Thing 16

I have used Google Docs before, but never really took the time to explore the other options. I was amazed to see all the templates, even though some were private/blocked. I even found one tool for amortizing a loan and since we are in the process of selling a home, it was interesting to see how to use that tool. I also had done a survey at the end of last school year for both the students and staff regarding the media center and it's resources. You have to be ready to hear anything when you do a survey and I'm not sure I was. The survey became part of my year end report. I will redo it each year and clean it up so that I get pertinent information. I think this survey tool could be used as a pre and post tool for media literacy and as part of the media center orientation I do each year for classes coming in to check out materials.

Since I am on many committees both in school and statewide. This is an excellent tool to use to share, collaborate, and assess committee work. I have a meeting in a couple of days and it's a long distance. I think I will suggest we use this tool for future meetings to gather and share information.

I love Google Docs and all of the Google products. They certainly know how to collaborate and support education and life-long learning.

I think the concerns about students relate to email accounts as well as collaborating. We need to be teaching students to work together and collaborate in a positive productive way and not think that they can hide behind and computer and do whatever they like without repercussions. Since there is a login requirement, it is easy to track students an their work/comments. I like the video that talked about being able to watch student participation and know that all members of a group actually do the work. I just think there are too many positives, not to share these tools with our students.

Thing 15

The RSS is getting easier, but keeping up with it isn't. I guess once I am done with this class and actually have time to use the tools I am saving it will be come easier to keep up. I have to think about how I will share these with staff and use them with students before the feeds will have an impact on what I do. I can't really imagine using this for news, but I can see using it for feeds from the tags in Delicious or Diigo. I am quickly becoming overwhelmed with the information I can find this way and certainly can see using it to help staff find good stuff. Since I have my feeds for Diigo come to my email, I tend to check those before I go to Bloglines to check. I am not even sure that I can access Bloglines at school and therefore keeping those cleaned up, might become more of an issue. I think the best way to handle these feeds is just to set a time of day and designate it my check time. I do want to also focus more on the tags since that is a great filtering tool.

Thing 14

I already had a membership in Delicious, but hadn't really used it until this course. My user name is t2terry. I began with the tagging thing and am continuing to add to my favorites. I will import my bookmarks from all of my computers. I also will be using Diigo to find good sites and then save them into my Delicious account. As a media specialist, part of my role is to provide staff as well as students with the best and newest sources for their needs. Delicious will allow me to do that much easier and more timely. I will develop tags for both content areas and grade level activities. If anyone is interested, my Diigo username is teachonwheels.

Thing 13

The "tagging" process is a great way to organize bookmarks. I use to use Backflip and made folders that many times even confused me. The two articles brought some interesting issues up about tagging and I'm glad I had the chance to read those before I got too far into saving book marks. I have been a user of Diigo for several months and will certainly watch their tagging methodology as well as Delicious. My way of thinking doesn't always follow a conventional path and if I want to be able to share my bookmarks with my peers, I will need to focus my thinking. It certainly saves time and once I figured out where my buttons were on my tool bar, both Diigo and Delicious are easy to use and utilize the same tagging vocabulary.

Thing 12

This is a countdown clock and I wanted to set it for my retirement day, however it would not allow that, so I will set if for the end of the school year. Obviously it has many uses in the educational field, due dates, holidays, birthdays.

I'm ok with embedding, but moving things around on my blog and dealing with the layout if very frustrating and difficult. I am involved with many other online communities. I have taken several online classes this summer and developing relationships in those has been easier than this course. Since we are all at different stages, it is difficult to comment on activities with each other. I don't really enjoy online relationships because they are so disjointed. I believe that students however like the disengagement of the online relationship. I feel we are teaching our students to be less personal and more disconnected with the online social networks. I also don't feel the time commitment has to be there with online social groups as a face-to-face community.

Sorry, this is the first negative day I have had with this course and the widget thing is very frustrating. I guess that has reflected on the other activity as well.

Thing 11

I enjoy commenting on other's blogs, but after reading the articles, I think I need to rethink the way I comment. Ok, now that that is as clear as mud, let me explain. One of the ways I can post better comments will be for me to read the blog more than once or twice. I want to make sure I am totally clear about what is posted and then I can be a better commenter(is that a word?). I also need to be careful because I have a strange sense of humor and what I think is funny, does not come across in my writings. We have talked a lot about responsibility in this course and commenting on other people's blogs is a big responsibility. Not only do we need to be careful of what we post, but we need to remember that we are posting to the world and what we might say to someone we know can be taken incorrectly.

On the other hand, blogging offers all of us the opportunity to get feedback from our "yet unknown" peers and to make connections with others around the world. Blogging and commenting can eliminate the isolation we can feel in our profession and can open up adventures for both ourselves and our students.

As we speak about students and commenting on blogs, this is a an additional opportunity to teach communication skills and ethics in the cyber world. I think that many people(I've seen this on Facebook)think that they have the right to say or do whatever they want online because no one can "find" them. Language and vocabulary can be taken offensively and even though there may not be an "assessment", there could be repercussions. As we increasingly join the collaborative network, we have to make sure that we come in with a clean slate and our public comments have improved the space, not contaminated it.

Thing 10

I did comment on the video I selected on the other post. I tried the KeepVid and PWNYYouTube and I found KeepVid much more user friendly. The other site had so many options and I didn't understand what they were asking for. With KeepVid, you just cut and pasted just like the video said. I am looking forward to using this video with my 5th graders in September and now know that even with YouTube blocked, I can access it. I will put it on my flash drive to use a t school