if I were the only one blogging on it, it would still be good therapy for me. As part of the process, I entered pictures, and even a video that I created using "Photostory3". I would encourage anyone to view it...but posting is limited. Boy that made me feel powerful!;-) You can view it at www.calkinsfamilymemories.blogspot.com
I guess my biggest concern with blogging is that, because conversations are limited to text, you may offend when you don't intend...if you get my meaning. It kind of reminds me of sometimes when I am texting someone or reading their text. Without voice to ear conversations, things sometimes get misconstrued.

Renaming my blog

I renamed this blog tonight. I had originally started taking the 23 things workshop through Wayne RESA...I couldn't get into the official "class" because it was full. I decided to start completing the 23 things by myself...but only got so far. I had created this blog, but had no one to blog with :-(....I renamed this blog tonight in hopes that now through the 23 things class at MCISD, someone out there will blog with me.

I was also inspired to start a blog with my family in memory of my parents. It has restricted posting, but you are welcome to view it at www.calkinsfamilymemories.blogspot.com