Thing #5

I set up a facebook account a couple of months ago. I managed to put a profile photo on it today, that was fun cause I got to play in photoshop a bit before uploading it to facebook. To my surprise a friend found me. How cool was that to have a friend find me, this was someone I had been thinking about all summer, but was too busy to get in touch with, and there she was asking to be my friend. It was really awesome.

Thing # 11.5

I liked all of my discoveries that were successful. However, the items that were not successful made me feel like a bit of a failure. I still have not successfully downloaded or uploaded a video to my blog. But I can download a video from Discovery Education and show the teachers how to do it. Most of the video sites I went to, you can just play it from the site. Oh well. I was able to capture my screen, but still no success with posting it to my blog. I feel rushed to get through all the things by the deadline. I also felt rushed to get through the 23 things.
I would like the opportunity to do the"things" during a long semester, so I can actually give it my full attention, and get help with the things that I am having trouble with. Why does it always have to be during the summer. Why can't we have a fall and/or spring semester to do the things.
I feel like I work hard during the school year and would like the summer to choose what I want to do. I have to work during the summer, so that does not leave much time for play or fun or travel or visiting family. I need to do all these things to re-charge by mind, body and soul and get ready to greet a new year with enthusiasm. I always take classes during the summer, and review books so it's not that I don't want to do anything in that vein, but I want to make the choices for what I will be doing during the summer. If we had the option to do the "things" during a long semester, I could do that, get the help I need and still have the freedom to choose what I want my summer to be. I'm not saying help was not available, I'm just saying that by the time I am finished teaching summer school, it's a mad dash just to try and get through the things. I love doing the things, they are super, and will be great for the kids and teachers, I would just like to have some flexibility/choices on when and how long I have to do the things.
Remember, we want to teach to all types of learners, I am the type of learner that moves slower, does NOT like to be rushed and needs to think about things, repeat things in order to really get them inside my brain. That does not mean that I am stupid, it just means that I have a different way of learning and remembering what I learn. I think we need to be aware of different learning styles and offer some options for people.

Thing #11

"Digital citizenship is more than literacy, it is living safely, civilly, and effectively in our increasingly digital world. It is a process and cannot just be taught by one teacher one time and expect retention.It must permeate all subjects in all grade levels just like reading, for increasingly it is reading. " The above quote taken from the blog of Cool Cat Teacher, describes perfectly how I feel about digital citizenship. I especially agree with her sentiment that it cannot be taught by just one teacher, one time and expect kids to make it a part of their lifestyle. It must be taught by every teacher AND by parents. Teachers and parents should also lead by example.

Thing #9

I joined SlideBoom. At last, something that is easy and worked great the first time. I uploaded a ppt I had made about the termite damage at my house. I would have uploaded something that dealt with students, but I do not have any signed waivers to put their image or work on the internet. I like SlideBoom, an easy way to share ppt's across the world. I played around and tried to download the slideshow on the blog, but didn't have much luck. I will keep trying.

Thing #10

I went to second life and tried to set up an account. It told me :Registration Unavailable
Linden Lab limits the number of accounts any household or individual may create.You appear to have exceeded this limit. How could I have exceeded the limit if I have never even heard of this website? Why can't anything be simple, easy?? I will keep trying, but this is frustrating.

Thing #8

So...I tried to download Jing, I watched the video and it sounded fairly easy, especially with the html part and uploading to the blog. However, I could not load it on my computer, no administrative rights. I will try something else. So then I tried FreeScreenCast, this was a mess.
Awkward to manipulate and kept getting error messages. Never could find the screen cast.
Last year we bought Camtasia, so I decided to try that. I managed to capture my screen. But I am having a hard time figuring out how to save it, or which is the best way to save it and post it to my blog. I have been working on this for the last 3 hours. So I am going to go on to the next thing, and try to come back to this later.

Thing #12

This is my own thing. I am taking a Fun with Photoshop class with Pat Kougar-Melton. It is awesome. I am having so much fun and learning fun wonderful things. We are working on the new i macs. And they are stupendous. PhotoBooth is so much fun, the kids will never stop playing. It makes everything so easy, no camera needed, just click and photo is ready. You can also do a video, haven't tried that yet. I wish we could could just get all i macs for the library computers. I think the students would love them and wouldn't care that they were not totally mobile. They could still work in small groups. I love these macs!!