Thing #16

Help! I tried to sign in to post a comment in the sandbox portion of the wiki, and I was rejected every time! I use the "sbisd" user name and "sbisdlib" password and it kept telling me that that account was already in use! What did I do wrong?? I think that Wikis can be very useful! I see my students posting careers or even using it to post recipes in categories! The possibilities are endless. I have to get better at using this one! Practice, Practice, Practice!!!

Thing #15

Library 2.0 is something that I have already experienced in this past year. Our librarian is techno-savvy and I go to her for help with technology projects all the time. We collaborated on "photo story" with my career classes. She introduced them to Flickr.com and we explored how to import pictures and use them wisely. Together, our students created some of the best career photo stories that they proudly presented! I also told her how I was using student folders to house projects for grading. We are trying to "go green"! She passed this info along to the other teachers in our school. Our library is more than just reading books and checking out books. Our librarian helps students on technology when she can. She is always my "go to" person when I can't figure something out. Our library of the future is going to look much different that it does now. I doubt that it has four walls and ONE person that we call a librarian. Today, students have so much information at their fingertips. They just need a facilitator to help discover the world that lies within that information and the best way to use it. That is where a great librarian comes in! Good job, Cindy!

thing #14

Technorati - I have just come from my conference in Dallas for Family and Consumer Science. I was extremely disappointed with the outbreak sessions and the quality of infomration that I received. After taking this online course thus far, I, who am not considered a techno-savvy individual, am far more savvy than the presenters at this conference! At one session, we actually received handouts of websites that "might be useful in our lesson plans"!! If these people had researched the web applications, they could have just placed each website on "delicious.com" and instructed us to research the "tags" and find their website suggestions accordingly! One person that presented talked about adding "photo story" to your lesson plans and proceded to show the poorest example of a "photo story" that I had ever seen. Even my worst students did better the example presented! I was so embarrassed for the presenter and wanted to take her my laptop and say "please show this photo story so that each individual will know that it can be done right"!!! By searching blogs, we are all connected and can share our findings. We can learn what does not work and what does! We can comment to each other and expand on our existing knowledge. Tagging our information can help us to know what already did not work and help us go in another direction from the beginning. Collaboration with others helps to increase our abilities to reach our goals must faster! Way to go Technorati!

Thing #13

I am attending the FCS Conference in Dallas. Each seminar that I attend, the instructor has given us websites that will assist us in our teaching experiences. As I begin to visit each of these websites, I can tag them according to the category and post them on my deloicious account. the instructors should be telling everyone about this wonderful new tool! Instead of giving us a hard copy of the websites, they could just post each site to their delicious account, or whatever social networking site they chose, and tell us to check out their tags! Lots to learn! The potential is endless for an informative conference like the one that I am attending. We could all benefit from this social networking site. This could save alot of time and allow for other helpful seminars instead of just giving us websites in each seminar! Great tool!

Thing #12

As I have read through the articles on "how to communicate through blogging," it has become clear to me that blogging is very much like carrying on a conversation with someone interested in hearing what you have to say. The rules of conversation etiquette apply to this application as in any conversation that you would have with someone in person. "Talk - Listen - Respond" just like you would in a conversation. Linking your blogs to other articles or pictures simply expands your conversation and allows others to comment or have additional information that supports your views. With these mini-lessons on blogging, provided by other bloggers, I feel empowered with a new knowledge of how to communicate with the world! It will take me some time and many trials to get good at this, but I am ready to get good at this form of communication.

thing #11

I signed up for Library Thing! I posted the Twilight series which I am just finishing the last book "Breaking Dawn." There are millions of people that have read these books. I will really enjoy this site because I love "book clubs" and that is what this reminds me of. I like the fact that I can keep a record of all of the books that I read. The best part is being able to share them and actually discuss different view points. Great Thing! ha!

I am headed to the New Jersey coast with my girlfriends for a mini-vacation! Can't Wait!