Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Fini



I am done. I have completed my tasks.

Thing 23

1. My favorite exercises were finding del.icio.us, web 2.0 awards, wikis, and Flickr. I will utilize these more than any. They are user friendly and fun,too.
2. 23 Things have opened up new worlds of technology that I didn't previously know existed. In order to keep abreast of all that's out there, I really appreciate the way the Library 2Play was set up so I could take advantage of all the new sites.
3. I found that some of things were more challenging than others. The podcast and video were difficult but once it was done, I was so proud of it. I really like putting pictures on my blog. I think it adds more interest.
4. The only thing I might recommend would be better instructions. I found that in some cases, there were steps missing that I think people take for granted that I know. I really need to be walked through every step or I get confused.
5. I would participate again. I like being able to work from home and I was able to complete things on this activity that I thought I couldn't do.It was time consuming, but I surely am glad to get the 18 hours under my belt.I estimate I doubled the 18 hours or more spent on this activity.
6. 23 Things will take you places you never dreamed possible.
7. I have commented on others' blogs and will continue to do so this summer. I am also anxious to see all the completed blogs. There are people out there with a lot of new technology skills.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Thing 22

What a funny made-up word for an adult substitute for Facebook and MySpace. I don't know how people come up with all these names for things on the internet. Now I know that a "ning" is a social network where people can easily create networks around specific interests ; people like me with limited technical skills. I read the 3 nings suggested on the 23 Things site. The teacher ning is more relevant for me. However, there are slim pickens for Family and Consumer Science. I only found 2 for this area. One was from a person just finishing college and was needing assistance. I gave her my blog address because I have links she can use. At this time, there are about 220,000 networks out there. This can and is overwhelming but I think if you look for tags or clouds or enter specifics into the search bar, a ning can surely narrow down what you are searching for. I can see that a ning can be useful for students who might want to learn more about their school, teachers, curriculum, extra curricula activities, etc. from other students. I can also see that teachers from the ssme school or district could utilize this instead of email. A ning could be similar to a wiki in some ways. There are many alternatives on the "net" for communication with others. A negative might be that there are so many people to communicate with. I see how some people are on the computer a lot in their spare time. I think we have to be careful not to spend too much time doing this.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Thing 21

I completed my podcast which is me reading a poem and a recipe . It is linked below to a switchpod account.

http://www.switchpod.com/users/robersos/cookingpoem.wav

Thing 20


There are many, many choices from teachertube and youtube. I found this cute site for kids'videos called "Lazy Town". It is probably too elementary for middle schoolers but it is just an example of the numerous videos available on the web that I can use with my Family and Consumer Science classes.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Thing 19


The Web 2.0 awards are awesome! I just keep finding all these fantastic things on the internet that I never knew existed. I could use so many of the sites listed. I chose http://www.imcooked.com . This site has so many special tools. There were at least 76 cooking videos( I'm so excited) . Within the site they tell how to "Cook it", "Film it", and "Share it", by using Windows movie maker. I had been planning on filming my students cooking a particular recipe sort of as a "Next Top Chef" type competition. I have also planned to film myself doing a cooking demonstration. So this site will help me complete this activity. This is a web community for video recipe sharing. It has groups, tags, and I can invite friends to view this site. There is a place for my videos, favorites, play lists, and groups. I also like to show cooking videos through my computer projector as opening sets for my cooking classes. Libraries could use this site for training purposes.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Thing 18

After studying both open office and google docs, I think that google docs would be the best suited for my needs and purposes. Google docs are simpler to use . I have utilized them in the past because I use gmail. Open office is great if you are in the business world or have to do spreadsheets, office documents, etc., which I don't have to do. I also am pretty satisfied with microsoft office,too. In order to use open office, I would really have to use their tutorials and practice a lot, to familiarize myself with all the options they have. For me, the simpler and quicker, the better.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Thing 17 rollyo


I like rollyo but del.icio.us is sort of the same to me. Of course the difference is that rollyo is shared .I have created my rollyo search list and made it public.http://www.rollyo.com/ I have found several cooking with kids sites and I will add more later.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Thing 16



After viewing the Commoncraft video, I understood more about wikis. I like the idea that a wiki site could be used instead of email for better coordination, especially with student projects. Not all students have email so this would be a useful tool to use at school during class. With my Career Investigaton classes, we research careers, salaries, education, etc. so I can see that a wiki would be useful if a student couldn't find his/her information. He could post on our wiki and another student could share the information he found. This could be used for class or individual student discussions , planning, sharing ideas and research projects. The teacher could post questions on the wiki before class and just have the students go to the wiki and begin at his or own speed. I will definitely utilize wikis this next school year. I also posted on sandbox with a few comments.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Chloe Elizabeth


Just for fun, another picture of our grand-dog.

