Thing 14

I LOVE delicious.  What a time saver this will be.  I have already tagged some sights that I want my students to check out.  This is awesome.  I love being able to search and then being able to access my searches from any computer.  My username is: delicious.com/hutchison.cecilia incase you are interested.  I am teaching a foods class for the first time in quite a few years so many of my tags are about cooking, nutrition and food.  I see this as a valuable resource for teachers or anyone for that matter.  I could literaly spend an entire day searching on this.  It seems a little more friendly than google as it gives you some ideas about how many people have viewed it before and I like beign able to tag articles.  Yeah for Thing 14.....    

Thing 13

I do think tagging is a great way to share digital resources.  So much of the time we spend an incredible amount of time searching on the computer for information.  If we tag the information it will be easy to go back to when you are at school or at home or anywhere for that matter.  By making it public, it can be useful to collaboration teams in your school or in your department.  We have always asked why re-invent the wheel? This is a great way to save sites for future use.  I can see where it is important for people to be specific when they are tagging.  I also think it is great that you can identify tags for others.  I do have concerns about web sites no long being there when you go back to them, but that can happen even with favorites or bookmarks on your own computer.  My other question is how can one web site hold everyones favorite sites?  Won't this bog down the system?  I think it is important that we make sure we are tagging a useful site and that it is accurate.  Looking forward to tagging.... I have tons of sites on my favorites at home, but that isn't always helpful when I am working at school.  This may be the answer to my problems, well one of them anyway.           

Thing 12 revisited

I added my widget.  That was fun.  I can see how you could add interest to blogs, presentations, etc. with widgets.  There are some very fun things out there.  Who can possibly figure all this out?  It is mind boggling to me.  Actually I think embedding video is easier than downloading and uploading.  I belong to facebook and have been able to reconnect with some old cronies from high school - man do they look old!  Funny how we don't see ourselves aging.  Honestly, I must say that online relationships scare me to death.  If I know the person I am commenting or writing to that is one thing.  If I am just in a chat room talking - no way.  There are so many predators out there and who knows who you are talking to.  Kids today are so saavy with technology and I know they have all the newest gadgets out there.  I do think it is good to use the technology available and teach them how to be safe with it.  I thought my generation wanted to get things fast, this one has us beat.  They don't want to wait for anything. I also think texting and tweeting is an example of this instant need.  Call me old fashioned but I still like talking directly to people, be it face to face or over the phone.  I think we need to communicate by listening to one another. Technology is great but we need to remember to make those human connections.            

Thing 12

Thoughts on Thing 11

I enjoy reading other students blogs.  It is a good way to get ideas and see what other people in this course are doing.  I feel most inadequate about respnding to blogs because I am such a novice at Web 2.0 issues.  I like reading comments from others because it validates some of your work.  This is fun to do, but it requires a great deal of time so it is nice to know others are reading your work.  I can see where you could get some interesting class blogs going.  I think students might be more willing to participate on the computer. 

Thing 10

Well the video that I embedded was about making a children's Christmas ornament.  I teach early childhood education to high school seniors who are interested in becoming elementary teachers.  My students are required to develop lesson plans that are age appropriate.  The watchknow link that was suggested was a great resource.  I embedded that video from there.  It will be a great site for my students to utilize as well. I downloaded a video on the importance of creativity in the classroom which might also be a good clip for my students.  I was glad to learn about the regulations on using video.  That was helpful.  This was a very helpful assignment.  Sometimes you want students to watch a short segment on something and this keeps you from having to go through an entire video or constantly purchasing new updated videos (DVD'S) better get with the times here.  I enjoyed this very much and I know I will use it alot.    

Thing 10 (video embedded) Making a tree ornament

Watch this video on making a Christmas tree ornament.

Thought on Thing 9

You tube has some interesting videos and it is easy to get caught up in sitting and watching them forever.  I also like teacher tube and saw some rather interesting videos I could use in classes.  We are able to gain access at school to you tube and teacher tube.  Friday I got the email about Watchknow and I spent some time there as well.  That is an incredible site.  There are some wonderful video clips that would be great for activities for students to search for.  I was impressed with most of them I watched.  Ofcourse like anything else, one would want to proof it before showing it.  This is one of those "things" one might want to set a timer for or you could spend many hours watching these clips.  This is a great resource for teachers. 

Thoughts about Thing 8

I did some interesting things with images.  I used montage and made a great collage in the shape of a heart from pictures from my flower gardens.  I also made a mosaic pictures with plates of cookies.  It was especially interesting.  I took the word generator and made a picture of the title of one of the classes I will be teaching in the fall.  I was able to save them, but for some reason my computer is being most difficult about uploading pictures so I can't get any of them to upload. I will keep trying and get a link posted as well when I get one to upload.  I was happy with all of them and really enjoyed playing with this.  I can see using it in presentqations, handouts, etc.  I also played with the scrapbook generator but my photos would not upload to fill it in.  There are some amazing image things one can do.  I will get at least one of them uploaded as soon as I can but I want to move on to Thing 9.

    

Thing #7

I added some photos to my Flickr account and tagged them.  It was fun to go through the pictures that people have tagged.  There are a lot of them.  The nummber of photos out there is endless.  It is amazing how many photos are downloaded each day.  I can see using this to add to presentations.  It would be a fun assignment to get students to search and tag photos for the class to see (given set perameters).  I literally could get lost on Flickr.  This was an enjoyable "thing." I look forward to using it in my classroom.  I am teaching a foods class next fall and it will be fun to use the pictures for the cake decorating unit.  I am excited.    

Thing 6

Well I spent way too much time exploring on Flickr. I think I will have to learn to set a timer. It is so amazing to see all of the different interesting pictures people take. I wish I were so talented. I uploaded some fun photos. I can see where you could incorporate these into presentations, dress up documents, or just print and have some great photos to frame. One of the photos I picked and found very interesting was a lady reading. It appears to be an old photo and I searched for pictures of people reading. I have some that are more current but this one caught my eye. I think it would be fun to do a slideshow of these reading photos.

Thing 5 Thoughts

I like RSS. I think it is a great way for teachers or anyone for that matter, to follow someone's work or keep update on certain topics or issues. I like the idea of having all of the blogs you are following in one place. My biggest issue is finding the time to check it frequently.
I will use it to add to my curriculum and stay abreast of current issues in education.