Of course, one more thing...

This course has been challenging but very informative. I signed up for this and other technology staff developments because this is a passion of mine. I know technology changes daily and in order to stay current you have to learn new things. It has been several years since I was in the classroom as a teacher, so I think it is important, as an administrator to stay informed and know what is available. Technology has changed education and in order to be a true instructional leader today, you have to be savvy with technology. If a similar course was offered again, I would certainly participate.
The Google apps are definitely my favorite! I feel they can help me be more productive and informed. I will use many of the google apps daily at school. Checking my reader has now become a habit and this enables me to explore new ideas. I will also share these new ideas with anyone that will listen. Watch out Gray staff, I'm informed and excited!!!

Thing #23- Hooray! I'm done

I started my exploration at the classroom 2.0 website. I was excited because I had previously explored this site during an earlier "thing". I subscribed to the classroom 2.0 site in my Google reader. I joined both the classroom 2.0 ning and the MISD thingsters ning. I also saved both to my Delicious account. I know that both of these sites will offer quick resources that I can share with our faculty.


Visit 23 Thingsters


On the classroom 2.0 ning I read a discussion started by a campus principal. He asked if any fellow administrators had plans to use Twitter to tweet about their schools or education. I found the discussion very interesting and this is one I'll continue to follow.

Technology and education are coming together and exciting things are happening. I know that social networking has a future in education and I'm excited to see what the future holds.

Thing #22- Social Networking

Now this is a web 2.0 tool that I know and love! Actually, my Facebook account is what has kept me from finishing my 23 things faster. Well, if truth be told my Facebook keeps me from doing many things. I often times "work" deals with myself...empty the dishwasher, play on facebook...cook dinner, play on facebook. See how this works.
I've had a Facebook account for about a year. During that year, I've reconnected with some past friends, kept up-to-date with current friends and made some connections between friends. All the social aspects of facebook have been easy for me to understand and use. I love posting pictures for our friends and out of town family.
As educators I think it is very important for us to understand the technology that our students are using. The report from the National School Boards Association illustrated several statistics that support the fact that today's students are actively using social networking at home. I feel like it is our responsibility as educators to teach students the correct and safe way to use all the technology available to them. If we don't teach them this, who will? They will use the technology without our guidance, but if we implement strategies and lessons to teach them how to use these tools for education we are bettering them and society.
I don't have the answer for exactly how to safely use social networking at school, but I do so the importance of having an open mind.

Thing #7b

I love my Google reader and I'm already in the habit of checking it daily. I have several school related feeds. One of my feeds is http://groups.diigo.com/group/classroom20. This feed offers a variety of web 2.0 tools and ideas that relate to using technology in the classroom. One site that I found today was Google Tools For Schools. I played around with this and I think it is a very valuable site, especially if you love Google as much as me. It offers tutorials, ideas and other resources for using Google in education. The author of this site is a Google certified teacher. Check it out, I know you'll find something useful to use.

Thing #21- More Google

I love Google! The iGoogle homepage is very cool. I'll definitely set this as my homepage. This will allow me to have all my Google tools in one place. I played around with the settings and now my iGoogle page has my Google reader, gmail and the calendar that I set up. I'm thinking I can also add my blogger account to this page. This is the perfect way to have it all in one place. I needed a way to organize all my new learning in one place, and I found it!
I plan to utilize the Google Calendar as our office/ARD calendar. We schedule appointments, ARD meetings and other important school related items on a centralized calendar. This prevents us from double-booking ourselves and allows everyone to know what is happening. Last year we did this through our school outlook calendar, but we need the collaboration that the Google Calendar offers. I'm excited to share this with my office friends.

Thing #20- Google Docs

I love Google Docs!!! I've already used it a couple times this past school year. I signed up for the service through MISD.
The Google docs offered a way for me to complete several administrative tasks. I created a doc to collect information for the end-of-year inventory. This allowed me to have a digital record of everything. It was organized in a spreadsheet format which made it perfect for organizing a ton of data.
Another doc I created was used for collecting tutoring data. I shared this document with my teachers and instructional specialists. We used this data to inform decisions for our CIP.