Thing 15


One of the perspectives I read by Rick Anderson, "Away from the Iceberg" says it very simply. He lists 3 ideas. #1. "Just in Case" collection; we can no longer expect a library to have everything on hand . Now being able to have access to everything, i.e. digital collections of journals, books, blogs, podcasts, etc. is crucial. In my Career Investigation classes, I rely heavily on the internet for career research. I have noticed that if I put a textbook in front of a student, they are automatically turned off, but if I put the student in front of a computer with the same information , the student will read the information. I think in this age of technology , students are more comfortable in front of a computer, as they have been brought up in the age of technology.

#2. Reliance of user education. Too much training is involved when one person( a librarian) has hundreds of trainees. "People are looking for "one button commands such as Flickr's "Blog This", and easy to use programs like Google Page Creator that offer patrons promising models for this kind of user -centric services." As a teacher, I have enough trouble keeping ahead of all the new technology so the more user- friendly it is, the better for all.

#3. "The Come to Us" model of library service was and is good for those privileged enough to have access to a good library. "Ways must be found bring library services to patrons rather than insisting they come to the library. Placing library services and contents in the user 's preferred environment , i.e. the web, is more conducive to actual use of information. Library services need to shift direction and acknowledge and adapt to radical fundamental change."

I agree because many of my students have no transportation . They only access a library at school. I know that this year, our library removed books that were perhaps 30 years old. Classics are always necessary, but there were many books that were totally outdated and needed to be removed. The internet has new information daily so it is up to date.

Thing 14

After viewing the technorati video and its info. I found that tags are like bookmarks but more for organization and also for sharing with others on the internet. Tag clouds show how much interest there is. The bigger the cloud, the more the interest. Blog directories don't necessarily tell you how popular the blog is. You personally might find it interesting, but to the majority of blog readers out there, it might not be. Under popular blogs, there were items pertaining to politics, weather, etc., not some things I might necessarily care about since I have my own lists.I typed in School Library Learning 2.0 and found 246 sites. I think technorati could help me find interesting blogs and tags would relate to my specific interests. In school, it would benefit me by my not having to search thousands of sites, I could just look for tags and it would be easier to find things.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Thing 13/University of Tennessee and Julia Child




I absolutely LOVE del.icio.us. You should see the number of bookmarks I have on my school computer. And I have always wanted to be able to access either the bookmarks from my home computer at work and vice versa. This would have also saved me some heartache when we switched over to our laptops in May. Evidently I didn't export my favorites correctly , thus losing them all at that time. I redid the ones I could remember and found newer ones,too. Now this is a safe way to keep them and have them organized. Thanks so much for this site. I have tagged all my cooking sites and will finish tagging on del.icio.us when school starts back. I graduated from the University of Tennessee with a B.S. in Home Economics. I used to watch Julia Child for my home ec. classes.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Thing 12


I commented on 5 blogs: 1.Blogging- Davis Style 2. Day dream in technicolor 3. Alurophile 4. Belle of Books and 5. BJ's Bubble ( at least I think I did! I am not sure everything I do on this blog gets done correctly but I am working on it).One important point came from "How to comment like a queen or king". It's important to make meaningful comments or it's a waste of time to read it. A second important point is from "Blogging 101", using your real name or an alias. I feel sort of uncomfortable using my real name at this point because of internet safety . I think for me , at this time, an alias will be better. On my Google blog search, I am interested in cooking because of what I teach so I now have blog alerts. One is The Hippie Gourmet and another is Cooking with Daisy. These are fun and informative. I am always searching for fun things for my students to keep them actively engaged.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Thing 11


I have registered woth Library Thing and have added 3 books I have read this summer. I will add more as time goes on.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

spatulatta

www.spatulatta.com

forrest gump

Thing 10

In the caption of Forrest Gump, it should say" Life is like a home ec class, you never know what you're gonna get!It was fun and easy. There is a mispelled word that I can't seem to correct.

Thing 9

As I said in Thing 8, I have subscribed to several news feeds so it will be easier to sort through AND compare all the daily news. I sometimes find discrepancies in news articles so this will be helpful. I also try to share at least one interesting news fact per day with my students. I also teach a Career Investigation class that involves a lot on internet research. Libraries can utilize Rss for student research projects and for Social Studies, teachers could assign news projects that coordinate with their curriculum.

