I enjoyed visiting Ning. When you join you have to wait for approval which was no big deal, but did slow me down a bit yesterday.  I think my favorite stop of my hunt was Smart Girls Have More Fun A web-show with Amy Pollar from SNL.  I’m looking forward to watching all the episodes with my own children.

The other amazing site I went to was the Flat Classroom Project . “Over 3 years ago the first ‘Flat Classroom Project 2006′ was created that connected our classrooms in Dhaka, Bangladesh and Camilla, Georgia, USA. Since then we have developed a series of global collaborative projects including Digiteen, Horizon Project/Net Generation Education, and Eracism, many of which run 2-3 times per year and have included 1000′s of students from numerous countries, cultures, backgrounds and geographic locations.”  This work was so exciting.  It was wonderful to see the high school aged kids connecting with other students around the world.  My early ed brain is spinning about how we could do something similar with younger students.

My ning.com journey was also lead me to Soul Travelers 3 .  This family sold everything and are traveling around the world to home school or “world school” their daughter.  Amazing!

I also joined Classroom 2.0 and have looked through the beginner section and the forums. I intend to make a profile page and explore this site in more depth.  I think my one complaint about the site is it is a bit overwhelming.  The intro section was helpful, but I honestly feel like I need to “practice” with this site more for it to be helpful for everyday use.  One thing I found extremely exciting was the site on using Video in the Elementary Classroom

I’ve already added that site to my Google reader and delicious account.  I am very excited about the forum section of Classroom 2.0.  I think it will keep me from constantly reinventing the wheel.  If I have a web 2.0 idea.  I can put it in forums and get folks input from around the world!

Though I don’t get to it every single day I do enjoy my google reader.

I think that the Salon.com feeds are really informative and  fun.  The Salon book section provided me with the 2 articles I skimmed today.   10 places not to see before you die    Was a funny article and slide show from the book . “101 Places Not to See Before You Die” I must admit I did feel a bit bad for Mount Rushmore.

The second book review I read was Best fantasy books for children I think I might check out  Forgotten Door by Alexander Key for my son.   The Google Reader is keeping me up to date.  My scanning headline reading skills are improving to be sure.

I’ve been exploring Pageflakes this afternoon.  I intend to go back and work on one to make my homepage so I can check out my favorite sites when I sit down at my computer to check e-mail.  I have already added the top 10 ten iTunes list and I’m going to add the PBS science site Dragon Fly TV.

I also think I’d like to try a pageflake instead of a wiki as a class site.  This way I can not only communicate with my class but I can suggest RSS feeds and Websites that would be helpful for my families to be exploring with their children.  I can show a calendar of upcoming events and share kids podcasts and presentations. This seems like a perfect spot to add weekly pictures and home enrichment activities

I also think this would be a helpful school wide tool for our principal & the board to use to keep the staff and families on the same page with relevant information.

Here’s my Pageflakes page so far.

Again this Class and my Intech Class have opened me up to whole new world.  This time with Google docs. I have created a website with Google Sites that includes a link to the blog, a podcast, a movie I edited together with movie maker, and a presentation

Here’s the presentation I created with Google Docs

Click here to view  My Website

I also copied my Dali unit into Google Docs so I can access it from any computer and work on it whenever and where ever I am

YouTube videos I watched

Writing Lessons : How to Teach Expository Writing for 2nd Grade

Improve Reading Fluency by Using iPods & Teaching with Technology

Reading and Technology in the Elementary Grades

♫ SALVADOR DALI – Amazing Digital Art – Ψηφιακή Μαγεία ♫

Mugglesam Presents An Interview With Salvador Dali

Get Surreal with Dali

I explored YouTubes that I could use both teaching basic subjects in Second Grade and Youtubes I could incorporate into the Salvador Dali unit I’m creating.  I found that there was actually some overlap between YouTube and Teacher tube in Reading and Technology in the Elementary Grades .

I found the videos very easy to embed into my Blog.  I ended up embedding 6 videos because I thought they would be useful for me in the fall.

I’m getting very excited by the possibilities of my Dali unit .  I think the class could produce a TeacherTube video at the end of our Dali Unit that will highlight the classroom Dali Museum I hope we create.  I hope the video will be a great reminder to the students and their family of all they have learned and produced during the unit but also show other schools all we learned and how much 7 and 8 year old students are capable of learning.

I was lucky enough to have explored podcasts before either of my tech classes and I subscribe to several.  Some of my favorites have been meditation pod-casts.  This week I explored some education podcasts.  My favorite one was. Dragon Fly TV from PBS.  It is actually a Vodcast with wonderful science lessons done by kids.  I then used audacity to make my own podcast.  My sons favorite project in Third grade was making a podcast on the Okefenokee Swamp.  He loved recording it and learned so much. It was great to share with our family as well as his other classmates.

my podcast URL

I checked out and joined LibraryThing!

I added just a few of my favorite books and looked though the site to discover reviews and book clubs .  I searched one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Gilbert to learn about her new book and the groups that are celebrating her work.  I can see this site being helpful in the classroom but also for personal use.  I love the idea of being in Book Clubs but the reality is that I  don’t have time to add one more thing to my plate.  This gives me a way to socially interact with others about the books I’m reading from home. This site also challenges you  to set book reading goals. This site also seems like a fantastic tool for any teacher trying to get ideas for books for lessons and projects.

I have just finished my other web 2.0 class (Intech) and it looks like it is going to help me with my last few “things” for this class.  I am very excited about beginning to use the delicious site to organize my bookmarks.  I did several things while exploring this site.  I quickly and easily added my old bookmarks to the site.  I am going through them and weeding out the ones I no longer use and adding tags to the sites I do frequent.  I then took a few minutes to add the sites we studied in my Intech class.  This reinforced my notes and insures I’ll be able to find those exciting sites again.  It was so easy!!! I love the feature where you highlight info and click the tag button and it adds the highlighted text into the note sections of your bookmark.  The bookmarks are easy to access with the 3 buttons I added to my toolbar.  For fun I added NPR Song of the Day .  I also bookmarked my website page, the West GA Moodle site and this blog among other things. I had fun adding tag words to cross reference my bookmarks.  I often just clicked the suggested tag words but occasionally added a word or 2 that I thought might help me .

This is a wonderfully practical “Thing” to have as a resource.

I have really enjoyed  using my Google reader.  I’ve gotten pretty good at scanning the titles and just reading what seems relevant or interesting to me. One of my favorite feeds is from Steve Spangler’s Science  site.  Today I read an entry about How to Clean Up an Oil Spill. It  was informative and I think could be a good jumping off point when talking to kids about the oil spill.  The spill in the Gulf has be so depressing and overwhelming.  I think it’s important for students to have a chance to talk about it but to see that there are some solutions out there.  Perhaps the class could try to brainstorm how else they could help.