Thing 23

Wow! Thing 23 at last! As they say- this is only the beginning. The video made me realize how quickly technology evolves. It has a life of its own! That's a positive and negative thing I suppose. You can never really "know it all". The learning must be continuous to be an effective user/integrator.

As tech support for my building, I'm always encouraging teachers and staff to try new things and adapt them for their classrooms. Now I can share the Wikis, Googledocs and podcasts. I really think they can be so useful once people get the hang of using them. The key is to know which application to suggest for which purpose.

This class has really helped me to get familiarized with tools I'd only heard of before. I will definitely have to continue exploring so that I can get proficient enough to instruct other users. Thanks for offering this opportunity to us. I felt it was very worthwhile and I'm glad I spent the 10 weeks with you and the 23 Things. Thank you so much!

Thing 22

My wiki address is:
https://room210goodreads.wikispaces.com/
I love the idea of kids being involved with the content of something that can be communicated to their peers. At the elementary level this would be so exciting for them and really bring the subject to life. However, this would definitely have to be a teacher supervised activity and all the input would have to be monitored before going public. This is different from a blog in that a blog only allows you to comment on what's been posted. The wiki allows you to add or delete content at your discretion. I'd use the wiki for collaborating and coordinating and the blog for communication and feedback.

Thing 21

I thought the wikiHow project could be very useful as well as enjoyable reading. My biggest concern with wikis is the possibility of spreading misinformation. I'm also thinking that it is essential to keep a permanent version of your pages so that items can't be accidentally deleted by another user. I'm a little reluctant to invest a lot of time in something that anyone can change without my consent. Overall though, I think I'd try it just to see if the pros outweigh the cons.

Thing 20

This was one of the more time consuming Things I've tried to do. I had a hard time with iTunes but I finally got it to work after several attempts. I subcribed to Bill O'Reilly's podcast:http://feeds.foxnews.com/podcasts/TalkingPoints. I thought that EPN had so much in the directory but the amount of text to go through made it a little unappealing. I did listen to Hartbeat Radio under the Elementary link and it was really good! I think I prefer Podcast Alley because of the top 10 features and podcast summaries.