Thing 8

I have set up my RSS feeds within Google reader. This will assist me when I am looking for pertinent info. I really like Google. It can take you anywhere you want to go .I have joined AOL news, Google news and video, Steven Colbert news and comedy. I subscribe to the Houston Chronicle so I can add the Chronicle daily news to my Rss list. Since I don't have time in the morning to read the newspaper, on my off times or at lunch, I can catch up on what is going on locally and nationally.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Thing 7

I have been a member of google for my email . It is so much nicer than aol. I like the way email is set up. I had never looked at the igoogle before. The images are great. I can use them when I complete lessons. I also am beginning to use the google calendar. I plan to utilize it more once school starts back. I can use this instead of a wall calendar. So much neater!

Friday, June 27, 2008

Thing 6

Thing 6
I have been practicing with the Flickr site for mashups, etc. There are tons of possibilites for use with this in my Foods and Nutrtion classes. Since we study all about the food pyramid, menus, recipes, etc. I could download pictures of these to my blog and other teachers could utilize my lessons.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Grand-daughter

Since I have been mentioning that all my time this summer is taken by babysitting Sophie, I thought it might be nice to share her picture.

babysitting

I am looking at mashups, etc. for Thing # 6 and have attempted to create one.I created the 4 square puzzle in pink and blue and downloaded 4 pic tures of my grand-daughter, but haven't gotten to finish it yet. I will be working on this the week-end when I am not babysitting. Please don't be bored with all the grand-baby stuff. That is about all I am doing this summer.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

oriental cookbook


This is an example of an oriental cookbook page.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Thing 5


I've added a cute cooking picture to my blog. I think it says it all!

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Flickr

Thing 5 . I am investigating the Flickr site. There are lots of pictures I can use for my blog. Now I just have to select the one or ones I want. I am going to try to keep a cooking theme for my blog this summer. I will add my pictures in the next day or so.

Friday, June 20, 2008

backwards blogging

Thing 1 . Read about blogs.
Thing 2. Listed the most difficult and easiest of 7 habits.
Thing 3. Set up blog and created avatar.
Thing 4.Registered blog.

I sort of did some of things before without numbering them. Sooo, I thought I would go back to clarify what I have done. I think I may be on the right track now. I've looked at some of the other blogs and they look great. I hope I can live up to expectations. I am babysitting 4 days a week this summer for my 5 month old grand-daughter in Barker Cypress area. This is about 30 minutes from my house so I am up and driving everyday by 6:30 and home again by 5:30. She is super cute but I forgot how time consuming a 5 month old is! I thought I would be working on my blog everyday while she slept. HaHa! Sleep? Anyhoo, I will get it done at night or on the week-ends.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

avatar

It was easy to create the avatar, even though it only slightly resembles me. It is the "idea" really that I teach foods and nutrition so if you ever see me, you probably wouldn't recognize me by my avatar. Actually, I thought it was difficult to export the avatar to my blog. I had to work at it as I am not that computer saavy.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

most difficult of 7 1/2 habits

One of the most difficult of the habits is the use of technology. Because of changing technology, it is difficult to keep up with all of it. Also, I have time constraints. One of the biggest obstacles as a teacher is finding time to learn new technology, practice it, and then utilize it in the classroom with the students. There seem to be infinite possibilites on the internet and computer. I have been taking as many technology courses as possible each year , just to keep up with the kids. They are so far advanced than we of the sixities are. They have the advantage of the computer age . It is amazing to me how the internet has changed society. Students many times help me with my lessons

easiest of the 7 1/2 habits

For me, the easiest of the 7 1/2 habits is to begin with the end in mind. I have always been goal oriented .For example, in high school, I wanted to be a cheerleader. The first time I tried out I didn't make it. For the next year, I practiced, practiced ,and practiced cheers along with making A's in school. At the end of my junior year, I tried out and this time I succeeded! Of course, this is a very simplistic example, but over the years, there have been many goals I have met; i.e. completing college, getting married, having children (this was an infertility issue), having a rewarding career, etc. I know these are goals most of us have, however, I know lots of people who don't achieve these "everyday" goals. As an educator, it has been very true that one learns by teaching. I really have gotten an education myself by teaching . I have taught pre-k, elementary school, ESL students, reading and Language Arts, and Family and Consumer Science. I have gained as much knowledge as my students!