Thing # 18

You Tube,which bills itself as "The largest worldwide video-sharing community!" is a phenomenon sweeping cyberspace with a plethora of subject matter, both serious and fluffy, both informational and entertaining, both professional and totally random, both religious and secular. The fact that anyone can upload video clips to You Tube makes it totally user friendly and gives it wide appeal. In getting around You Tube this piece Chris O'Neal's Blog on Edutopia was very helpful.

What teacher has not dreamed of and longed for a way to interject appropriate video clips into teaching to make certain points extremely visual? Along with vehicles to use movie clips in the classroom, a teacher's use of You Tube in the classroom makes the dream reachable with information like this article Brenda Dyck's Blog on Education World.

All educators are familiar with the problems and issues of the profession. Staff Development addresses many of these. Lest we take educational professional development too seriously, a lighthearted look at one of these issues, funding, is illustrated by Educationally Impolite's "Funny Professional Development for Teachers" in the You tube video sample of their series, embedded at right. You Tube is a site one could spend hours at a time on, learning, laughing, being moved or inspired, or any of an inordinant number of other vicarious experiences through the use of "The largest worldwide video-sharing community!"

Thing # 17 Podcasts Without An iPod

I had heard podcasts before, as my husband was interviewed on one I listened to a while back, but I had no idea of how they were derived and the wide applications and uses of them until this Thing # 17. I used the directory Education Podcast Network but got to literature sites that had high school level material and I wanted elementary level. I found a group of podcasts that had delightful children's Australian accents telling about their town of Ballina, New South Wales, but there were no RSS feeds with them. I found some interesting subject matter on PBS Podcasts, but they were more professional and mature-oriented for this elementary level-seeking Blogger Babe.

I went to Jamestown Elementary Podcast Project was delighted to see even young elementary school children's podcast productions, but I could not get sound on them. Looking for English Language content, I visited The Bob and Rob Show: English Lessons but found these a little dry for me personally. After trying one site that was too "busy looking" and off-putting and one that required downloading iTunes, I kept looking.

Finally I hit upon History Podcast and found topics ranging from Cleopatra to Roman Aqueducts to Pocahontas. I found out that the Disney movie, "Pocahontas" has factually incorrect information about this historical female figure. This is the one I chose to put the RSS feed of onto my Google Reader site.

This Web 2.0 vehicle, the podcast, which can incorporate music or sound effects along with the spoken word, can be useful with all ages and subjects in education. Teachers and students alike can employ them to give presentations or information. Students would gain confidence and pride in their work learning about their subject and putting podcasts together.

Thing # 16 Library Thing

Library Thing is a site where "everyone can be a Librarian." In fact, when trying to link it, I kept reaching my own "lynkay" site rather than just plain Librarything.com. On this site one can connect with people who like to read the same books or types of books, comment on books, tag books, sort by books read/books owned/books wished for, interact with others, view author groups, and the list goes on of ways to "socialize" via cyberspace with book lovers.

I did join and create a library of books I have particularly enjoyed reading and tagged them. It seemed to give importance to my preferences to realize I can customize my own choices and that others can view my decisions about tags, relate to them or even be inspired to read them---or not. The Suggester was an Amazon.com books-type feature, although each time I tried this I got an error message. More interesting, was the Unsuggester, turning, "Other people who bought this book also bought . . ." on its head to "did you like . . . ? You will not like . . ."

Since I do not have a lot of time for reading for pleasure, it was astounding to me to see the great variety of books people enjoy. I conclude that many people are prolific readers and do not read just for professional requirements but find/take time to read what they want to for pleasure. I was envious. So many great titles, so little time.

This is way off topic in a way, but I liked scrolling at the bottom through the many interesting and creative names of people who joined Library Thing, located together on this part of the site 50 Books Challenge. The Zeitgeist feature (firehose meets mouth) is an amazing array of Top books, ratings, authors, collections, etc. It also was a hoot scanning all the interesting name of people populating these lists.

