Thing 23

I am really glad that I took this course. At times this course was exciting, and it made me feel renewed and energized! Other times, this course made me question why anyone would want a computer in their home! Overall, though, the positive outweighed the negative. I now feel much more equiped to deal with new technology. After taking this course I do not feel as intimidated by new technology. I am more willing to give things a try.

Some of my favorite parts of this course were learning about Flikr, Google Docs, You Tube, Podcasts, making the movie posters, and of course, having a blog! I absolutely love having a blog, and I am looking forward to continuing with my blog outside of this class. I have some secondary students that are on my caseload at the high school that I need to consult with. I think I would like to create another blog just for that purpose.

I know that I will need to go over my notes, and if possible, watch some of the instructional videos again (how long do we have access to 23 things?) because this technology stuff still does not come naturally to me, like it does with some people. That is the most frustrating thing about technology...if you don't use something every day, it doesn't always stick (at least with me!) I am also interested in learning more about video streaming, which I see is another RESA course.

In conclusion, I want to say thank you for the opportunity to learn all of these new skills. I like the way this course was set up. It was good that we could work at our own pace. I am very happy that I took this course!

Thing 22

I have spent most of the evening trying to create my own wiki. I must admit that I had much difficulty with this. I couldn't figure out how to get rid of the initial instructions at first. I also couldn't figure out how to get to page 2 even though I created a page two. I actually had to create a second wiki because my first one was such a mess. The one I messed up is: www.speechlanguagesharesite.wikispaces.com. The one I did next is: www.sharesiteforspeechlanguage.wikispaces.com. I will keep trying to fix it because I do think it will be a useful tool for collaborating with my secondary speech language pathology colleagues to keep a running list of useful materials, books and websites to use with secondary speech and language impaired students. I do not feel confident enough yet to invite people to look at my wiki! I will keep working on it after this class ends. I think a wiki is different from a blog because a wiki is more fluid; it can constantly change or be updated. My blog is really an online journal for me. Some of the other blogs I have seen are more instructional in nature than mine, but are still pretty much from the viewpoint of the writer. I think once I really understand how to edit my wiki, it will be a very useful tool.

Thing 21

I have spent quite a bit of time looking at the various Wiki's. Maybe I am in the minority, but I found them to be too busy, and a little overwhelming. I absolutely loved the idea of a wiki when I saw the first instructional video that used the wiki for getting ready for the camping trip. It seemed straight forward, and it seemed like a good way to collaborate. I thought that a wiki could be used to collaborate on a project between colleagues, or for a class project. However, when I started looking at all of the various wiki's, I thought they were kind of confusing. Sometimes I clicked on "discussion," and it was blank. The 1000 names Wiki seemed interesting, but I wasn't sure what the point was for it. I stumbled upon a blog called "Cyber Security," which I thought was very helpful, but am not sure which Wiki it was a part of, so I am not sure how I would navigate back to it. Anyway, I am on to Thing 22 to see if I can actually create my own Wiki.

Thing 20

Well, I really feel as if thing 20 was just an extension of thing 19. During thing 19 I spent quite a bit of time trying out all of the search engines that were in the instructional video and I also downloaded itunes 9 (not 7). So, for thing 20, I listened to some more podcasts, and I ended up subscribing to two of them. I subscribed to Dave Ramsey's podcast of his radio show, and also to Grammar Girl. I am a huge fan of Dave Ramsey, and my husband and I just completed his Financial Peace University course, so I was really happy to see that I could subsribe to a podcast of his radio show! I also really enjoy Grammar Girl. I will most likely subscribe to more podcasts, but at this point, I was anxious to continue on to thing 21.

Thing 19

Learning about Podcasts was a fun assignment. I probably spent the most time on this thing. I used www.epnweb.org, Podcast Alley, Yahoo, and finally, Itunes. I found Poscast Alley to be helpful. I didn't find much on Yahoo. I really liked the podcasts that I found on Itunes. Learning how to download Itunes was helpful too, because my husband bought me an Ipod for Christmas, so now I will know how to download music onto it! I didn't realize that you could also download podcasts...I didn't really understand what podcasts were, although I have seen them in other people's presentations many times! Some of my favorite Podcasts that I listened to included: First Amendment Minute, Grammar Girl, Vocab Minute (Princeton Review) and JapanesePod101.com.

