Thing 2

I decided to play around with Wordle, Animoto, and Glogster. Wordle was so much fun. I started playing around with words, then my daugher took over and she made a few pages of her own. This is a great site! Wordle is so easy to use. Once we get Activboards, I would have my students use this for presentations for any content area. It would be great to use with vocabulary, main ideas and concepts, just about anything related to a topic of study. Because it's so easy to use, kids can do this independently.
I think I spent the most time on Animoto. I think I must be one of the last people to discover this site. I've seen it done. I've heard of it, but I never used it myself. Animoto is cool! I made 3 different videos, and I added the one of my family and friends to the blog. This is so much more fun than Powerpoint. Every year we do a project called Houston Proud. It always uses Powerpoint. This would be so much more interesting to watch, especially since we watch 22 shows. Now all we need are enough working computers for all the kids. Ha! Ha!
Glogster was new for me. I'd heard of the other 2 before, but not Glogster. It has lots of potential to replace standard posters for projects. It's super easy to use too. Whenever you use a computer for work instead of paper and pencil you have to change your thinking. Organization of information would be so much simpler using Glogster. My only worry is that there is a real use for posters that stay up in the classroom for a few weeks. We refer back to them all the time and kids enjoy seeing their work posted. I would use Glogster for presentations, but I don't think I'd replace regular posterboard posters completely.
Finally, I spent some time at Bookr. This is a way to make your own books from photos posted to several picture sites. It was another really easy program to use. This particular site lets you create books with pictures and your own text. I was able to put together a book in no time at all. I chose to do my book on landforms because it's one of the first topics we cover in science. The book we usually make takes a very long time to create because it is all hand done. I wonder if you could save work done in Bookr to a wiki. I set up a wiki for my class last year as a writing tool to begin introducing them to writing on the web. That could end up being a place for us to view the work done in this site and animoto as well. I'll have to play around with that and see what I can figure out.
These are great sites! If you haven't played around with them yet, get going. You're missing out.

New Avatar

Okay, I just had to add a new Avatar. This is my new dream. Perhaps in Hawaii it isn't as hot as it is here in Houston.

The Networked Student; The Movie

I have to say I was a little nervous to take on the next step in Library 2 Play. Last year was really mind blowing for me with the 23 Things. But as I watched the video, I realized that I actually understood all the different parts discussed in the movie. When it mentioned using the reader to keep the blogs organized, and using the RSS stream I wasn't completely at a loss for this new language.
Since I blogged last year, my son has graduated from high school. Unfortunately, he did not graduate from a Spring Branch school. Currently, he does not use My Space, Facebook, or even email to communicate with his friends. He uses his cell phone for texting, but he does not have the computer knowledge that the student in the video had. It was very disheartening to watch where we are going as a school district and know that he missed out on that.
This brings me to my own personal question, not necessarily one that I want the answer to right now. What can I do in my 3rd grade classroom to open the door for my students so they can have the technological skills they need to participate in the world outside or doors? As I go deeper into the 11.5 Things I hope to find the answer to this question.