I Can Tweet, Blog and Diigo

The first semester of this teaching year has been one of transition, change, and flexibility. It has also been one of busy-ness; four 1 credit online classes that required a lot of participation and learning of new to me technologies. It's been busy, but it's been fun.

I can now tweet, blog and Diigo. I can use Google Apps and create and use iGoogle pages and apps. I love my iGoogle pages. I can keep track of my appointments, see what's on my to do list, check my RSS feeds, and keep track of what's new on the blogs I'm following. The latest news is right there, as well as the weather.

I can download education podcasts to my iPod, and Skype with classmates and instructors. Now, I can even GoToMeeting.

I am ready to sign up for more online classes, and am looking forward to using the tools in my teaching practice.

Follow me on Twitter: MarciaK49

I love this stuff!

Kindergarten Resources

You can access my new Kindergarten Resources list at
Kindergarten Resources

Moodle, a Tool I Can Really Use!

I have spent the last week looking at a number of Web 2.0 tools that I could incorporate into my teaching practice. I've tweeted, blogged, added bookmarks and shared bookmarks with Diggo, entered course work into forums using Moodle, and researched using Moodle in the courses I teach in the Media Center. A fellow online student graciously let me use a guest account to log on to her Moodle course so that I could see what it was like, and I also logged on to the demos on the Moodle site.

I found it easy to use as a student, and not that difficult to set up as an instructor. Obviously, it takes quite a bit of up front work to bring the class online, but all in all it is a tool that I would be happy to use here at school.

I have some ideas that I plan to present to my administrator, and will show her examples of schools and classes that are already using Moodle.
Wish me luck as I attempt to bring more collaboration to our school.

Twitter and Me

Well, I've finally done it. Yes, I can now tweet. I've tweeted twice now. Once to announce that I had fully joined and another to say I had changed my background. I don't know that I will tweet on a daily basis, but at least I'm trying it on for size. I think that this is something that I could go crazy with. I mean, first I started blogging. Then I started following other people's blogs. Then I added Google Reader so I could keep up with them without actually visiting the blog. Now I'm tweeting and following others. This could become a full time job. How do people do it all? I think I might have to retire from my teaching job in order to keep up! But that defeats the whole purpose of doing this. What is the purpose of doing all of this? To incorporate these tools in to my teaching! To help me find new ways to connect with my students. I think I'm going to have to find a way to balance all of this!

Researching Web 2.0 Tools

The final, and biggest assignment in our class is to source Web 2.0 tools, try out three of them and then choose one of them to focus on and write about in depth. This is a great assignment as it forces you to really get out there and take a hard look at all that is there to be used. I have to say that the task is overwhelming and that one week is not nearly enough time to do a thorough analysis. Here are a couple of the sites that were posted:
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/edtools.html
I have visited Kathy Schrock's pages many times, but this is the first time I've used it to find Web 2.0 tools. Her site led me to this one:
http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/
It has some great presentation tools and a lot more.
But this one my friends is the motherlode. You could get lost in here - there is waay too much good stuff! http://www.go2web20.net/

If I'm not back by tomorrow night, it's because I'm lost in this Web 2.0 playground! More later...

On the Road Again

I'm in Kansas City with family and friends, thankful for the beautiful, wonderful people in my life, and missing those who are not with me. While driving here on Tuesday night and part of Wednesday, there was plenty of time to think about the classes I am taking (and plenty of wishing that I could somehow keep up with my course work while behind the wheel). Twelve hours of driving gives you a lot of thinking time!
For instance, I was thinking that if there was someone riding with me, which there was not, and they were driving and I had a smarter phone than I do, I could be riding as a passenger and keeping up with my online projects while crossing Iowa at 70 miles per hour. Who would have or could have imagined that in the not too distant past? Technology, if you have access, and that word, "access", is the key word here can take you many places. Without access you can't take that ride. Access is something that is not available to everyone. And access is the limiter to all of the wonderful tools that are available to us.

This is just a brief thought for the brief amount of time that I have access. More later...

It's So Easy

I'm taking an online course on Emerging Technologies and starting and maintaining this blog is part of my course work. As I add each gadget I continue to be amazed at how easy it is. Who would have known that I would have a blog, and now I have a blog with podcasts that people can subscribe to. Followers can also subscribe to RSS feeds to keep up to date with changes. Who would have known that I'd be doing this? AND I have followers. Ok, they are my fellow students, but overall I find it cool that there are people out there who are actually reading what I am writing!! There's no limit to what can be done with this blog. The only limit really is me, and I plan to do as much as I can to keep this blog going long after my course is over.

So Many Blogs, So Little Time

I am overwhelmed by the amount of information that is out there in the blogosphere! It just keeps growing and the world just keeps getting smaller. And the cloud just keeps getting bigger. You can find blogs on any subject you can think of. Where do people find the time to keep posting? I know I don't have that kind of time. Do you have to be that dedicated? Do you have to eliminate almost everything else from your life?

I am glad that I am enrolled in this class as it forces me to make the time to explore what's out there. Not all of it is good, but what a great way for people to express themselves. And as mobile technology expands, you can be anywhere and post a comment or make a statement about any subject you choose.

So I choose to continue to post; to make an effort to post on a daily basis; to share my thoughts about technology as it is in my workplace and technology as it is in my homeplace; to share my thoughts about technology as I think it should be in my workplace.

A New Day A New Blog

Using Blogger made setting up this blog so very easy. This is not the first blog I have created; but it is most likely the first that I will continuously post to! This will also be my first blogging experience within the context of an online course. I'm an eager and willing participant! I'm hopeful that I will continue to post to this blog long after this course ends, and that my students will find some value in its contents.

I enjoyed Henry Jenkins' take on academic blogging. He and his students use blogging to post their ongoing work, to seek collaboration and get their messages out their in real time. What a great way to expand your research base and at the same time get the most current data. The fact that many businesses latched on to the blogs as a way of keeping current, and actually creating in-house positions for some of the academic bloggers was outstanding. Job creation at its best! With so many students graduating from college - at both the undergrad and graduate level - with no jobs, it was gratifying to hear something positive.

I found it interesting that many of the incoming students were already very familiar with the media-studies program because they had been following the blog. It would seem that given their familiarity with the program, integration would be pretty easy when they arrived in the fall to begin their studies. Another plus was that graduates of the program would continue to be involved through their interactions online.

I'm looking forward to learning more about emerging technologies with my classmates. I'll keep you posted...