Reluctant Blogger

VOKI is back!

2011-10-04T14:26:00.001-05:00

My voki is back. Not sure why it ever left, but I am happy to see it again.

Tool #6 Diigo and Blogspot and GoogleDocs

2011-09-30T21:14:00.003-05:00

I got on to Diigo and made a group with my tech buddies. I like Diigo, it was easy to add people to my group and it was good to have privacy settings. We had a good conversation and NA posted a url to the Diigo, it was a program on Facebook that I have been wanting to see. It took me awhile to get the link to my Diigo account correct, but with the help of my buddies we made it work.
Blogger counts as one of the tools for tool #6. Today at school I had the Latin 3 class go into their google accounts and activate their accounts. They were working in groups and they added the emails of their group members so they could collaborate. The students collaborated with their document and by adding images from the internet.

My VOKI is gone!!

2011-09-30T19:01:00.002-05:00

My Voki has disappeared!!! I am VERY upset and perturbed that I spent so much time creating my voki and now it is gone. I will leave the hole where it was located...I have deleted the code and re-pasted it in the gadget...but it is still not there...this stinks!!

Thing #5 Go Animate and Animoto

2011-09-30T09:08:00.005-05:00

I did a short animation in "Go Animate". I had to register and now it has put my real name up over my animation. I don't like that. I took me a moment to figure out how to get started in this animation. I think it would be fun for the students BUT it is very limited unless, of course, you pay for upgrades. I was able to take my real name off and use my blogger name. I also did a butterfly Animoto. I really enjoy animoto, it allows for a little more creativity than Go Animate.
Students have to gather images, write text and choose music.

Tool #4 google docs/forms

2011-09-29T15:41:00.002-05:00

I created a google doc and google form. I have not had any collaboration on the google doc yet, but I am sure my colleagues will be sending me collaboration soon. I created a google form, but it took me a moment to find where it was. I liked being able to create the form and think it would be interesting to give the students short quizzes. You could even have the kids create their own quiz in google forms and give them to each other. There are lots of possibilities. In google docs, students can collaborate on documents in different classes.

Tool #3 Picasa Web Album

2011-09-29T14:22:00.002-05:00

The Picasa Web Album was VERY frustrating. I tried for an hour but could not get into this site.
I restarted my computer, and still was not able to get in to the Picasa site. This created a great deal of frustration on my part. I would rather use Google Images, it is reliable and easy and I am always successful in finding the images that I am looking for.

Thing #3 Embedding Videos

2011-09-28T15:47:00.005-05:00

I went to 3 different video sources and embedded the videos, "The One Minute Painting", "Color Schemes", and "Elements of Art". I enjoyed searching for the videos I wanted. Each source requires a different approach to embed. You Tube was the easiest to use and has the most videos. I enjoyed this and was happy I did it. Earlier in the year I tried to embed a video into my flip chart, but had no success, not sure what I was doing wrong. I am familiar with copyright for the classroom, so I was not that surprised by anything I read.

Thing #1: Sheba Voki

2011-09-27T15:00:00.003-05:00

This is my voki...her name is Sheba. I had fun creating her, but wished there were more choices.
I think the students will like making their own vokis.

2011-09-26T14:25:00.003-05:00

Animoto Butterflies

I had fun creating this butterfly Animoto. I enjoy searching for images. Since I didn't have very many butterflies in my garden this summer, at least I had them on my blog page.

Thing #5

2009-08-10T14:17:00.003-05:00

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

2009-08-09T15:15:00.003-05:00

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

2009-08-09T15:10:00.002-05:00

"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

2009-08-06T13:13:00.002-05:00

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

2009-08-06T13:09:00.002-05:00

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

2009-08-06T08:27:00.003-05:00

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

2009-08-05T13:00:00.003-05:00

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!!

Thing #7

2009-07-26T15:53:00.006-05:00

Well...I was excited to try out Hulu, but disappointed in my search results. I tried to search for the old sitcom "Wings" I got everything from red wings to chicken wings to airwolf. But I did not get what I was looking for. I can see how Hulu would come in handy. The Simpsons has alot of episodes that could be incorporated into the curriculum. I am told they have done one on myths, and greek and roman gods, and that there are others. You could make the kids search for a releveant video. I found an excerp titled "Homer Plays Macbeth". It seems like most of the Simpsons videos are excerpts, not full videos. I am in LOVE with the Nova site. This is an amazing collection of videos. "Science Now" is great. The site is easy to use, attractive and well organized. I like using it much better than Hulu. So...I was told to try and download a video. I tried to do this on several different sites, Hulu, Nova, MSNBC, but I was not successful. I assume that I just don't know how to do it. I looked for "download" buttons or instructions, but could not find any. I need to move on, in order to finish this by the deadline.

