Future Intentions and New Year's Resolutions

I am pretty sure that I intend to keep writing this blog.  Even though my one constant reader (albeit forced b/c he has to read it) will now be gone because I have finished the 23 things project. Good Night Mr. Anderson where ever you are!  I want to have my thoughts handy since I have so few of them and It will be a good way to record my successes, failures and self-flagellations, and "finds" here in Oz.  New Year's resolutions:  Educationally I would like to more fully integrate technology in my classroom and to give my students more choices. I have some sort of fitness, mental health, nutrition resolution but it is not yet fully formed.  I'll get back to you on that.  Here is a link to my classroom blog,There Are No Excuses .  Hopfully this will be one of the success stories.  Happy last day of 2009 and Blessings in the New Year!!  By the way, Avatar is awesome!  Saw it in 3-D  liked it (:  Was going to add a picture from the movie how do you know what yu can use and what you can't on the web??? Next tothe picture it said may be subject to copyright.  What is that?!! I thought it was a YES of NO thing???   HELP

Apologies to Edublog

Well I feel that I must apologize to Edublog.  I still can not get the batch feature to work where you can add 15 users at a time but I did successfully add my students individually so I'm happy.

Twitter found resources

Here are several are resources posted in recent Tweets.  http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dhn2vcv5_106c9fm8j  44 things to make use of interactive white board.  Some were presented in Mr. Anderson's smart board lesson class but there are also many things that are new to me.

http://ow.ly/PJxI  How to learn without memorizing.

 http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dhn2vcv5_435hgx9r8gz  14 ways to support writing.

Follow The Yellow Brick Road

I wish I had a bunch of Munchkin helpers:Had to add a couple of pictures that I just uploaded.  That has gotten easier on Flicker since the last time that I did it.  They've changed the website I think.  I like blogging and I hope that I can bring this experience to my students.  Still waiting on edublogger(at this point the Wiched Whitch of the West and her flying monkeys!!).  I have to be honest I have not checked my news reader in several weeks.  That's going to be ugly!  The last time I went through it I marked a number of posts that had great ideas in them.  Have not got back to review those ideas.  I enjoyed this class because it forced me to take time to learn new things about technology.  I intend to keep learning about how technology can enhance my teaching and I think that the RSS feed and twitter will help me do that.  I think I need to set realistic goals and keep trying to add one new thing and then another new thing and eventually I will have a large number of technology tools in my toolbox.  My first goal is to get my classroom blog up and running and to get blogs for my students.  Technology will also be integrated into my students 8th grade research project.  We'll see what happens after that. 

The Lion, the Scarecrow and  Tinman: My favorite exercises were Flickr, blogging, Twitter for the PLN aspect and delicious. 

How to keep a house from falling on you: The thing that I found most surprising was how MUCH there is to explore, learn and use pertaining to technology.  This class has made me realize that I will continue to need to take technology classes and/or keep exploring as new things are constantly being created. 


Visiting Emerald City: I liked the freedom to work on this project at my own pace.  There were a few times when I wished that I had been in a classroom so that I could have gotten help immediately but Mr. Anderson you were very prompt with replies to questions I had, I don't know how you could have done any better. 

Ruby Slippers:  It's nice tht the Emerald City is only a click away, but there's no place like home and I have to make a cake for tomorrow.  I had a good time and I learned a great deal. I hope everyone that's not reading this has a happy holiday season and to you Mr. Anderson all the best and thank you very much for being Glinda we'll change the spelling to Glenda, emphasis on the Glen  and guiding us on our journey down the yellow brick road (:    How is this for corny I'm going all out!!!







Over  The Rainbow:  See you down the road...

Montreal 2009 160

Montreal 2009 160, originally uploaded by noradearborn423.

