Thing #23

All things must come to an end....
1) I loved Teacher Tube and creating avitars
2) This has made me more adventuresome when it somes to surfing the interent and what I can use my computer for regarding my job, I am usually worries about messing up the computer, but learning so many new things has increased my confidence
3) I had no idea how much my soon to be fourth grader knew about the computer and some of these programs such as Photostory, she is so far ahead of me, which is fun and great for her because as a dyslexic student she will always need some technology assistance
4) There were only a few times that I felt like the directions/procedures were cumbersome, such as with photostory which nearly did me in
5) I would, I thought this was great, I knew a few friends who were doing this also, so that helped and was even more fun
6) eye-opening (does that count as one word if I use a hyphen?)
7) I have commented on a few but will do some more, there were some many people participating this summer, I think I commented more at the beginning as I was getting started than at the end, but I do admit I loved getting comments on mine, so I will now go and return the favor.

Thank you to all who put this together, what a great idea! I'm done right? What do I do now?

Thing #22

Ning is very cool. One idea I had that I would assume is already being used, is using Ning as a part of collaboration and communication when distance learning is being utilized by a student. Another idea that I thought of was if an organization such as a support group for an educational disability could set up a Ning, such as one for parents of dyslexic students in Texas, because Texas education regarding dyslexia is different than in other states where dyslexia is a part of special education.

Thing#21

Just as an FYI, I still am having a difficult time getting everything coordinated for the Photostory, with pictures, sound, music, etc.......

Thing#21

Just as an FYI, I still am having a difficult time getting everything coordinated for the Photostory, with pictures, sound, music, etc.......

Thing #21

Round Two for trying Thing #21, have to confess, called a few people and had my nine year old help me!

Thing #21

I am having a VERY difficult time posting my audacity recording. I have been working with audacity because I thought it would be most beneficial to my students. I made several recordings and think it would be great to use with kids. The kids could record their voices and use it as a tool to monitor their own progress whether with articulation, voice, even pragmatics. I am going to keep trying to get the actual recording onto my blog.

Thing #20

Okay, I loved the Teacher Tube and U-Tube stuff. I did have some difficulty embedding, better luck with Teacher Tube than UTube. The video I found was interesting to me because it was about golf and physics, not that I know much about physics, but I do like golf and the physics makes it even more interesting. I think that these videos have an awesome potential in the classroom, but I will need to explore more for my area of teaching.

Thing #20

Thing #19

I looked at several 2.0 sites and wow, I had no idea the things I could use my computer for and what I could create. I have to admit that I am not a web surfer and have always stuck to the basics, so muich so that I found Craig's List fasnitating and fun. I looked at recent postings about pets, although I have no intention of getting one, but it was fun. I also looked at the free 'stuff', what a variety! Backpack is a site that I saw the most potential in as far as my job goes, you could post an interactive calendar for co-workers and maybe even for older students, families to keep track of everyones comings and goings. I loved the featuer that allows for automatic reminders, how cool!

Thing #18

This is great, in fact I just finished downloading on my home computer. I can see this as tremendous advantage to all of our students. In the district we are 'pushing' technology as we should but we continue to have families, therefore students who are at a disadvantage due to ecominics so ANYTHING that makes technology more accessible for all is fantastic. Am I right in thinking kids could download what they need to be work compatible at home, save on a zip drive (or some such thing) and go back to school with more work completed?

Thing #17

Okay, I have tried to do work on this one for 40 minutes and am going to have to give it up for now. I really liked the idea, although I have to say I was thinking of this more for my home computer and family than at school. Being a therapist in the district I don't often use the computer as a search engine tool with the kids during therapy, so I am going to try again on my home computer.

Thing #16

I had no idea wiki could be used for communication, how awesome. I cannot stand the constant barage of emails back and forth and the awful reply to all scene! I think this may work even better than a BLOG for the district SLPs as an online resource.

Thing #15

Library 2.0 is interesting to me from many facets, as a parent, as 37 year old who went to Baylor without the need for a computer and left with one, and as an educator. Library 2.0 in a school system is only as good as the working equipment and the ever changing knowledge of the librarian. Meaning, the librarian at the elementary campus has to welcome new skills and equipment, be able to learn quickly, be able to support the staff always recoginizing and accepting that a 10 year old may know more than her. I am fortunate to work in an elementary school with a librarian who is wonderful and who has embraced Library 2.0 with its pros and cons.