Thing #6

2009-06-10T15:23:00.002-05:00

Finally...something that I have already done, am familiar with, and feel relatively competent doing. I love browsing the app store, and downloading apps to my itouch. I love my itouch.
Didn't get the phone cause that would have meant $80 a month and I am NOT a phone talker, I get phone ear. But I love the games and the flashlight and music and even movies.
The itouch is totally rad, everyone should have one, they are beyond fun.
As far as using it with a class, I will have to give that some thought. There are games that you can play together and compete with each other, that might be something a class or group of students could do using the itouch.
LOVE IT!!!

Thing #3

2009-06-10T15:15:00.002-05:00

I can see the appeal of Skype. I think the most exciting part would be to do a cross country project with a class in another country. Personally, I don't know anyone in another country, so I don't think I would use it for my own personal use. But for the class room I think the possibilities are endless.

Thing #3

2009-06-10T15:15:00.001-05:00

Thing #2

2009-05-27T12:43:00.009-05:00

I LOVE wordl, could spend hours playing BUT as far as I can tell I can only print it, or save to their gallery. What if I want to save it to my computer and have it for a ppt or an activboard slide, or part of an animoto? Can I do that? I also love Animoto, have done several on the summer reading books, and others just for fun. Am going to really push it hard next year to try and get a teacher that will use it. Trouble is, it is really short unless you pay. And if you pay, it has to be a credit card. Bookr is confusing for me. It says to go to flikr to find images, but you have to have a tag or know the name of a person that has photos on flikr? What if I don't have either. Didn't really like it that much. Played with voki, loved it, but am having trouble saving my avatar. I tried emailing it to myself, would love to post it on this blog. We'll see how it goes.
I made a new wordle, used the camera in activstudio to take a picture and put it on the clip board, then put it in photoshop and saved it as a jpg. Thank the stars for photoshop. Couldn't live with out it. Anyway, my wordle is on my blog.

Thing #1

2009-05-27T12:22:00.005-05:00

I love common craft videos. They make things easy to understand. I think the librarian can do the job of the teacher. The librarian will teach connectivity, how to build the information network that students will create and use their entire scholastic career.

2009-05-26T15:45:00.001-05:00

Wow, it's been almost a year since I have blogged. Guess that tells you why I am named "reluctant blogger" So, here we go again. I saw the Macs that we will be getting in the library, the 27" monitor ones. I think I am in love!

Table 1 Image manipulation

2008-08-19T14:18:00.003-05:00

I feel pretty confident about image manipulation. I saved this one for last cause I wanted to do an Animoto. I was very excited, gathered about 18 photos in flickr. Then uploaded them into Animoto and I waited for 45 minutes (no exageration) for it to upload 18 little photos. Finally, I gave up. I will try it again, but it was taking way too long. Animoto has never taken that long to upload photos, and I have used it many times.

Table 4 Video

2008-08-19T13:07:00.003-05:00

I have to say that I was very fearful about Movie Maker. Everyone says, "Oh, that's so easy..." but it never has seemed easy to me. I think it takes time to get the hang of this program. But if you stick with it you can do some fun, interesting things. I downloaded a video on grafitti artists from Discovery Education. I edited it severly. I put in a title slide and credit slide and did a short bit of narration at the beginning. I spent a great deal of time doing this. This is the type of program that is a black hole of time because there is no end to the tweeking you can do on the videos. I don't feel confident enough to teach this yet, I would need more time to play. Maybe if it was a small, very forgiving class it would be ok. I would feel ok about teaching it to students cause they are more apt to be explorers on the computers and seem to have an inherent ability when it comes to this type of thing. Plus, I learn much more from them than they do from me.

Table 3 Photostory

2008-08-19T10:40:00.003-05:00

I have gotten to the point where I really like Photostory and think I might just be ready to teach it. I have used my own voice for narration and created music and feel pretty good about Photostory. Wish I felt as good about sound, but hopefully that will come with time.

Table 2 Audio Manipulation

2008-08-19T10:21:00.002-05:00

Wow, this was confusing. I downloaded a sound file into Audacity and edited it. This part was fun. Loved to edit, wish I had more time to edit and play. Feel like I'm always being rushed.
Hated the save it part, put in wiki and then post on blog. Didn't know how to save it , needed to be as an mp3. The file NEVER did get on the wiki. One thing I don't understand is if audacity in not compatible with blogs and photostory, why use it? Or why not FIX this so we can use audacity? Sound always hangs me up, I don't understand it, it is invisible, very tempermental and not very nice. But I will keep trying until I master it.

