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.