Botanical Garden in Motreal 2009

Roll Roll Rolling along

Well I made a search roll. I am happy to have this tool. The search roll I made is called Math games. I now need to learn how to add sites to this search roll, beyond the ones that would fit in the box. I can see this tool being useful in finding resources/activities for the classroom. Here is the link: http://www.rollyo.com/index.html  the one that says math games is the one I made.

Buyer beware I have not actually tried this to see what happens. Duh, probably should have done that before writing this post. Well I will do it and if there are "issues" I'll let you know.

I DO have isues with EDUBLOG!!!! I paid to be a subscriber so that ads could be blocked from blogs that I want to create for my students but I can't get it to work. After a great deal of searching (I read advice from the forum and followed it to no avail) I found a discription of how to email them directly but am still waiting for a reply. I have to say that while I know 39.95 doesn't buy much these days I wish that it bought a direct email link or a telephone number to call if you have a problem. I think I had to work too hard to find help with something that I paid for, but maybe I'm being Scroogy! Maybe I'm just dumb and should be able to figure it out on my own? I don't care I'm blaming them. I feel better now.

Update on Twitter. I found a REALLY great resource for practicing reading fluency and/or language learning (ESL) from someone that I am following on twitter. Unfortunately I can't remember who it was and I can't find the original tweet!! I need to search again but here is a link to the sight: http://www.englishcentral.com/en/videos Students can watch movie clips and other video clips from a wide variety of sources. They can stop the clip after each sentence and then listen to it, slow it down, get words defined etc. When they are ready they can record themselves reading the sentence and get a score. Then they can go back and listen to each word as the recording said it and as they said it. If I find it I'll retweet it as I have not retweeted yet.

I love BOOKS

I wish I had time to sit here and put all the books that I've read into Shelfari and to put in all the ones that I want to read!!! It will be a great way to keep track of what I've read if I take the time to put in notes about the book. I did not do that with the ones that I entered because I know them well and like them tremendously.


I got my picture to upload!!!! all the other sites will not take my pictures because the file is too large and they don't automatically crop it to the required size. When I tried to edit a picture for my classroom blog I was not successful. Frustrated yes, successful NO!! This is something that I still need to learn.



http://www.shelfari.com/ is a link to shelfari but I have a felling that it will not go to my shelf of books. Lets find out

Weird and Fun

http://www.exopolis.com/holiday/2007/factory.html#a=fem&l=nutcracker&t=steam&hd=samurai Make your own dancing robot!!! Fun
http://www.onlyknives.com/diy-kung-fu-movie-script/ Make your own Kung fu movie script: funny I liked this.


http://www.letterjames.com/products-overview/personalized-images-e-cards.html?cat=1&inscribe=439&oldpicid=1261513397-81257-97818 Add text to images at letter james, I did not really care for this one.


http://www.pqdvd.com/flashediter/edit.php singing pictures would be fun to send for various occasions.



http://bighugelabs.com/ This is my favorite and we looked at this site before. You can design movie posters, make collages and many other things. You can link it to your flickr account and use your own pictures to create things. Very Cool!! Still my favorite!

All of these sites were fun and I can see myself using them to add things to lessons using the interactive white board. I did not try to add these things I'm just hoping that when I try to I will be able to!!!

Twitter Twaining Twuely Tantalizing

I enjoyed a number of the 25 things to do with Twitter in the classroom from writing stories, to updating parents about ongoing events in the classroom and field trips. I can see it being a very useful tool. As a way of engaging students in learning I think it would be beneficial. I also think that it will help me as an educator to learn about what is working for other teachers. I joined a Twitter group with a LARGE number of educators. SO I expect that i should check my tweets more often that I have been!

I have to go to twitterfall.com to see what that is about. And I still have to try and get my classroom blog up and running. Which is what I'm going to check on right now.
Merry Christmas!

