I had passed up the opportunity to take this Web 2.0 class during the Spring and wondered if it would benefit me or my teaching to take it this summer.  (Thank you Sue for your support and encouragement and ‘coaching’!  I truly appreciate the nudge!)  I don’t know if/when it will benefit my teaching, but I know that I am more knowledgeable  now after a summer of exploration and “play” within Web 2.0!  And that I will use bits and pieces of the technology I was introduced to.  (Thank you Shelley for your organization and user-friendliness!)

As an educator, we need to continually learn so we can in turn, teach.  The Web is/will play a major role in the 21st century and our students seem to be learning if faster than we are.  They are very tech savvy, and the biggest thing: they are not afraid of it, nor intimidated by it.  (Hence the title of my blog: ‘Teach and old dog, new tricks!’)  Now, I just need to schedule time in my day to continue “playing”, reading feeds & blogs & wikispaces, and begin to try to utilize these tools in my classroom.  It has been a fun ride this summer and I will never look at ‘Thing 1 and Thing 2′ in quite the same way!

Tweets & twitters still confuse me.  I don’t quite get the whole “let me update you on my every action and follow me around” mentality.  I do love the connectivity my children feel on Facebook and it has been fun looking up college buddies and following the antics of my children and their friends; but I really wonder at privacy issues down the road.  Once photo’s, messages, blogs are “out there” in cyber space, can you ever really get them back or off the ‘net’?

As far as twitter in my classroom, I did like some of the ideas posted in Thirty interesting ways to use Twitter, however I teach 4 – 10 year old’s and I don’t think they are really internet savvy yet; nor is everything accessible, beneficial.  Possibly if I taught middle or high school I might have a different perspective.  But it was inspirational roaming through the possibilities!  At this point, it really looks like just one more ‘layer’ in a list of blogs, wikki’s, webpages, etc.

I understand how Google Reader can become overwhelming…I have learned to only sit and ‘browse’ when I know I have an hour to spend.  I really do need to practice “scimming & scanning” in the Reader.  My problem is that I begin to connect with an article, and start envisioning how I can use that information in my classroom.  And I tend to ‘chase rabbits’….one link, leads to another, then another, then I am so far removed from my initial read that I get confused.  Anyway, discipline will need to become my mantra.

But I love looking at and reviewing lesson plans, and here is one I found for preK…  hope this is the ‘permalink’!

http://ministry-to-children.com/i-can-pray-preschool-lesson/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Ministry-To-Children+%28Ministry-To-Children%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

I looked and explored…the jury is still out on how I could utilize this tool in elementary school??  As I consider all these new ‘things’ I am learning, I also see a learning curve, obviously, for my students and their parents and my colleagues…I love being a ‘life-long’ learner!

Here I’ve been spending $$ on Word Processing software and it was on Google Docs all along…who knew?  Obviously, not me!  Anyway, I can see a great benefit of collaborating in Google Docs as I work with all lower school teachers who have to chose dates/projects, etc.  I end up going to the teachers, asking what dates they want, typing and retyping, adding content and updating, resolving conflicts, etc.  With Google Docs, I can just put it out there, let teachers choose dates & topics, avoid conflicts on their own, and I just implement the calendar!  I look forward to giving this a try this year!

Had I gone through the 3 “Things” for this week at one time, I would have discovered that my comments, posted in Thing 17, relate to what I am to comment on in Thing 19.  In Thing 17, I said that “10 years ago, maybe as little as 5 years…”  Well, after watching the “history of YouTube”, I learned that it was just 5 short years ago, 2005, that history was made with YouTube!  I had no idea of the billions of dollars that these gentlemen made as a result of their “idea”!  I need a ‘good idea’!…    Back to reality!

I have been using YouTube in my classroom and chapels in the form of Contemporary Christian Music videos for the past 2 years.  I have also used the site, Media Converter, to convert the YouTubes, to a playable format on my computer, usually an Mp4 or ‘mov’.  I’ve never ‘embedded’ tho’ so enjoy the Chris Tomlin, ‘Amazing Grace’ video….