Thing #23

2008-07-28T13:32:00.004-05:00

Finally!! I am here at the 23rd thing. I never thought I would make it. To be honest, I never would have without the help of VB. My favorite bits were all the image stuff and projects dealing with images. I was happy to finally learn how to do narration in Photostory. Learning how to calibrate the internal mic made a huge difference. I think Photostory has some amazing possibilities for students. Powerpoint is dead, Photostory lives to replace it. This will be huge for me. I also like igoogle. It was fun to customize this page for my own needs and likes. I will keep using it all year. This program hasn't really changed my lifelong learning patterns or goals. I am always up for learning something new IF I have adequate time to devote to it, and am not pressured by deadlines, I don't like being pressured. Most of it was unexpected because I did not know much of the information. As far as doing something differently, I think it would have helped me to have more actual face to face time with an instructor that knew what they were doing. We had 2 meetings that were helpful, but I could have used more. That might also have helped my frustration level. Also, MORE TIME! I had alot of other things going on, so it was not easy to squeeze this in. Especially since each thing took hours and hours of online time.
I'm not sure if I would participate in a similiar program. It would depend on the parameters. I need a teacher, and more time to finish. To describe my learning experience in one sentence:
It was an amazing, fun, informative, stressful, angst-producing experience, I'm glad it's over.

Thing #22

2008-07-27T15:13:00.003-05:00

I went to Texas School Librarians. This site was rich with diverse resources for teachers and librarians. There were videos and photos, chats and blogs. I think it would be a great tool for someone just starting out. They could get a great deal of support from this site. And many different ideas for projects and things to do with students. I think it would also be a great site for someonw who has been around for a while and needs some new, fresh ideas.

Thing #20

2008-07-27T15:06:00.004-05:00

I looked at videos in utube and teachertube. Why is it everyone else can find really amazing videos, but the ones I find are just wretched? Did not see any instructions telling how to download a video. Am struggling with this one.

So, here is my video from teacher tube. VB helped me again, I could not have done it without her. Thanks VB.

Thing #21

2008-07-27T15:04:00.004-05:00

I created a photostory with music. In audacity I recorded my narration. But I cannot figure out how to get my narration into the photostory or how to link it all on my blog. Thank goodnes for VB. She helped with setting up the mic on my laptop, and I was able to record my narration in Photostory. Yea!! thank you VB, I could not have done it without you! You ROCK!!

Thing #19

2008-07-24T17:00:00.002-05:00

I decided to play with picnik which is a free photo editing software. Seems to be a poor man's Photoshop. You can do many of the same things you can with Photoshop such as: auto-fix, rotate, crop, resize, colors, sharpen, red eye and more. It is not as powerful as photoshop, but not as expensive also. I liked this and thought it was fun, but it kept asking me if I wanted to upgrade to picnik premium for a new low, low price. Students could use this in conjuction with powerpoint or photostory to edit and manipulate photos they have taken themselves or gotten off the web.

Thing #18

2008-07-24T16:36:00.002-05:00

I explored google docs. At first I thought I would like it, but thenI started having difficulties with the program. When I tried to edit and change font size it did not change all the type. I went in several times, highlighted specific type, but still could not get it to change the size. But it changed the size of other parts of the text. Very wierd. Also, my choices of font and other design aspects were totally limited. I hate that. I like to have many choices when it comes to designing a page. That seems to be common thread with all this online stuff, the design choices are very limited.

I prefer the choices I get with Microsoft Office. I did like the fact that I could edit a page anywhere in time and space, convenient. Also that I could share. I could have collaborators that had edit rights. Or just viewers with no edit rights. It's kind of like a wiki. I think I prefer Microsoft Word; more freedom and more choices.

Thing #17

2008-07-24T16:22:00.002-05:00

I watched the video of Rollyo. It was good, but I got a little confused toward the end. Too much information. I registered on Rollyo and created a jewelry searchroll. This all went pretty well. But then I had trouble with attaching a link. Then I couldn't get my websites to show up. Guess I need to view the video again.I'll keep trying.

Thing #16

2008-07-24T15:44:00.001-05:00

Ok, this was fun and easy. Thank goodness it was easy. I just LOVE the commoncraft guys. They explain things in simple terms with simple graphics. I like the wiki and think it would be a fun thing for students to explore in school.

Thing #15

2008-07-24T15:21:00.004-05:00

I read Michael Stephens' article "Into a new World of Librarianship". I especially liked what he said about the library being "human". How it needs to be a "...socially and emotionally engaging place for learning and experience". I agree with this statement 100 percent. The library needs to be an emotionally engaging place, this means, magazines, books, computers, ipods, music, etc. Students should be allowed to "plug in" in the library to whatever technology they prefer. They should have access to many sites that are being blocked by many school districts. I do think that Mr. Stephens is living in a fantasy world when it comes to librarians designing and providing state of the art equipment. This takes MONEY!! Funds are short, budgets are cut every year. How are we supposed to keep up with technology that changes daily when we don't even have enough money in the budget to upgrade from VHS to DVD? I like what he has to say, but I do not think he is grounded in the reality of limited resources for schools.