Library Thing is definitely not just a book thing. It's a whole huge library---a plethora of titles and book-related things-type thing. It's truly a fascinating Web 2.0 avenue for social networking.

Thing # 15 Social Bookmarking and Tagging with Delicious

Exploring delicious.com was, to me, more user-friendly than some of the activities in the "23 Things" course have been. I was able to navigate the site and requirements a little more easily and quicker than other processes.

The concept of sharing sites with others according to personally-chosen tags, or topics, was appealing in that it gives identifying information to other people who share the same interests. It makes locating information on the web quicker and to the point, profiting from other people's searches, bookmarks and tags.

It was cool to see my bookmarked sites (TasteSpotting | a community driven visual potluck by lynkay2463 Yesterday 6:23 pm;lynkay2463's Bookmarks on Delicious by lynkay2463 Yesterday 6:35 pm) on the "misd23things" wikispaces site soon after tagging them with the same. The skill of embedding with an RSS feed was directly applicable to this activity.

I enjoyed viewing the delicious.com sites of other "23 Things" participants. There were topics and sites I would not have thought of and outside of my usual range of interests. The idea of social networking is more real to me by experiencing the offerings of delicious.com

Things # 7a and 7b Google Reader Revisited

Checking my Google Reader today I found an especially appropriate article from Tech & Learning. On this Halloween weekend, creepy, morbid and disgusting things are in order. This theme prevailed in "You Wouldn't Want to Be a Mummy! Disgusting Things You'd Rather Not Know," which is the title of an actual web book. It gives a detailed account of steps in the mummification process, the funeral, burial, etc.of an Egyptian person in a humorous way that addresses the reader as though they were the mummy, warning what is about to happen or is at the moment happening to them.

Students would enjoy learning these facts because of the satire and dark humor, along with drawings, pictorials and designs. This is one of several books by Salariya Book Company, each elaborating on grisly facts about subjects like Whaling, Gladiators, Explorers. The use of first person mixed with humor makes these free web books attractive, especially to students who prefer online reading to a traditional book.

I found the combination of technology and content learning, along with the timely, seasonal monster-like topic of dead people being mummified, an unbeatable mix for this assignment. There were a lot of other good reads in my Google Reader, but "mum"'s the word on those for now, ghouls and boys!

Thing # 14 Discovering Web 2.0 Tools

Trying some of these tools was entertaining, enlightening and amazing. I found that some of these offered the option to use Flikr and the Commons section, with which I was familiar from previous Thingstering. But it was also frustrating to try to experience some of these tools.

I tried creating a newsletter for family and friends called "The Fall Sun Fun Times," on one favorite site, and I repeatedly attempted to create on it but I could not figure out how to complete it, save it and upload it to my blog--all in proper sequence. The one I ended up managing to apply to my blog was not my favorite, but one I could figure out.

Toondoo allows one to customize cartoons and speech bubbles, using image selections provide or one's own. It's a clever way of getting content into students' hands without their being bored or turned off. They would have to know something about the content before they could put it into a fun, student-friendly cartoon.

The tools are so versatile and helpful in countless ways. They can save busy people--which educators are not busy?--lots of time in putting out excellent products in 21st century web work. The fact that so many of the numerous ones listed are interactive and can be uploaded by various means--to email, blogs, social network sites, etc., makes them have wide appeal in this very cyber-socially-oriented world of today.

Thing # 13 Image Generators - B

On Techy Learning Mawmaw's blog I particularly enjoyed seeing the combination of music with videoed flowers (one of my favorite subjects, as you'll notice on my own blog page). On the Blog called "23 Things to Learn About Web 2.0" I liked seeing the two of the image generators I did not try and seeing them cleverly: Smiley Face Logo Creator and Comic Strip Generator.
Visiting others' Blogs made me want to explore some of the ones I did not and wish I had not spent so much time trying to master some instead of going on to try others.