Thoughts

This has been a great experience. There were some things that I already knew about like youtube and flikr toys but many more that I had never heard about. There was a class just in the other day and the teacher was talking about a student that had access to the internet but did not have a word program so this student could only work on his paper while at school. I gave him the site to zoho and explained some things about it and he was very happy and said he would try it out. So, if I had not gone through this program I would not have known about zoho and then I wouldn't be able to pass my knowledge along, and that's really what it's all about. I think the 2.0 team has done a fantastic job of pulling all these new technology tools together and I appreciate the time they have taken to help us along. I was especially impressed with the sandbox wiki and thought it a great idea for others to share what they have done and what works. Maybe next year there will be another 23 things to look at and explore?

Week 9-audio books

I have to say that I am really amazed with the project Gutenburg. Although there are many many books that I would not want to read, there are some titles there that I did recognize. My son would probably love to see the inaugural addresses by the presidents and I plan on showing him this next week. We do subscribe to e-books at the district level but most of them are nonfiction (actually, I think all of them). So is it Okay to include a link to the site on a web page? I wish more of the titles were audio books but it is pretty cool that there are audio books too. I think of those people who put all these things together and I can't help but think that they have no other life because it seems like it would take so much of their time. I just had a glass of wine so I may be rambling a little. Anyway, this is probably one area that I haven't explored too much, I think maybe because I love to hold books and look at the jackets and take it to bed with me...hmmm, that sounded a little weird. But, I can definitely see the usefulness of ebooks, everyone could pull up the same book and you woudn't need to have multiple copies.

Week 9-Pod casts

I went into this not knowing what a podcast was and am leaving with a better grasp of it. I think in my head I thought it was something different, more like youtube. I included "The great read radio show" onto my rss feed in google and I also downloaded some Spanish lessons onto my bookmarks, and I was very pleased that it included all of the lessons. What I'm thinking is that if there are more lessons then I will have to go back and include those, so maybe I should just try to also add this one to my rss feed so that I will know when there are new installments.
My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-f85db0c8185edb5e2dac93fee3c45616}

Week 9-Youtube

This is what I really love about Youtube--sometimes I'll be hanging out with my boys and something will come up, maybe from watching TV or just just telling them about something and I can get on to youtube and show them what I was talking about. For example, I don't remember how we got to talking about Abbott and Costello and "Who's on First" but I was able to show them the skit and they loved it. My youngest played it over and over. There are so many things you can find on this site and on so many different topics. I have been using Youtube for years. I would love to use more youtube videos at work but unfortunately it is blocked.

Week 8-Library Thing

This is an interesting site, but again you could take forever exploring what others have to say about a book or how popular it is, or the reviews. I thought it was kind of strange though that Kite Runner has over 18,000 members and popularity of 15, whereas Classic Fiction of the Harlem Renaissance has 15 members and popularity of 298,285. I was looking at the "hot reviews" on the home page and I did notice that someone used the F word. Even though I am a groovy person I sort of feel that this is uncalled for on a Library site, it wasn't like he was quoting the book. Regardless of this, I still really liked Library Thing and plan on using it in some way. One more thing--I made the book widget but I couldn't get it to look the way I wanted to on my blog site. I had 4 columns and 3 rows. I made the blog widget with just the book covers and then I think I added it by going to layout in my blog and selecting html from gadgets. I also tried by saving it as a jpeg and then inserting it as an image but it would only copy one cover. Any step by step instructions on getting it to look more like a poster?

Week 8-Zoho

I published a test document from Zoho to my blog site. I don't think the little emoticon or smiley face quite made it. I couldn't figure out why it said tongue and then I realized that I had inserted the little face with the tongue sticking out. I may come back and add to this but right now I am exhausted since I spent the last two days cutting down a tree.