Thing 18

Here is a slideshow about Steve Job's presentation style. I thought it was an appropriate slideshow for a speech language pathlogist's blog.

Presentation secrets of Steve Jobs

View more presentations from Victor.

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I didn't realize that you could find slide shows that were already completed to embedd into a lesson or presentation. I really liked the slide show 23 things used. I think I saw it before at the beginning of a school year presentation. I chose the Steve Job's presentation slideshow because in addition to being a speech language pathologist, I am also a certified teacher and am highly qualified to teach English to special education students at the high school. Our teacher leader and I have been discussing the possibility of me teaching a public speaking class for special education students, so this slideshow was very applicable for me.

Thing 17

I really enjoyed thing 17. The two tools that I explored were: The Library Thing and 30 boxes. I really like the Library Thing, because I love to read and it is nice to see so many other people still like to read. I actually joined the group, 75books in 2010. I don't know if I will be able to read that many books, but it will be fun keeping track of the books I do get to read. I will also like hearing about other books from others in the group. Right now, I am putting as many books as I can remember reading over the past year or two in my library. Then I will start making a list of books I want to read.
The 30 Boxes site looks like it could be very helpful in remembering things that come around each year, such as birthdays and anniversaries. However, I like the old fashioned way of writing down my appointments and special events in a calendar.

Thing 16

Tonight, I finished Thing 16. I am feeling much calmer about these 23 things today! I really like Google Docs! I can definately see how this could be a very useful tool, especially when my collegues and I are collaborating on a project. For example, one of my colleagues is out on maternity leave right now, but we are working on a project together. We have talked about the best way to do this with her being on leave. I think that this will be a great way to work. I posted a lesson plan about how to prepare for final exams from a speech language pathologist's point of view. I shared it with everyone who has access to my Google Docs (is that everyone in this class?). I am anxious to see if anyone adds anything to my document! Well, on to thing 17. I just may finish this course on time!

Thing 15

I have to admit that I am on information overload right now. I did not enjoy these last three "things." It frustrated me that I had to go back to thing 5 and re-watch the instructional videos about RSS. It also frustrated me that I couldn't complete the tasks like your instructional videos. I finally managed to add a couple of news feeds and a tag from Delicious, but not the way your video showed it. I also have to be truthful that I have not checked my blogline account, and am not obsessed with keeping up with all of the information online. I guess this all does not come second nature to me, so I will keep trying. I enjoyed the things that had to do with creating the movie poster, posting videos from You Tube and posting pictures. I am a little nervous about the Podcasting Thing that is coming up. Anyway, I don't mean to sound negative....I will keep at these "Things," but I would much rather talk to someone IN PERSON right now than to keep looking online! LOL My eyes are starting to hurt. Is anyone else having these difficulties or is it just me?

Thing 14

I just completed thing 14. I found many useful websites that I bookmarked through Delicious.com. At first, I had a little trouble with thing 14. While I was checking out Delicious.com on thing 13, I actually signed up for the site. Since I have a Yahoo acount, it signed me up without all the steps on your instructional video. For example, I didn't have to copy down the mixed up letters as a security measure. I also was unable to figure out how to download the two buttons onto my toolbar. I am able to sign on to Delicious.com by entering my yahoo account number. Anyway, here is my sign on, so other people can access the websites that I downloaded: delicious.com/kaceeisme. I think this is a great tool for keeping track of the many sites that we see when surfing the Net. One thing I did do differently, however, was I looked at a couple of great sites that no one else had bookmarked! The sites were actually very good. Also, some of the sites that had large numbers of bookmarks weren't always the best sites. Now on to Thing 15!

Thing 13

I can see how learning to tag websites can be a useful tool for organizing information. It is like having a huge filing cabinet in cyberspace! I read the article with the 13 tips for tagging, and found it to be useful. I am looking forward to trying this myself.