Well, it said that “embedding was disabled by request”…so I have linked it to it’s name above for your enjoyment and am off to find an “embeddable” video….

Ok, let’s try, “I Will Rise” by Chris Tomlin….

I just like to keep ‘Thing’s’ in order, so I will be back to Update this post with my podcast…

Success!  2 hours later!

Producing the audio podcast was a breeze!  (Except for my daughter laughing at me!)  As I mention in the K12learning20 site where it is published, “I make a ‘joyful noise’ that is beautiful to 4-year-olds…20-year-olds are a different subject!!!  Saving in the correct format and Exporting were the items that stretched my comprehension.  Anyway, I posted/published in Podbean, but when I ‘grabbed’ it to embed here, I don’t see my podcast, “Jesus loves me”….  Oh well, I will have to figure that out on another day!  Summertime is calling me!  Enjoy my classmates work!

Again, so much information, so little time!

I have subscribed to a few podcasts from churches, other than my home church, in order to listen and learn from various pastors.  Sunday mornings only offer enough time to attend and be a member at one church; however the world of podcasting offers endless opportunities to “attend” numerous churches.  (The opportunity then becomes which ones to listen to each week!)

I think that podcasts are wonderful in that regard…to distribute information to as many people as possible, (and beyond your expectations)!  Whether audio or video in format, this is a great tool.  As for me using it, it becomes a question of ‘production’.  Podcasts, I don’t believe, are one man or woman, productions.  Someone needs to present, and another videotape, transfer the file, upload.  Not impossible tasks, but definitely requiring ‘teamwork’.

As far as iTunes U, and some of the other sites I visited for education…. it reinforces something my friend told me… Her son attends Georgia Tech.  One of his professors had a thick accent from his home country and the student couldn’t follow or understand his lectures very well.  So, the student goes to YouTube to get study help in algebra or whatever math class it was that he was taking.  Amazing!  10 years ago, maybe as little as 5 years ago, he would have had to go to the student tutoring center, during their tutoring hours, or get study-buddies, again at an assigned time, to learn/digest the class information.  Now, anytime, day or night, or wee hours of the morning, instant math class!

I first thought of my daughter when I explored this site and it’s offerings.  She loves to read and can consume 200-300 pages a day!  If she finds an author, topic, or writing style that she enjoys, she makes a list of books by that particular author and the order in which she needs to read them.  Thankfully, she has discovered the library, because I really couldn’t afford her reading habit any longer!

It appears that LibraryThing would help her keep track of her personal library, books she has read, authors she has enjoyed, her wish-list of reads and connect her with other similar writings/authors.  She is very organized and this would be right up her alley!  It also has the added benefits of connecting her with other readers who have similar interests and can share reviews and recommendations of ‘good reads’.

As a teacher, this would work for me as well to keep me organized as to what I own in my personal teaching library; and what I have lent out to others, (more specifically, who to get it back from.) I am just not that organized….so much to do…so much to learn…. Remember, I am an old dog….

….”It’s delicious!  It’s delightful!  It’s delectable!”….

Isn’t that a song?  Where do they come up with the names for these websites?  I do think it is fun and engaging, tho’.   I also like the “tag-you’re-it” mentality when it comes to sharing websites.  I find one I like and tag you; you find one you like and tag me!  It is ‘play’ and collaboration at it’s finest!

I used to hear a few colleagues say, “Oh, I’ll have to add that to my ‘delicious’ account” and I never knew what they meant.  “Light bulb”!  Now I do! I can definitely see the benefit to sharing web site info.  It helps put a ‘group’ on the same page, so to speak.  It is a great way to expand one’s ‘web’ horizons.

Let’s see if this works…here is my delicious account info so far….

http://del.icio.us/BRENFREN2

(It didn’t work for me…so back to the drawing board for another day!)