Twitterpated

I'm on vacation!!! And hopefully today will finish up this 23 things project, which is the beginning and not the end of my explorations into technology. I signed up for a Twitter account, which was easy. I think I understand how it works. I have gone back and looked at some of ny tweets. I an comfused as to why I am receiving twitter info in my email instead of just on my twitter page? Also I TRIED to put a picture of myself on my profile to no avail. I am going to try again today at some point to see if I can figure it out. IF not I will be sending you know who another email.

Speaking of Mr. Anderson, I appreciate your tweet about dealing with being overwhelmed a skill. Clearly one I need to work on (:
so I will not say anything about the fact that this is how I feel, but excited also! I sent out a tweet this morning and I am interested to see if I get any responses back to my question. I definitely like all of the resources that can be found through twitter and the idea of a personal learning network. I don't know what I would have to offer others in return. I'm a newbie and it seems like at least for a while it will be a one sided relationship. Are there expectations of me as a participant? Curious about this as I feel that one more expectation just might send me over the edge. Is there a class to learn how to deal with being overwhelmed in many areas of your life? Maybe I need to go back to therapy!

Tasty!

Delicious! I imported my favorites from my home computer which is where I am right now. Home sweet home which I have not seen enough of this week. The eighth grade dance last night was not a big success, We need to come up with another way to make money, preferably one that doesn't involve being at school until 9:30 at night!!! I really like being able to have access to my favorite from any computer and if people in my building started using this it would be a great resource. Before when I would research web sites for school from home I would have to email the site to myself, now I can just bookmark it. A TIME SAVER (:

I bookmarked your bookmarks Mr. Anderson, a treasure trove!! Also bookmarked one of your bookmarks, technology integration as I would like to do a project that integrates technology this year. Yes I know I should be doing this already, I did one last year but I am looking to expand my horizons and go for two, maybe three. This is a sad number compared to what some teachers do but I have to start somewhere. Finally I went to popular and read a post about the 10 ways social media will change in the future and comments by others. Social media will definitly change the way we communicate, access information and access products and services.

I forgot my pail and shovel

I should have brought my pail and shovel! I can see where this would be a great resource if you were collaborating on a project with people that you had never met it would be a way to get to know each other.

It was very easy to participate. Maybe I'm getting better? I am however having a hard time coming up with any more feedback about it. My puppies found homes!!! One went to Maine with my sister. The other two went to a no-kill shelter in Arrarat, VA. They weilll stay there till they find adoptive parents. It's not too late to get a PUPPY! How was that for something completely off topic...

My Eyes are Burning!!!

No, I didn't see anything inappropriate on a Wiki, I'm just REEEEAALLLY tired(: I bookmarked the 21centuryedtech wiki and the Bear Den wiki. the Bear Den wiki has several great rubrics for note taking which is something that we will be doing when we do our 8th grade research project. I did not read a great deal on the 21st century wiki but I would like to go back to it. I like the idea of a wiki space. I liked the Bear Den use of the Wiki as an organizational tool so that things students need are all organized and put in one place. I can see myself using a wiki for this as I have a horrible ability to lose a piece of paper (Or a whole stack) in less than a minute!!!!! I would love to use the wiki for collaboration and writing but I fear that my students would not be able to stop themselves from writing something inappropriate or erasing someone else's work. I wonder how difficult it is to monitor as I have organizational skills issues as already mentioned. I am going to find out what our policies are pertaining to wikis, and see if anyone else in our building uses one. Yes this is all one big long paragraph and because this is not a wiki you can't go in and edit it for me and I am too tired to do it (:
Peace

There are Books Out There

I am excited about the websites that offer free e-books. I don't know that much about adolescent literature that would be available free because there is no more copy write law. I liked the site, great big library that cost 12.95 per month for one classroom. I did not look into it extensively but I like the fact that they have children's books online for a low cost because then the students could have the books read to them using a reader which I'm assuming that we will find out about sooner or later in this class. Many of my students struggle with reading and do not do enough of it. They do like it if I read to them and they like a good story. I Think they would listen.

