Thing 21

Up until now I have not been a big social networker...with a large family and young children I have plenty of other things to do. I am a member of 21st Century Teacher as well as a Scholastic Book network that was by invitation. I often feel I don't have enough time to keep up with even these two sites...social networking sites by definition are a place to spend time...and I don't have a lot extra. "Gather" looked like an interesting place for older adults...maybe I'll have the time next summer, or when I retire!

Thing 20

I have been a Facebook member for a few years, but it was for a utilitarian reason. My son was overseas in Australia, China, and Mongolia for nearly six months. He was posting photos of his experience on Facebook, so I joined in order to view them. It worked to an extent, but I would now probably recommend some other photo sharing sites such as Flickr as a better alternative.

I can see that young adults really enjoy Facebook, including my own older children. The different ways that you can develop your profile seems to be a real attraction. I will have to say that the template for Facebook is far superior and much more attractive than for MySpace.

Thing 19

Even though I appreciated what the podcast directories were trying to do, I had difficulty making everything work correctly.

When I tried to reach NPR through the local podcast directory for NPR, I could not stream the podcast without first searching for a player online to use, or saving it to my computer. Yet when I went to NPR through podcast.net I was able to stream it right from the website. The variety of formats as well as the different programs on the particular computer being used is still a thorn in the side of these directories working smoothly. I did listen to a broadcast of the Anniversary of the 35W bridge collapse.

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=93162524&m=93162506


My most common use of podcasts is when they are available on the news or sports websites that I enjoy following. I don't particularly feel the need to create a podcast myself.

Thing 18

You Tube is a reflection of the entire Internet...a mixture of useful and trite, appropriate and inappropriate, uplifting and discouraging, humorous and vulgar. Very few of the videos would be appropriate to show in my classroom. Personally I tend to enjoy the humorous, though I am finding that there is wonderful content on the site as well.

I chose this video about a male kindergarten teacher because it is a very positive news segment that really gets to heart of why men would choose to teach young children. I was so surprised that the teacher seemed so anonymous in the titling of the video...all teachers are heroes and deserve to be recognized by name.

Thing 17

I agree with many of the other posts that the ELM system is an amazing amount of resources available online. When I worked on my master's thesis in 1999 I felt really fortunate that online resources were becoming more available. I used Proquest quite frequently, but now I can see that ELM is like an explosion of similar research material easily available online.

The tools in ELM are much too academic for my primary student, but they have a lot to look forward to as their academic careers continue through high school and college.

Thing 16

I am pretty impressed with these two calculators. I really appreciate the way each one lays out the needed steps for the project, then links resources to help with each step of the project.

The assignment calculator has a daily step-by step process whereas the RPC takes things in larger time steps. The teacher's guide also has additional resources, ready to help when needed.

As soon as I saw the tools I showed my wife and we both agreed that our high school/college students would really benefit from the websites. These calculators represent the most practical Thing yet.

Thing 15

I chose Second Life for this gaming Thing. The sign-up process was pretty straight-forward and easy to get going.

My avatar's name is Eon Michigan. Upon entering the virtual world, it takes a lot of exploring to figure out the basic skills for the avatar. The tutorials are a great idea...to learn and practice as you begin. I do not have much video game experience, so the learning curve is even steeper.
I found smooth movement was a challenge.

Second life looks like a very rich environment. In the intro I read that you can visit a variety of places in other regions, and even create new things. Maybe I have not gotten into the game far enough, but I question the role of the game in the library. It is fun and thought-provoking, but could certainly use of a lot of time.