Week 9; Thing 23

Oh my gosh! I cannot believe that I finished this. When I first started, I thought that I had made a big mistake and that I would never finish this. This is a great course and I throughly enjoyed it! Thanks Shirley and Jen for leading us!

Week 9; Thing 22

I had a hard time using WorldEBook until I figured out that you had to be a member. I have used LibriVox in class before when I had 5th graders in my 7th & 8th grade class. It was a huge help with those younger ones. It is an excellent site.

Week 9; Thing 21

I'm familiar with podcasts so I didn't spend too much time here. I did, however, find whosaid.org where quotes from novels are given and you have to guess who said it. I spent most of my time there. Since I teach all levels of English in one class period, I might use this as an extra for those higher students that finish their work earlier than others.

Week 9; Thing 20

I became aware of YouTube when I moved into the computer lab at JJAEP. I learned fast that YouTube wasn't all educational. There are some good videos on YouTube but I like TeacherTube more. I didn't know it existed until this "Thing." I loved "We didn't start the fire" and "Walkthroughs and Learning Objectives." I tried to put them on my blog but I couldn't figure out how to get it from there to here!

Week 8; Thing 18

This Zoho Writer is a super site! Many times I wished I had a document that was on my home computer. We just finished a project in my English classes that the students were working on at home. It about drove me crazy trying to open all the floppy discs and pen drives that they were bringing...half of them didn't save correctly and became frustrated when we couldn't retrieve their documents. Wish I had done this "Thing" earlier so we could have used it! Definately a WINNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (And.......I published this from the Zoho site to my blog.....and more importantly----IT WORKED!!!!!!!!)

Week 8; Thing 19

Skipped Thing 18 for now since I read ahead and discovered I already knew about Thing 19---LibraryThing! I love the LibraryThing!!! I have already catalogued many of my books at home. I discovered this site about 6 months ago. Now I am trying to decide if I am crazy enough to catalogue all my books in my classroom. Since we have no library, I have made my own library in a corner of my room. The new students look at me strangely when I tell them to go get a book out of "The Library." But, "The Library" could definately benefit from being organized in LibraryThing! Another thing to add to my list of things to do this summer.

Week 7; Things 16 & 17

I have been confused about Wikis for a while now. I now know what they are and more importantly how to use them. I looked through many educational wikis. I was stuck on one made by a 10th grade English class. I actually noted a couple of ideas for my class for next year. The wikis on novel units were also interesting. I really enjoyed the wiki on book reviews; there are now 3 more books on "Summer Reading List." I am trying to decide if I could use a wiki in my class; but because of where I work, I am concerned about what the little angels might put in the wiki.

Added a post to a wiki.

Week 6; Thing 15

The Fair(y) Tale about Copyright Law is extremely well done. I continuously "preach" to my students about copyrights and plagiarism. There was a plagiarism article/video that I am going to show my students next year. They seem to think that they won't get caught. I don't know why they think that considering the place where I work! The video on creative commons was also interesting. Lots of information in this "Thing."

Week 6; Thing 14

Technorati takes some time to go through. The things that you can do with blog posts are mind boggling! I intend on going back and looking through this site closer when I finish this course. Actually, I intend on going back through most of these "Things" when I have more time now that school is out. This Web 2.0 has tons of info...just need more time to go through it.

Week 6; Thing 13

Del.iocio.us is a great site! At work I am always trying to remember sites saved on my home computer. This solves that problem. I have already set up an account and I transferred some of my favorite sites from home to del.iocio.us so that I can access them from anywhere. One of my favorite "THINGS" so far.