I really liked the British On-line Library and the ability to see and hear famous books and have them explained. I can see this being useful in Social Studies for primary sources and for a comparative religion class.

Many Books on the places to get free books looks similar to the other free ebooks web sites in the titles that they offer. I thought the Book crossing website was fun. Leaving books in different places for others to pick up read and then leave for someone else. it would be interesting to see where a book might end up. I would like to look into this.

pod people please leave a message

Well now I see the edit HTML tab which I did not use when putting my links into my last post. Was that bad? I clicked on the links and it took me there. Am I the only one who can do that?

Are you a POD person? Are you? How about You?

I liked the explanation of pod casts, that was helpful. It sounds as thought they are easy to make so I can see using them in the classroom as a learning tool or means of assessment. I think the kids would like the idea that other people could see what they had made. Parents could access it from home so it would help connect the students to the outside world.

I subscribed to one pod cast about middle school teaching strategies. I have not listened to one yet. I keep coming back to the overwhelming factor. There are a LOT of pod casts out there. I think if I were going to use this technology personally I would want someone who had a podcast that they found valuable to recommend one. I don't feel like going through and trying to find the golden POD!! If YOU are a POD person and have found some golden pods there's probably one about, "On Golden Pond," let me know what they are!!

I am going to attempt to put a link to a YouTube video about a way to multiply quickly and accurately without a calculator. I think there are a great many YouTube clips that could be brought into the classroom to spark interest or help teach a concept. I also watched two other clips about math. One position was that students need to learn standard algorithms and the other felt that algorithm were good but that the students need to understand the ideas behind the math. This went along nicely with the math foundations class that I just took. As with everything except ice cream, I think that a balance of both would be best, rather than coming down far to the left or far to the right.

Here is the link, I think: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLdKsKep1og this was a neat way of looking at multiplication that really is faster and I intend to show this clip to my math class.

Since we're trying this why not go all the way. The next link is a weather person who does not believe in "New Math" and feels that children just need to learn standard algorithms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI



This link is an answer to the woman in the above link by a college math professor. While he is not as well spoken, he isn't reading from notes that "Big Brother" wrote and he believes that ideas and algorithms are important.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9skRrnN2_HU&feature=related

I have used You Tube before and like it for personal use. For the classroom you have to preview and probably save the file because you never know what might also come up on the page that could be inappropriate.

Link for week five

Here is the link to the google doc. which is not accessable in my previous post. hopefully this will work (: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AUIBacLDEf7-ZDhwdGpxYl8wZmN4ejgzY3I&hl=en

LuLu is a LOO LOO!!

I looked at LuLu a self publishing web site. I can imagine using this to create a class book, something that I do now with another company, but this would give students the ability to access the internet for images etc. and everything would be done online. The way I do it now, I have to have the students create their writing and then photocopy it onto the pages that the company sends me. pictures need to be hand drawn or scanned onto the pages that the company sends me. I am going to investigate this more when I have a minute. If I could do it this way it would save paper and time. I have not investigated the cost to publish what you write. More on that later.

blog post week 5 - Google Docs

blog post week 5 - Google Docs

Totally Irrelevant PUPPIES POST

Here are 3 puppies that I found set out on Brim's Grove Road. If you need a puppy or know someone who does they need homes!!! The picture with all three: Front and center: Flopsy, one white blaze, In the middle: Mopsy, two white patches, Bringing up the rear with one blue eye: Penelope.

