Thing #23 - Comments on 23 Things

"23 Things should be required for any teacher in SBISD who teaches technology! It should be required for any teacher!!" That's my describe-the-program-in-one-sentence...

Yes, I would definitely participate in any subsequent Web 2.0 trainings/programs...this one was so helpful and enlightening! I enjoyed MOST of the "things", which made it well worth the many hours I spent. I would...and HAVE... recommended this program to anyone and everyone, even to those not teachers, or retired!

Thing #22 - Nings

I went to the teacher blogs on technology, but none had what I would like to find...video technology and/or broadcast assistance. I have to come up with lessons for the broadcast class and needed some ideas. I was hoping to find them there, but did not run across any that fit the bill. I created an account and if I run across any helpful blogs in the future, I will add them to my "Favorite Blogs". I love being able to insert my avatar into these projects!

Thing #21 - Podcasts

I used Photostory to make my movie. There were certain features I didn't like, such as the fact that every single title had to be formatted. I couldn't just copy and paste a formatted title onto another slide and then change the text. That was cumbersome. I also couldn't coordinate my sound settings with the settings the program kept using, so I was not able to get any sound or music on mine. I will work more on that when I don't have 24 hours to finish my 23 Things! :-)

Well, I tried to upload my movie to Switchpod, but it's the wrong format. I imported my video into Movie Maker successfully as individual slides, but was going to have to completely remake my movie! This is frustrating!

Thing #20 - Video Hosting Websites

After trying for over an hour to embed my video from TeacherTube, I have given up...and I thought I knew a lot about HTML. This one was too hard for my 50+ year-old brain...whoa! There it is!!! Hooray!

Thing #19 - Award Winning Sites

I went to see a Real Estate site called Zillow.com. I was able to look up properties in my daughter's home town and surrounding areas. (She is a house-flipper!) You can choose a maximum price range, bedrooms, baths, etc. Plus, you can select whether or not you want to see all available properties, or only foreclosures. It lists your selection and tells you how long it has been listed on the web site. It also gives you a satellite view where you can zoom in and out.

I'm not sure how valuable this site would be for my classroom, but the teacher sure could get a lot out of it!!

Thing #18 - Open Office & Google Docs

Open Office may possibly turn out to be the best thing since ClarisWorks Draw! I tried some of the tools and like it much better than the draw capabilities in Word. Does anyone know if I can download Open Office on all my lab computers? Computer Literacy has an Object Oriented Graphics segment that, in my estimation, has severly suffered since changing over to the Dells.

Google Docs also has a great deal of promise!! Two very exciting discoveries!

Thing #17 - Rollyo Customized Web Searches

This was a good one. I created a searchroll for my Multimedia kids that they can use when researching copyright laws.