Thing #23

I just realized that I listed Audio Books as Thing #23, but this is really Thing #23. I enjoyed this Web 2.0 program. It was nice to be able to work at my own pace and have someone to go to for help when I needed it. I learned a lot. There were many Web 2.0 tools out there that I did not know about and things that I will use in the future. My favorites were Flickr and Podcasts. I also was not aware of Zoho and feel like that would be a great tool in the future. I have already shared Zoho with a friend who doesn't have Microsoft Office, but needed to create a document. If another program similar to this would be available, I would be interested in taking that one too. This wasn't real demanding yet you were able to get as involved as you wanted to in the activities, and I like being in control of my own learning.

Thing #23 Audio Books

I love using audio books. I listen to them when I am walking or doing things around the house. I like the way the readers voice changes for each character. My favorite audio book has been Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. That guy did an awesome job keeping me in the story. I have always checked the CD's out of the library and am very glad to find out that the public library has Overdrive. I searched for The Graveyard Book and saw that it was on Overdrive, so that may be the book I start with.

Thing #21 Podcasts

I searched iTunes for Podcasts and downloaded one about the upcoming Harry Potter movie. I already have iTunes on my computer so maybe that is why it was so easy to do. There were lots of podcasts to look at about movies, books etc. I had a hard time adding the RSS to my bloglines account. I am not sure what I was doing wrong, but it did not seem to be working. I can see where podcasts could be very beneficial for instruction. It was helpful having the podcasts throughout this program.

Thing #20 You Tube

I like YouTube. You can find videos about everything from making balloon animals and learning dance steps to science projects and book reviews. There are so many videos out there because of the ease of using YouTube. Even very young people can put a video on there with ease. However, it is not a site that you would want your students to use at school. Even though there are good things on there there is also lots of inappropriate videos on there and they are easy to get to even if you are searching for something else. I saw that someone else blogged about TeacherTube. I have used that before as well and think there are some really good video on there also.

Thing #19

I went to the short list and picked books. The winner was Lulu. It was a great site that allowed you to create calendars, cookbooks, photo books and a few other things. I was very easy to use, there were only a few steps to follow. Picking out the photos that you want to use is probably the hardest part. You can just purchase one for yourself or you can make them publish and people can buy them from the site. As I was looking through the products, I was think about how it could be used in a library. It would be neat to create a calendar that featured a book each month. The thing that I didn't like was that I was not able to find out how much these products were. It looked like you had to create your product before you received a price. Some of the photo books could be up to 100 pages and that would be a lot to create your book and then find out that the price was way too high. Overall, I really liked the site, it is one that I would go back to and use for personal use.

Thing #18

Zoho Writer is pretty cool. It was easy to use and had a lot of features. This could be a very useful tool. I am always emailing lesson plans or letters or things like that back and forth to myself so that I can work on them at home and school. This would be so much easier since it can be accessed from any computer. I played around with the text and inserted a picture. I also checked out Zoho Show and found that it was also pretty easy to use. These applications would be good to introduce to students who may have internet access, but don't have Microsoft Office or don't have anyone to teach them how to use it. The teacher could demonstrate at school and then the student could use it at home, the library or at a friend's house. I think that would be very beneficial to some students. I had no idea all those tools were out there for people to use.

Thing #17

I visited our page from the new email link that was given and created an account. Adding comments was very easy. I am not sure how much I would use it. It reminded me of our Moodle page, but I need to play around with it a little more to see what else I can do with it.