Week 8/Thing #19

Wow! Placemarks! Oh my gosh! All I can say is that it is really cool but a little complicated. I will need to try it when I have more time.

Week 8/Google Earth

I LOVE Google Earth. Unfortunately, I am on my home computer and it is not loaded on this one yet. It is really fun. There used to be a program like this but I forget what it is called. You could access the weather/traffic cameras all over the world. When I taught second grade they used it to explore weather in other parts of the world and compared it to the weather we were having at that time. It was absolutely fascinating and the students were totally engaged.

Week 8/Thing #18

Once again, I have signed up for something. I can see that this web 2.0 stuff requires you to be on the computer A LOT! In addition, it also requires remembering passwords and user names. Maybe someone will think of a way to store those on some web site!!!!!!!!!!!

So.........I explored slideshare and found a wonderful slide show of.................you guessed it..........Scotland! These are beautiful photographs and made me feel really homesick!!!!!!!

http://www.slideshare.net/Nubiagroup/scotland-by-roelof-van-den-berg

Now this I could use in Kindergarten. I do use power point presentations on several topics and this would make my life so much easier if it was already done for me. Yeah!!!!!

Week 6/Thing #14

I wasn't sure if we were to blog about this week since we completed these activities in class. I thought voicethread was a really neat idea and I could see the potential in some activities for the older grades. I do imagine I would use it a great deal. I think it might be one of the neat ideas that you could easily forget is out there if you don't use it very much.

Week 7/Thing #17

I love podcasts. I download them to my iTouch to learn languages, listen to books, and many other things. I did find one about Scotland. It is The Wilderness World of Cameron McNeish where is has podcasts on his walks in Scotland. Go to the podcasts that have "Ben" in front of them because a "Ben" is the Scottish word for mountain. Enjoy!

This is the main site.
http://www.podcasting-station.com/rss2html.php?XMLFILE=http://cameronmcneish.co.uk/feed

One of my favorite ones is:
http://www.cameronmcneish.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ben-sgriol.mp4
It takes a while to load but it is worth it!!!!!!!!!!

Week 7/Thing #16

Funny Youtube video about the book and having to contact the help desk. I preferred the German version to the English one. Here is the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pyjRj3UMRM

Week 5

I am still working on my Wiki. I think this a fabulous way to communicate with parents and students. I would like to give the Wiki address to my parents but I am not sure when we can do that. I showed the work in progress to my teammate and she thought it was fabulous too! It is very user friendly!

Week 4/Thing #11

Wordle and Text Cloud................................yikes!!!!!!!! I am sure there is a use for them. It is kind of cool but I am not seeing all the possiblities. Maybe in high school. I have done poems with my second grade students in the shape of snowflakes using vocabulary associated with winter. I have also done other shapes - football, snowman, raindrops, etc when the students go through books to choose words to put in the poems..................love those! I could see this could be a good activity to do with students to improve vocabulary as well word associations.

I did do a wordle cloud using all the words for planning my daughter's wedding. It looked really good. I had a lot of trouble trying to save it to put into my blog. I read all the FAQ to help but it looks like it is easier to do on a MAC than a PC. I also wasn't sure how to put it into the Delicious place. I will work on it.

Also did a text cloud using the same text. I prefer the wordle format - more options and more fun! I saved the tag to the Delicious site but it only bookmarked the page.

Flip Camera

I think the flip camera is awesome. I was really impressed with how easy it is to use...............even a Kindergartener could use it. I need to practice the editing process especially adding music to it. I must admit I am quite overwhelmed with all the information about the web 2.0 applications and uses.