RSS SOS

Well isn't that interesting!!!I created an RSS with Google and added many of the 21 best on the Free technology for teacher's blog. That part was very easy.
I was disappointed that I could not get blog pages from google blog search to work. The front page would come up but then would not go further and then I would get the "not responding " box. It's doing it right now for classroom 2.0 blog. MR. ANDERSON WHERE ARE YOU!!!! Are you in car 59??? Is that the right number??? If you were here could you tell me how to "Make it go?"
I will hit the end now button after I finish this post for week number four. There will probably be another post for week number four after I've had more time to investigate. I really want to read more about the flat earth project. I tried to join/subscribe but I have to wait 48 hours for an answer.
I think that many of these blogs will give me ideas to use in the classroom. Vague I know, but I haven't had time to read any of them yet. I will be trying to get to classroom20 @ home so I can read car 59/Mr. Anderson's most recent post.
I joined Technorati and when I get home I will go to my email to confirm this. I am thinking that then I will be able to subscribe to blogs that it finds. I did a search for special education and got a long, really big, large gigantic, enormous list, but when I clicked on one selection it was not the blog itself, but a description of it. More on this later when I've solved the mystery.
I can see where this would be a time saver and I am excited about all the new possibilities I have. Of course I never followed any blogs so REALLY I now have another thing to do (: I believe it will be beneficial how ever.
Once I have had time to review posts from the blogs I subscribed to I will post interesting info on my public page. Here is a link to my google public page. Just created and tried to link Flikr pics to it w/ no success. Also, one link to a post about "Are we too connected" which related to the Too Much technology and communication/connection issue. http://www.google.com/profiles/noradearborn
Happy Saturday

Hot Air Balloon, Montreal, Canada

Hot Air Balloon, Montreal, Canada, originally uploaded by noradearborn423.

I have been teaching for 14 years now, all of them with EC students. I think that tecnology properly used canbe a great motivator for students that struggle in the classroom. I looking forward to continuing to grow and feel comfortable integrating technology into my lessons. Through everyting that I have looked at there continues to be theme of TOO MUCH, for me. I would probably function better at centralized "hub" where others had already sorted through what's out there and selected things that have merit and are appropriate for my students. I feel site as thus described are vitral to teachers because we have so little time and so much to do.

When I started teaching I was at a theraputic day school in Cambridge, Massachusetts and we had no technology in the classroom. We did not even have class sets of text books. It was a school for students with severe behavioral and emotional disabilities. It was a great school with an excellent behavior management program, small classes, and couselors for all the kids. I see the benefit of technology in learning for motivation and reaching different learning styles, but there is no substitute for a caring people. Small classes and attention paid to the students' emotional well being are very important and often not tended to in public school due to too many kids and not enough adults.

Can you please give me a hand down off my soap box so I can go home...

Until week 4
are we in week 4 already? behinder and behinder I get

Covered Bridge in Wilson's Mills, Maine

Covered Bridge in Wilson's Mills, Maine, originally uploaded by noradearborn423.

SO now that I know how to get pictures in here there's no stopping me. I was in Wilson's Mills this summer. We had a camp there when I was growing up. I love the smell of fir trees, which has absolutely nothing at all to do with technology. bummer.

I think I might be getting punchy from punching all these buttons. Well I've already mentioned the overwhelming thing.. Here are a couple more things.: BE CAREFUL. In flickr tools there is an aplication to look at pictures of sexy girls. Didn't see one for viewing sexy men. Sorry ladies.

I liked BIG HUGE LABS. You can do all kinds of things with your photos like create posters, magazines covers and more. Another plus, they did not mention sexy girls. They were probably thinking about them however. Also, Mr. Anderson I hope that this blog was not supposed to be written in academic mode. If so I apologize and willl censor myself in the future.
peace

My Garden 08-09

My Garden 08-09, originally uploaded by noradearborn423.

Well I had so much fun doing the first photo, I thought that I would repeat the experience and also talk about what I have learned so far. OVERWHELMING!!!!!

THere are at least 15 applications (right term?) that can be used with Flickr to do various things. There was a cool project that a student is doing called flat somebody or other that I want to investigate more as I think my students could send the student information and photos from our area.


Tags are labels that you can put on pictures sotaht if someone searchs using that tag your photo will come up with others having the same tag.

You can join groups on flickr. There were many teacher's groups. Again,
OVERWHELMING!!!