Thing #14

Okay, I am totally blown away by Technorati! I am having a huge problem figuring out how I would use this tool with elementary speech and language kids. Maybe I need to think outside the box more or it is possible this is too much for the age of the kids I work with. Anyway, besides that I think this is a great site for those who are bloggers on a routine basis. For me personally I think del.cio.ous is more my speed as I don't spend a lot of time in front of my screen searching and reading.

Thing #13

I really liked having a designated space for my favorite things through delicious. If you were a mobile teacher this would be great and so efficient. I am picturing a class researching turtles and being able to use delicious as opposed to designated sites, of course, with this also comes more adult monitoring. In terms of my job, I could see where it could be an access tool for the therapist, but not necessarily something I would be using in therapy.

Thing #12

When I started this process I looked at several blogs and now I have a few I check in on everytime I am working. As with posting, semantics and tone are very important. That is what I think is the most important. It is vital, as with email to remember that although there is dialogue between people, it is not true conversation, because there is visual nor is there sound. Because these elements are missing words carry more power and can be very easily mis-interpretted by the audience and I would assume that it would be easy for bloggers to get over involved. I witnessed this on a blog about cameras I was reading, ugh, what a mess some commenters created!

Thing #11

I thought this was a great resource. I have to say that originally I though this would be a great tool for the therapists in the district. My thought was that we could create a 'SBISD speech' library, so that when a therapist wanted to know what was available in the district or if another SLP had a certain text they could log on and find out who had what and maybe even a review. However, after reading for info, I am not sure this would work effeciently, unless everyone took ownership of logging on materials... So I added a few titles and did explore a fwe groups and the idea may still be feasible. When school starts I will ask some other therapists what they think.

Thing #10

I created this cartoon, based on a joke with a co-worker. I used comic strip generator but next time will use my own photos (however I don't have many on my SBISD lap top). I know several teachers who have done this with their students. As a speech pathologist this could be used in a variety of ways, it could be used with self pictures for reinforcement and specific learning, this could be used as a part of a daily schedule or a personalized way to learn a self help skill. Also you could do personalized articulation cards. The kicker is having the time to do this with the students, I would need to practice more first!

Thing #9

I started out by searching through my own favorites list and found several sites to link to my google reader. I wound up searching more sites and spending time doing that and then linking them to my google reader. I think I worked through this backwards but it worked for me because I only looked at limited sites. The search tools that I reviewed were fine, some were too broad for me. Overall Google was easiest.

Thing #8

Well, I thought the Google Reader was impressive. It could be a great resource for teachers, possibly narrowing searches and saving 'surf time'. I however was not very selective in creating mine and therefore will not be sharing it. It seems to me that you would need to be selective in your subscriptions and that for this to be a time saver there would need to be more front loading time in the Google Reader creating then I did. I would think that educators could create a Reader for specific study topics, such as the Civil War, a specfic country, etc. For me as a special educator I could have a Reader designed to keep me in touch with research based studies and parent support groups.

Thing #7

I reviewed all of the various Google links. The one I enjoyed the most was Google Scholar. This search engine would be great to use for article research on a specific speech/language topic, such as articulation development. For me, the Google Scholar would be an excellent resource for evidence based practice. I was not impressed withPicasa after loving Flickr. A family favorite was iGoogle. My daughter has her own email address and profile on the family computer, so she helped me create her own home page - what fun!

Thing #6

Here is the very basic playing card I did. The text says, "The CHILDREN are standing."

Thing #6

I played around with Trading Card maker, this was fun and my nine year old told me how some of her friends used it for a class project about animals. In terms of use for therapy I thought it would be great for personalized articulation cards. This could also be used for emotions and pragmatics skills with kids on the Autism spectrum

Thing #5

I found this picture in Flickr and loved it! Right now I can relate, it seems to be about poor and proficient communication all at the same time. I thought Fickr was great however the amount of material was overwhelming. I did get better at navigating but was constantly amazed by the organizaiton, the tags, etc

Thing #4

I have sent my info onto the team captains and hope that I am on my way.

Thing #3

I have now created an avatar and so far that has been the hardest, but I did it and am proud that I stuck with it!

Thing #3

I have created a BLOG and decided to help with motivation and life long learning that mine would have a professional twist. My idea is to start to create a BLOG to be used by fellow speech language pathologists in our school district. My goal at this time is to create links and information related to the speech language pathology profession, public school, and SBISD.

Thing #2

I have now read the 7 1/2 things and have decided the easiest for me is: accepting responsibility for my learning and the hardest for me is: using technology to my advantage. With that in mind I forged ahead to Thing #3 to create a BLOG, yeah!