Week 9 Thing 23

Wow! I can't believe we finished all 23 Things. I just finished my survey and had very positive feedback to give. I felt like the weekly tasks were broken up well and the perfect length. The directions were so easy to follow to complete our assignments. It is so nice when assignments for courses are so worthwhile. I feel like I learned so much through 23 Things and had fun doing coursework. It is a refreshing feeling to enjoy what I'm learning rather than feel burdened by the work. I love learning new ways with technology to enhance our teaching for this generation.

Week 9 Thing 22

I clicked on the link from our assignment page and read more about ebooks and looked up the different fact sheets. This is an area that I'm wondering how interests in ebooks will evolve. I enjoy audiobooks for trips. I have not yet ventured to read an ebook. The link we read from our class assignment page mentioned the difficulty of eye strain. My eyes always hurt after spending a long time at the computer so I wonder how my eyes would handle an ebook. One appealing aspect of ebooks is the reduction of clutter. I explored the free ebooks site. I searched some books about babies which is my most common reading topic these days. I didn't really find any that I would want to read that were provided. Everytime I go onto Amazon the Kindle is being advertised on the home page. Since I haven't ever read an ebook I'm curious to hear the comparison of traditional book vs ebook from someone who has experienced both.

Week 9 Thing 21

This was my first exploration of Podcasts. I listened to the 60 minutes podcast. I also listened to a little bit of some podcasts about the tv show Lost. They were talking about other current events including the World Series and V rather than just Lost. These Lost podcasts are probably more interesting when the series is actually on. I know there are always wierd things you don't catch that others do when watching Lost. I also listened to a Podcast Books on the Night Stand. It was about Literary fads including vampires, zombies, and angels. I'm not really a fan of talk radio so these particular Podcasts reminded me too much of talk radio to enjoy. I think if there is some topic or some theme someone loves to follow, that a specialized Podcast may intrigue them. I'm sure there are some great Podcasts to use in education to present information a different way to students.

Week 9 Thing 20

I was excited when going through this assignment to see that Teacher Tube exists. I had never heard of it and was wondering if there was something out there like this. I could get lost a long time playing on You Tube rather than completing our assignments. I rarely just explore You Tube with searches and had fun looking up a few things. I had never seen the You Tube wedding video that Jim and Pam's wedding from The Office was based on so I watched that. I also looked up the Shift Happens videos again because my cousin and I were just talking about them. I wanted to watch the original one again. There are so many clips that we can use in education now with You Tube. You just have to be careful what pops up with other users' posts. My friend was just showing a science clip. After it was over, an inappropriate post showed up.
The You Tube that I wanted to share for the day is an old Sesame Street clip where Cookie Monster wants cookies at the library. Cookie Monster was pictured in Google search picture today so he was my inspiration for looking up the clip. I remember this clip from when I was a kid. What's interesting also to see is how libraries have evolved from when I was young. The librarian keeps telling Cookie Monster that the library only has books.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3ZHPJT2Kp4

Week 8 Thing 19

I once again enjoyed our activity this week. Library Thing is so easy to use and find books. There was more than I expected that fit my subject for my lesson. My Rollyo and WebQuest were about the Salem Witch Trials. This was meant for the history class that I team teach my 8th grade Learning Support students. Searches and tags are so easy to use in Library Thing. I like that you can set it up to search through Amazon as well which is one of my favorite sites to shop. I used Library Thing for the first time this past summer when we took Young Adult Literature. I performed tagmashes with Peer Pressure and Young Adult and found titles to read for my display assignment. I'm interested in checking out other classmates' Library Thing titles. Here is a link to the 5 books I chose:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/AlisonLS589 .

Week 8 Thing 18

I played around with Zoho Writer and published from Zoho to the blog. That is my zoho document listed as Halloween post. It was pretty easy to use and definitely easy to post in the blog. I didn't realize it would look just like the other posts in my blog. I thought it might have a different appearance. Zoho was a little slower than I was hoping. I was originally going to create a simple document with pictures of my new house but it took a long time. Then there were errors uploading the images. So I instead just wrote about what was on my mind for this week. This was my first use of Zoho Writer. I can see the benefits of saving documents to one place. This maybe useful for people who are constantly emailing themselves documents to complete at work or home. I definitely hear people talking more about the use of Google Docs more than Zoho Writer.

Halloween

Kristen Will Celebrate 1st Halloween this Saturday

 

 

I now have the joy of Trick or Treating with my own child.  We have enjoyed nieces and nephews in past years, but now we have our own kiddo to dress up.  Matt actually allowed me to dress Scout up last year as Super Dog.  It's the only time he'll let me put clothes on Scout. 

 

This year we wanted to coordinate our dog and baby.  We decided  Scout would be a banana and Kristen would be a monkey.  Target didn't have his size, but we ordered from Target.com.   About 3 weeks later, I called Target to find out where the package was.  We found out the sad news that there are no banana outfits in stock in Scout's size.    It was available on Ebay, but the auction price got too high to justify to qualify a pet costume as an essential need. 

 

So Scout will probably stay home this year and Kristen will go solo in her monkey outfit.  Is it wierd to collect candy for a baby whose sole nourishment is from nursing?  Do people know it's just for the parents of the baby?  I know it will probably bring out the old feelings of my youth as I feel the victory of a Reeses Cup or Twix.