How do you sort out what would be most worthwhile?
This just in..... Due to the demands of teaching my life has been placed on hold.
Well not literally but that's how it feels. And then there is all THIS!!! I want to pull weeds in my garden. It is theraputic (: There I go -complaining again. I am committed (Should be committed) to incorporating technology into my classroom to facilitate learning so I have a lot to learn.

Wish this had old fashioned spell check! Or that I know where it was if it exists...

hard tellin' not knowin'

hard tellin' not knowin', originally uploaded by noradearborn423.

I think I figured it out but I had to go from Flickr to Blogger, could not figure out how to get a picture from Flickr to upload from Blogger. Well. I'm tired!! It's 7:30 and I'm still at school working on this because if I go home I probably won't do it!!! While there is something to be said for playing with technology and figuring it out on your own, I get aggrivated when I hit a road block. I get aggrivated because there is always so much to do and so little time. How cliche is that, yet oh so true. Well enough complaining, one to the next Flickr adventure.
Namaste

Will there Won't there be a picture in the post?

Well I don't see my picture that I tried to upload from Flickr. If when I hit the post button the picture shows up, woo hoo. If not, stay tuned folks and Mr. Anderson, I'll be asking how to up load a picture during the smart board class tomorrow night (:

1 & 1/2 habits to cultivate

I went through the 7 1/2 habits of successful people last week after viewing the introductory video. I say "went through" because as usual I was still at school and it was almost six pm. The voice did not go as fast as I could read -so I read. Of all the 7 1/2 habits, play would probably be the one that I most need to work on. I always feel this tremendous pressure to accomplish my goals and fulfill my responsibilities so that it seems there is not much time for play.

I need to work on balance in my life. If I don't maintain my health and sanity (: Then I won't be of much use to my students. Admitting a problem is the first step towards fixing it so hopefully I'll get to the fixing part soon. Just as soon as I can figure out which elephants I don't need to juggle, which is another reference to the NCAE conference this weekend where the guest speaker spoke about prioritizing and realizing that you can't do it all. He was a good speaker and unfortunately I can't recall his name. The book is called, Juggling Elephants, and he co-authored, "Who Moved My Cheese," (I think)

The only other area where I have a lot of work to do is in the area of self confidence. Not so much in the area of learning but in my ability to be an effective teacher. I often feel that there is a secret out there to help the children learn that others know and I don't. Is it TRUE???? I'll pay you if you tell me!!!! Really...

Technology: A lot ot learn!!!

Well here goes, I'm typing this AGAIN, because I hit the back button after hitting preview to correct a misspelled word. Guess what, I forgot to save so everything is g - o- n -e. Gee, perhaps I need to learn more about technology (:

I watched the video about how technology is changing students last week. I tried to watch it again to refresh my memory, but it is is not coming up. I may add to this once I figure out how to view the video again. I'll be emailing you Mr. Anderson.

The most interesting fact to me was that the cell phone will be the preferred method of Internet access in the future. I don't have it on my phone because I can't afford it, but I bet it will become cheaper as time passes.

I am looking forward to learning more about how to incorporate technology into teaching and learning. The kids do know more than I do. I recently took the introductory class for the smart board and have begun using ready made smart board lessons. The students are more engaged with the visual presentation as well as the interactive parts. Just today we used individual white boards for a visual quiz in math. One of my students said, " these used to be cool until the smart board came along." Enough said.

While the students are coming to school more knowledgeable about technology, a teacher in a session at the NCAE conference in Greensboro this weekend brought up a possible caveat. He said that students are using so much technology that they are not interacting with adults and other kids enough. He feels that kids are coming to school with more social skills deficits that they used to. I wonder what time and research will determine about that.

Well I'm noticing that drafts are auto saved so I wonder if there is another draft of this somewhere in space???? I'm not going to preview this I'm pushing the publish button and then I'll try to find some directions that I probably should have read before starting this.
Peace