At the beginning of this year, I plan to use a google doc to inventory our textbooks. Since the teachers have already had some experience using this in the Spring, I'm hoping it should be easier in the Fall.
Several teachers did have "issues" using the tool. However, these were mostly the teachers that are reluctant to using technology.

Thing #19- Voicethread

This is a new web tool for me to explore. I see lots of value for teachers using this in a classroom setting. As an assistant principal, I looked for things such as classroom management and other student issues. I found a few things of interest. The voicethread I'm including is about bullying. I enjoyed learning about relational aggression in girls. This is an issue I've dealt with many times in my office.
http://voicethread.com/share/1196457/

I see value in creating a voicethread that would allow teachers to offer their opinions or thoughts concerning campus issues. This would be like an interactive survey or poll. I'll definitely explore this some more.

Thing #18- Youtube and Teacher tube

"Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!" Brandi screaming loudly at the amount of time she spent on you tube. Oh my goodness I have to get some self control. I did find several videos that I like and could possibly use during staff development week. I looked up videos about classroom management and leadership. I also found some inspiring videos that we all love to watch.
Then I went to Teacher tube. There I looked for some "how to" stuff. I found this video on using templates in a Google Doc. This is probably an upcoming "thing" but I've already used google docs so I was interested in this video.

Thing #17- Podcasts

Podcasts were a new endeavor for me. I always knew what they were, but I'd never taken the time to explore them. First, I tried finding podcasts of interest using the Education Podcast Network. I did find the weblogged site listed here, but I already had that in my google reader. Others that I found interesting were no longer working so I moved on to other ways of finding interesting podcasts.
I use itunes often, so searching through itunes was easy. I found two podcasts that I subscribed to. I'm very interested in psychology and how the mind works so these two podcasts will feed that interest daily; Psychology in Everyday Life: The Psych Files and 60 second Psych.
I also browsed several administrative websites that I frequently use and found an educational podcast called The Whole Child Podcast.
I plan to sync my iphone daily to my itunes which will allow me access to these podcasts while "on the go." This will help me listen and learn knew things throughout my busy schedule.

Thing #16

I've now spent some time exploring Library Thing. I enjoy reading and I read many, many, many professional books throughout the year. My problem is reading for pleasure. Once I make the leap into a new book (for pleasure) I do nothing else. All I do is read, read and read until it's finished. Dishes go undone, laundry is ignored and my family longingly awaits the end of my book. So, because of my "sickness" I don't read for pleasure very often. I did enjoy exploring the site and reading the reviews. I know I could easily find a new book to obsess about on this site.
Teachers could use this site to find books that relate to the subject or topic they are teaching. I noticed many children's books are also cataloged and reviewed. I would have loved this resource as a classroom teacher.

Thing #15

Delicious is very cool! I created my account at http://delicious.com/brandikl. I like that you can have access to all your websites from anywhere. This would have helped me out many times. I plan to eventually move all my bookmarked sites here. Then I'll bundle my tags for better organization.
Delicious makes it possible to share your links and even network with certain individuals. This feature would be beneficial to a group of individuals working on a project or problem together. An example could be our campus problem solving team. If we network and subscribed to each others tags then we could all benefit from all the sites devoted to interventions.
I'm certain delicious will be my new bookmarking tool.