Thing #14

2008-07-24T14:58:00.003-05:00

Went to the Technorati site to search by tags. Could not find tags, so searched by the buttons on the top of the page. This was ok. I did like the organization of "top" this and "top" that. There is quite a bit of advertising on this site. Could T Moblie get any more ads on this site? I don't think so. Blogger Central was probably my favorite place to go. Lots to see here.

Thing #13

2008-07-24T14:13:00.002-05:00

First I have to say I love the commoncraft videos. They make things so simple and easy. It is a bit frustrating cause the first time I watch it , it is constantly buffering, so it takes 10 times as long for the video to finish. After it goes through it's buffering woes I can watch it a second time without any problems. I started to get a little excited about this social bookmarking thing. Think it would be a great tool for teachers. I went to delicious.com and signed up for an account. However when it was time to add the two very important links to my browser I was unsuccessful. So I tried to go back and find a way to add the 2 very important buttons, but I could not figure out a way to do this, short of deleteing the account and starting over. And people wonder why I get frustrated with the internet.

Thing #12

2008-07-24T13:35:00.003-05:00

In considering what 2 points are important when trying to invite comments to blog, i choose:
1. Interact with the comments left and 2. Be gracious and humble. If people leave comments and get a response I think they will be more likely to interact more often because they know someone is out there listening or reading and responding to what they have to say. Nobody likes a know it all. And Nobody knows it all. So being gracious and humble are paramount in inviting people to interact with you. After all, good manners are worth a million $$. I went to two different gardening posts. There is so much I do NOT know about gardening that I could search for an eternity. Found some good info on organic gardening and hanging baskets.

Thing #11

2008-07-24T13:27:00.002-05:00

I created an account in Library Thing. This was amazingly simple. I added 5 books to my library.
I think this would be an outstanding tool for students to use to review books and discover new titles and authors. You could form a book club and make Library Thing a part of your book club meeting.

Thing #10

2008-07-24T12:58:00.002-05:00

I really like playing with all the image generators. When we made our avatars, that was an image generator that was fun. Creating a different persona of yourself is intriguing, I think the students would enjoy it. They could even create avatars of each other. I went to the comic strip generator. I was assaulted with images of the Simpsons. Is that seriously the only comic that teens are wild about? I guess I just don't get it. Luckily I was able to search for anime images and found a great many anime cartoons that I think teens would like. I have posted two of the images I played with.

Thing #9

2008-07-24T12:53:00.002-05:00

Still haven't encountered a lot of feeds that I am wild about. This could take weeks or months, and I am working against a deadline. I really liked topix.net for the news. It was well organized and easy to follow, didn't have to waste alot of precious time stumbling about. Of course the top news story was about a teacher having sex with students. Seems those headlines always generate interest.
I did not like Syndic8.com. Found it hard to follow. Had to wait too long to get into different areas.
I did like the categories, but it took too much time to wade through it all.

Thing #8

2008-06-23T14:30:00.003-05:00

I set up my reader on google reader. I don't really spend any time reading blogs or news online. My eyes get fatigued pretty quickly and I would rather be riding my bike or working in my garden. I SHOULD be cleaning the bathrooms and dusting the house. But...I'm not much of a computer reader.
However, I can see how setting up a reader would be of tremendous help to someone that liked to read blogs and get their news off of a computer.

Thing #6

2008-06-23T13:49:00.001-05:00

I played with Warholizer. This was really alot of fun. Look at the photo I Warholized. It is titled Warholized Butterflies.

Thing #5

2008-06-23T13:28:00.004-05:00

I played with flicker, really enjoyed it. I created a magazine cover. Not many design choices here, which was frustrating. Used the images in flickr to create a photostory project. That was fun. But the most fun is the flickr color picker. How awesome is that!! Especially wonderful for art teachers, designers... LOVE this!

Thing #7

2008-06-23T13:15:00.002-05:00

I played with igoogle and created my own web page. It was soooo easy and fun. I wish creating my blog had been that easy. I also created a google alert for severe weather in Houston. This seems like a very handy tool. However, I would not want my email account inundated with google alerts.

Thing #3 and #4

2008-06-16T15:07:00.002-05:00

Setting up my blog was a bit of a nightmare! I had to have someone come to my aid to make sure that I hadn't mucked up the entire thing.
I did like making the avatar, creating the border at the top and making all the design decisions, that was fun. But not enough choices.

Thing #2

2008-06-16T14:41:00.003-05:00

Hardest habit is allowing a problem to be a challenge, they just seem like problems to me.
Easiest thing for me is to take responsibility for my own learning.