This is The End, Beautiful Friend(s) #23

Exit Interview without the Promissory Note!
What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

My favorite discovery was making the Podcast! I wanted to learn how and got what I asked for. It was not hard at all and I am definitely going to make more with my class. I am going to continue to make more Podcasts with the Bluebonnets this year. So subscribe to my feed if you like to hear them.

Homepage with Podcasts too.

I also like starting my Edublog and Livejournal.

I learned a lot about how to comment and thus promotes your own blog.
How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
One of my goals is to be a writer when I grow up. I have been able to find real author blogs and add comments to their pages. One author posted my comments in her blog! I feel like I have increased the level of professionalism in my writing. I feel like I am on the right road to eventually be published (hopefully before I have a cane or walker). Now that I have Google Reader I am able to view all of my favorite author blogs and continue the writing babble going on between us.

Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

Okay..it was FUN!!! I loved discovering new tools (Wikis, Podcasting) that can help me and my campus. I am eager to share them with my team and anyone else who will lend me their ear! I enjoyed encouraging others to keep going and offer suggestions. I made friends here that I never would have made without this 23 Things ( from other schools and districts).
What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

One thing seemed to have multiple things. Spread them out.
If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?

Sign me up! How can I help?
How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote 23 Things learning activities?

Enlightening!

Thing #19 I'm Not California Dreamin anymore!

Yes, I have made it to my vacation! Weather is wonderful But back to the blog...
I found a very cool site called .Docstoc that has a data base of professional document you can use and change to your liking. They have field trip forms, invoices, receipts, you name it! It is very useful instead of recreating documents each year. You can host them there and share if you like.
I put it on my del.icio.us as a great resource all on one page.
Web 2.0 Awards is a mini list?? 500 ? There are many lists of top notch search engines and sites to visit. Here is my top mini list:
Bookmarking-del.icio.us
News Reader-Google Reader
Maps-Google Earth
Education Blog-Edublogs
Social Networking-Myspace
Videos-Youtube
Logic Games- Magic Pen
Image Hosting-Snapfish
Image Sharing-Flickr

Thing #9 Keep On Pushing My Love Over the "Bloglines"

Bloglines is a wonderful way to search for blogs quickly. Mostly everything that I was interested in was being posted by people, except for CCP and John O. I found great ideas about books I love to read in class by searching the author's name. It was great to find even more ideas for my favorite read alouds.
The most confusing thing seemed to when I click on the RSS button, I wasn't sure if I added it or not. It would show up on Favorites but not on my Google Reader. I had to toggle between pages to somehow add subsbritpion to my Google Reader. Meanwhile, I could have just typed in msn.com and go straight to where I wanted to go! Oh well.

Thing #8 R-S-S-P-E-C-T: Find Out What It Means To Me!

I created in my Google reader 5 blogs and one site that I like to visit. I have to say that I did not know what that little RSS symbol was. It was appearing on site all over the Internet but I had no idea what it was. People would say,"Oh, it's a feed," and that was pretty much it. It seems to me to a fancy favorites kind of thing with current update about what topics or sites you visit.
I can see how it saves time from you searching out to the sites. But like this Library2Play, I have to have two windows open to post and view. In the class, I can preset my sites ahead of time for lessons.

Thing #7 You Give Me the "Google"bumps!

I created an igoogle page for my home computers and my computers at school. There is an excellent brain teaser theme tools addition that I use in the classroom. My G.T. kids especially enjoy this feature as well as all kids. Here is a great one.
Help! A Remainder is Chasing Me
I just found a number with an interesting property:
When I divide it by 2, the remainder is 1.
When I divide it by 3, the remainder is 2.
When I divide it by 4, the remainder is 3.
When I divide it by 5, the remainder is 4.
When I divide it by 6, the remainder is 5.
When I divide it by 7, the remainder is 6.
When I divide it by 8, the remainder is 7.
When I divide it by 9, the remainder is 8.
When I divide it by 10, the remainder is 9.
It's not a small number, but it's not really big, either.
Find the smallest number with such property.

Plus random cat pictures, Bejeweled, and National Geographic picture of the day.
I also like Google Earth. Students are able to find our school and their house. We also used it to view our "virtual" vacation we planned in mathematics. Students were given a budget of $5,000 and had to figure in the cost of flight, hotel, car, and attractions. Google Earth allowed students to see their featured destination without having to actually go there. Very Cool Tool!