Last Thing!

I would like to thank you for setting up the 23 things that I experienced. This class should be a requirement for every teacher in the district. I am surprised that it is not. I learned many great tools that I had no idea existed. If I did know about them, I did not know how to use them and this class taught me that. It seemed like every other day I was going into the family room and showing my elementary aged boys these new tricks of the trade. I cannot thank you enough for that and the knowledge I have passed on to them. Awesome experience!

Thing #23

The classroom 2.0 was interesting. I would like to see the people listed become more compartmentalized by subject. Science, elementary ed, math, etc... I think it might make the site easier to gather information from a specific group on a specific area of study. I think the possibility for idea exchange is boundless. Often teachers seem to hold tightly their ideas on teaching nuggets and they don't share with fellow teachers as much as you might think. This may give all of us a forum that would open that sharing up. Teaching is becoming more competitive with our individual TAKS scores becoming more public knowledge throughout the school and district.

Thing #22

Where should I start with facebook? I have used it recently and most often to connect with friends that I just do not see much. I have not become enveloped in the "farming" and "gift giving" that many people have turned into an enjoyable hobby it seems. I honestly do not have the time to devote to the activity of "watering my crops." I have been fortunate enough to work at a number of different school and I have used facebook to connect with teachers that I knew at those schools and that I respected in the classroom. This social aspect has allowed be to re-connect and I think that re-connection will become a valuable trade of ideas that we have grown to develop over the years. That information will have a drastic impact on my classroom because I respect the source that the new ideas come from based on my working experience with these fantastic educators.

7B

The latest and greatest job reports continues to pound my reader. This hits close to home for me because of family members and long time friends that have lost jobs because of the recession. I think most everyone knows a family member of friend that is struggling to make ends meet. The reader has made me more aware of the crisis that continues to affect families across our country. I live in a state that has been least affected by the crisis. When you look at our country nationally, you see that states like Michigan have received the greatest impact by our economic downturns in the past few year. The reader has made me more aware and it reminds me that there is still a major problem even though the mainstream media chooses to move on at times.

Thing #21

The first tool I played with was Google Earth which was fantastic. My own kids at home are caught up in it. They enjoy traveling to places hey have never experienced. It's not obviously the same as traveling there, but you do get a sense of what the places look like when you work down to ground level and pull a couple of different camera angles up. I cannot wait to show my students. Many of them are not sure if the edge of the earth stops at Mesquite or not. The second tool I played with was developing an athletic website specific for West Mesquite Football. I had trouble finding a template that was football related. I only found ones that related to soccer. Can anyone give me some direction on this one or do you think I need to do some major overall in the editing process? I started the West Mesquite Wranglers site but hit problems trying to change the graphics.

Thing #20

I wasn't really sure if I did this correctly or not? I sent the doc through email just in case it didn't work. This was probably the least interesting of the 23 things for me. I see the functional part of not having to keep up with the flash or emailing the doc to have record of it, but I do not know how much I will use this in my classroom. I could see me using it to put the info I use for other teachers in my department to access. This is not any different than what we use it for already in MISD for docushare, which has proved to be much more accessible than the way we used to share information through the district server.

Thing #19

I will use the VTs to allow students to teach the class. In order to teach any subject you need to understand the information that you are teaching. Take the body systems for example in biology. You have the digestive, nervous, skeletal, etc.... I will use the voice threads for a group of 3-4 students to explain along with a visual representation the digestive system. Each student in the group will type or teach their section of the digestive processes that take place within the system. In this process every student will get to hear and comment on the VTs to add information to the taught lesson. It could be a VT "wiki" over the next several days.