Summary

This has been a great adventure! I have loved the format of independent, on-line learning outside the classroom environment, typical of the 21st century learner. I'm excited to continue to learn about and use these tools and resources, both personally and professionally. Some of my favorites that I can use are:

the experience of blogging and social network capabilities, www.boingboing.net
some of the mashups like www.krazydad.com/fungames.php , http://bighughlabs.com/flickr/deck.php , FD Toys (same URL), www.imagechef.com

I also enjoyed learning about new resources for students including the Learning2.0 and Library 2.0 tools, wikis and widgets, and web-based applications! I especially liked Zoho,think it's a great resource for students who may not have access to expensive software and loved the flexibility of online publishing and collaboration. http://zoho.com . I'm excited to try podcasting with kids and loved the resource Beginner's Guide to Podcasts and Creating Podcasts.

My only thought for improvement would be to have all of the assignments at the beginning of the course so that students could decide where and when to spend time in areas of interest. I would definitely take another class like this!!!! :)

Audiobooks

This was interesting. I was excited about the fact that I could access these resources 24/7 from anywhere! I thought it was wonderful that you can access full electronic texts and the 3460 books available. Some of the features were great....compiling favorite lists, previewing, emailing finds,etc. I was disappointed that Ipods and Zunes couldn't be used. Some of the titles that I saved were:

A Mind at a Time, Melvin D. Levine
Power of Full Engagement, Neal Bascomb
Teach Like Your Hair Is On Fire: The Methods and Madnees Inside Room 56, Rafe Esquith
The War of Art, Steven Pressfield

Cowcast!

I found this great resource on Podcastalley. com. I also think the Forever Geek site with the "Beginner's guide to podcasts and Creating podcasts"is wonderful and am looking foward to experimenting!

http://forums.creativecow.net/podcast/rsscow.xml

YouTube

Thoughts on YouTube.......another new adventure! I really enjoyed some of the features like the playlist and Community page with contests for aspiring videographers, journalists, etc. with assignments that could be used in the classroom. I think it would be so relevant and exciting for kids! I'm frustrated of course with our filter that is blocking some good resources and hope that we can find a way to access the good stuff!

Bob Dylan Live ( almost!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ced8o50G9kg
OK..let's see if Bob Dylan will play for us!

Web 2.0 tool awards

I could spend lots of hours perusing www.seomoz.org, but one tool that immediately caught my attention was under the category of Art, www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/. This site "specializes in the visualization of complex networks". It is a collection of "data turned art" and is also call Information Visualization. A number of years ago while completing my master's degree I wrote my thesis on the influence of the computer on Fine Arts. So, I am always fascinated by how new technology continues to create!

pkwiki

I set up a new wiki called wikiwowwow, but haven't been successful at adding a blog to the Rocky Mountain wiki ( I couldn't find it!). Anyway, I'm not sure that I would use this, because of what I understand to be the limited number of users that you can have (1-3) before being charged a fee.

zoho writer

I've had difficulty trying to post my zoho document to my blog. Even though zoho recognized blooger, it would not accept my username and password. I tried two days in a row, after receiving my confirmation email that my zoho account was confirmed, thinking that it may take 24 hours to become availabel, but have still not had luck. The concept is great and I love the idea that I could work on a document any where without a flash drive, so will try again later.

zoho writer

http://export.writer.zoho.com/PublicExport.im?tstamp=2,12,2008
I'm attempting to link to what I wrote in zoho

Thought on Learning 2.0

My favorite comment about this new learning environment was made by Will Richardson about our kids living in an unfiltered world. I'm still very frustrated with the new Webwasher Filter and how it protects but also limits our students in so many ways. As Will points out the Internet is not all bad. Teach kids how to use, judge and evaluate myspace, rather than avoid it, so that they learn for themselves how to react to content that they will be exposed to.

Impression of Technorati

I'm amazed first of all by the sheer numbers! My directory search was the most successful of the three approaches to finding blogs because I had difficulty finding posts and tags! I did learn new things about "pings " and widgets though! When comparing the different categories and was surprised by the interest in celebrities!

Del.icio.us

What a great idea. This is a great organization and research tool. I like the "popular" category because you can quickly access good sites that others have already spent the time searching and sifting through. I am excited that I can load all of my favorites from my old laptop to this site rather than trying to reenter them all on my new laptop. I also love that you can access this resource from any where!!

I enjoyed exploring Rollyo, but found it a little frustrating when trying to do a keyword search of other rolls. Once I was able to access the available categories, it was O.K. but time-consuming to browse through such broad categories. It would be a good resource for creating lists of websites that our school district's new filter will allow access to and make available for students. My search engines are available at:

http://rollyo.com/dashboard.html

I could spend days at this site. What a wonderful resource for anyone. Even though I'm not a librarian, I love the level of accessibility, and cataloging feature. My catalog is: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/sallyth

This is a fun way to add eye-catching signs! Just click on the image to go to the site http://www.imagechef.com/ I found this site through http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/

Thoughts on RSS Feeds- I'm feeling a total information superhighway overload. Too much information for my little brain to absorb at once. It can be overwhelming. I know that this would be a valuable tool for accessing immediate, concise and up to the minute information, but I'm not used to being so current with this type of media. But what a great resource!! I think starting with just one source would be a good way for me to get in the habit of checking my source. I'm sure this is a great tool for those in a position to need this type of up to the minute information.

My thoughts about technology this week are consumed with our school district's new filter, "Webwasher." Although I understand our vulnerability and responsibility toward students, I'm really frustrated with this product. We seem to be placing too many limits on accessibility to some great "stuff'' for kids as we try to protect them. My hope is that this product can be adjusted to allow more freedom for exploration, discovery and good adventures in the classroom!

This is too much fun! Just about every thing tech-related interests me and I'm often overwhelmed by it all. I'm most interested in the artistic applications of technology and the creative potential of the tools available. I would like to find even more applications that are are " fun games" that are educational too. Kids using technology want to be entertained while they learn on computers, so any one with resources to share, please feel free to respond!

This is great fun! This third party site www.krazydad.com has a section called fun and games that lets you design (very easily) fun kaledascopes from your images.

flower painting

flower painting, originally uploaded by thomassally23.

This photgraph was uploaded in Flicr and now posted on my blog. Yippee!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Lifelong learning thoughts

The easiest of the 71/2 habits for me is #2, Being responsible for my learning. It's very natural for me to seek new experiences and challenges.

The most difficult would be #1, beginning with the end result in mind- goals and plans. It's easy fro me to just follow the flow without the structure of a plan.