Baby Steps

I am trying to insert a song about continents.

What are my final thoughts for this group of people with whom I have collaborated throughout the summer.  I wish we could all meet in person!  I would like to see your expressions and your body language as we talk about our journey this summer.  I would like to talk about the highs and the lows…the times when you thought will I make it through.  Shelley, you are so very knowledgeable and have introduced me to a world of ideas.  Thank you for your time developing the course, which must have taken hours and hours, to answering our questions and emails.  As I ponder more on all those things which were introduced, I know I will not be afraid to try them.  I picture throughout the year working on something in the classroom and realizing, ” OOOh, I need Twitter for this.  Or Google Docs.  Or Flickr.  Or any of the other wonderful read write tools.  Thanks to all of you.  So long for now.

There are shoppers and there are shoppers.  I am not the type of shopper who likes to go into a store where things are hard to find.  You know, the type who will wade through things in an unorganized store to find that special bargain.  Don’t get me wrong, I love bargains, but I’m not a very good or patient wader.

As I waded through Classroom 2.0, I recognized how useful it could be in creating that network of professionals.  I found it, however, a little like those stores where I prefer not to go.  I think the primary reason is the amount of time I would need to spend to find those special nuggets.  If I am limited in time, which all of us are, I would prefer to explore Twitter more, rather than Classroom 2.0.

I was not familiar with Twitter before this class, although my colleague talks about it quite often.  As I looked through applications and ideas for use in the classroom, there were several ways which I thought it could be used.  First, of course, is through professional development, finding those people who are just as interested in reading and the communication arts as I am and sharing ideas and success stories, as well as those things not so successful.  I would like to set up a twitter to let parents know what is happening in the class each day…I do question when I could keep it updated…there isn’t downtime in first grade.  I like the idea of the twittermap, posting a question and looking at all the places where people responded.  I also really like the Word Play.  I think this may be the one I will start with.  I could see parents and my students playing around with it.

So…I guess this shopper won’t visit both the Classroom 2.0 “store” and the Twitter “store” on a regular basis.  I think I’ll just shop around and use Twitter for now.

Some of the time I like to read Blogs just for their enjoyment.  I never read Look At My Happy Rainbow without enjoying it.  His latest two blogs speak of the power of the internet audience in promoting a writer.  In his last blog he talks about going into a Target and buying foam cubes from the Dollar Bin.  As teachers, we all find ourselves doing that very thing…we think about school even in the summer and can’t walk into a store without looking to see if there is something we “need” for our little friends whom we haven’t even met yet.  Don’t you love being a teacher!

I have only used Google docs for the last few days, but can see some pros to its use, primarily collaborative work.  Often throughout the school year, my two first grade colleagues and I will send email attachments back and forth to collaborate on schedules for a field trip, letters to parents, or ideas we have for use within our classroom.  These attachments are most often in the form of Word Documents, but we have also created Power Points which we have shared in this manner.  By the time the emails are sent back and forth a couple of times and we save the attachments to our own computer, it is easy to become confused.  Using Google Documents, that confusion should be eliminated because our history and changes are right before us.  There are small things which are different with Google, such as cutting and pasting require you to use the control button.   I am sure I will learn more as I use it more.  I also had problems with printing the document.

On another thought, I have noticed those things in the Read Write Web change often…for example the format of edublog.  While this is a very good thing, to improve with collaboration, it also takes a little to get re-oriented to the format.  This is probably an “age thing”.

In the past I have used both You Tube and Teacher Tube to support our Social Studies units in the classroom.  I have leaned toward using You Tube more, liking the quality on You Tube more than Teacher Tube.  I like the idea of  quietube.  Both You Tube and Teacher Tube have to be configured to by-pass our Firewall in order to be able to use them in the classroom.  The video I am embedding is one of Ecuador.  I have happy memories of mission trips to the area surrounding Quito.  Ecuador is one of the most beautiful places in the world, both the environment and the people.  It was hard to choose a video that showed the extremes of what you see there.  This video did that better than any other I found.

I have just made my first podcast which was relatively easy, but I have to remember this is a basic podcast.  I tried an introduction to first grade.  There were a few solvable problems which I encountered.  First, the sound recorder would not save the file as a wave file, but rather as a Windows Media Audio File.  I found this worked as well.  Because my home computer is older and has a microphone which is plugged in, the quality of the sound is not as good as the others I listened to.  I was so glad Shelley added the note about changing itunes to where it would import as mp3.  I was stuck on that part until I read her notes.  I enjoyed listening to those who have already made a podcast and look forward to listening to more.  I really think parents would enjoy hearing their own children on a podcast reading a story or something they have written.  Right now I am attempting to embed my file.  Let’s see if it works.   Oops.  It didn’t!  Will try again later.

I imagine in this Thing you will quickly see the ones who love technology.  I know podcasting is something that many already know…using ipods and other Mp3 players to download for quite some time.  Although I received an Ipod for a gift, I really hadn’t done much with it, and enjoyed learning about Podcasts.

Many of the podcasts I found were ones that I would enjoy personally.  I enjoy Focus on the Family and Living on the Edge, as well as podcasts from our local church.  I previewed some podcasts on learning Spanish, but decided I would rather use Rosetta Stone.  I also found two podcasts, Barefoot Books and Storynory that I found interesting.  Even with those, I like www.storylineonline.net beter because it shows the book as the story is read.   The best podcast I found to use in my first grade classroom was by PBS kids and was about Super Readers.  It does seem as though some of the videos at this “Super Why” site are free while others are not.  I watched the video of The Three Little Pigs which was a fast pace solving of the problem within the story while teaching how to get along, letters, opposites, and words in the “all” word family.

I really can see using Podcasts more in upper elementary than lower.  I am anxious to read what those of you who teach lower school and love technology and know all about podcasts have to say.

What great social networking is available through the library thing…not to mention forming almost an online book club!  It was very interesting to search by authors of both children and adult fiction, find other books by the author, and read reviews of those books.  An added benefit was the ability to see other books read by those people who enjoyed the same authors you enjoy.  I already know other books I now want to purchase and read.  Professionally, this social network could help find books regarding the teaching of content and life in an everyday classroom.  It is great to read more than just the review in the Professional catalogues.  I could also see using this network to find books of interest to a first grade student who likes a particular genre or author.  I doubt if I join now, only because there are other areas we have learned which I want to pursue first.

Although I have used different sites before where I could bookmark my favorites to share with different computers, I find I really like Delicious.  I am very anxious to bookmark all my favorites here.  By the way, “here” is delicious.com/acrawfrd.  It is very easy to use with the feature of the url address and title appearing just by clicking TAG.  I like the suggestions for tagging.  Some of the time it is just hard to think of those key words you want to use.  My favorite feature is the fact that I can search and use other people’s bookmarks, which may at first cause me to be on the internet more…it’s addictive…but eventually, as the year progresses and life gets even busier, save me time.  On another thought, I hope I remember all we have explored this summer.  Will we be able to come back to the information once the class is over or will it be closed for us? Something tells me I should know the answer to this, but…