Thing #7a

I've been fairly diligent about looking at my google reader, but when I went to it this morning I had over 300 items not read! I know the culprit, it's TMZ, my celebrity trash gossip is cluttering my reader. Oh well, I simply marked them all as read and moved on.
I did find a very interesting story about how our brains are affected by reading and learning in a digital world. Everyone taking the 23 Things course should read this story. It directly relates to what we are learning. Author Nicholas Carr: The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains this story really has me thinking and somewhat concerned. Researchers have evidence that reading/learning on the internet actually rewires our brains. With hypertext, flashing ads and other digital distractions we are becoming weaker readers. This is a scary thought, since reading comprehension is already a problem facing our nation.
Of course, no solutions were given just the scary statistics. However, it is my opinion that as educators we have to find a good balance between integrating Web 2.0 and digital media into education without abandoning what we know works. Reading a good "old-fashioned" book is not a bad thing.

Thing #14

More exploring...I'm definitely one of those that gets sucked in and spends way too much time exploring. Most of my time just now was spent at PollDaddy.com. This is a Web 2.0 tool that I can use in my current position. Often times I need input from our teachers on various issues. This site offers a great way to create a survey. Now, I'm still trying to figure it out, so I don't know for sure, but I think I should be able to email the survey to my staff. I think we are advanced enough that most teachers will embrace completing a survey or poll on the computer. I'm really trying to complete more tasks digitally and use less paper. Go green, right?

Thing #13

First, I used the mashup Spell with flickr.

I liked using this mashup, but I'd like to be able to save it directly as an image. If it's possible I can't figure out how to do it.
Next, I played around with Image Chef. This mashup is probably my favorite since it is easy to use and you can save the images directly to your computer.
Finally, I used the Glitter Text Effect Maker. This was a fun application and I know my teenage daughter will love using this!

Thing #12

Well I did it I figured it all out without the "training wheels", but I will say that if I wasn't computer savvy it may have been a difficult task.

Photo credits:
gray rocks by: sdbrown
letter "G" by: marie-11
letter "R" by: dinglemunch
letter "A" by: Leo Reynolds
letter "Y" by: Leo Reynolds

Thing #11

I've discovered the joys of Flickr! I love it! I have a ton of photos just sitting on several computers around the house. I'd love to get them transferred to Flickr; now I just need some "free time" whatever that is...

I decided to look for some images that go along with our theme for next year: "Gray Rocks!". I once again, found myself searching images for hours. These "things" could waste a lot of my time if I allowed it. I was able to find some cool images. Now I just have to think of some creative ways to use them.

I definitely see how teachers could use these images. There is basically an image for anything you need. They could use them in slideshows or even teach students how to capture the CC images to use in projects.

Picture from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tylerdurden/3359346666/sizes/l/
tylerdurden1

Thing #10

I'm like many others and find Copyright laws VERY CONFUSING!!! I certainly understand the importance and "try" not to violate them, however I'm certain I have so I'm confessing now. With that said, Creative Commons makes much more sense. Although I've never heard of it prior to this lesson, I can definitely see the impact this can have on education and especially teachers using technology in the classroom. I took some time to explore the OER Commons and the Content Directories. Both of these have a massive amount of information; you could spend days exploring.
As an assistant principal, I often find myself looking for articles are tidbits to share with teachers. This will definitely be a place to look. I did a search for classroom management and "Oh my gosh!" a ton of information is available!
The audio, video and images available in the Content directories would also be a great resource for teachers putting together presentations or lessons. I'll be sharing this will our staff for sure!!
One interesting side note. I have a 17 year old daughter who will be a senior this year. After learning about CC, I asked her if she had heard of it or had she been taught about Copyright laws. Her answer to both was "no". Somewhat disturbing since I know for a fact she uses the Internet/computers daily at school. Just something to ponder...

Thing #9- The Sandbox

I've been playing in the wiki sandbox today. It was easy to follow the instructions and create a new page. I also loved going to the image generators and the Voki making websites. My page is made. Now, I did run into some difficulties while trying to add my link to the sandbox homepage. The homepage had changed and no longer looked like it did when I left it. I was so confused. I think it had been edited and changed. Now, that's the part of a wiki that would scare me. If I had created something I didn't want changed or want it to disappear, is there a setting to keep this from happening?
Overall, I think the wiki pages have great potential and are easy enough to use.