Thing #18

I finally visited You Tube for the first time today. I've always avoided it because you always hear about all of the negative things that are posted there. When I embarked upon my mission of finding four useful or personally meaningful segments, I thought it would be a challenge. I was amazed at how quickly I located the nostalgic/fun video-the YouTube Orchestra. The universal cultural appeal of music, and it's ability to bring people of all backgrounds/cultures/life circumstances together, is personified in this orchestra. It reminded me about how music has always been a personal mode of expression for me, and a source of friendship and comraderie, as well as accomplishment. I have drifted away from it since becoming a parent-I probably haven't played an instrument since my second child was born almost four years ago. That video inspired me to pick up my flute again. Second, since my husband and I will be repainting our home this summer, I thought I should learn how to repair drywall holes. I found an excellent example for repairing larger holes in drywall.

I had to try TeacherTube for more useful material related to my field, speech pathology. I found a word document posted to TeacherTube, giving ideas for using a simple communication device with students. I also found a video on TeacherTube that demonstrates using a communication device with VoiceThread, so I'm very interested in learning more about VoiceThread and how I might use that with my students.

Thing 17

Podcasts are really amazing. It is a great way to supplement instruction and keep students' interest. The multisensory and differentiated learning components are built into the Podcast. I explored a few related to reading and language. I subscribed to one for grammar rules, as I felt that it would supplement my grammar lessons in a more interesting way. I also liked the Word of the Day podcast. I thought it would be easy to incorporate into my lessons to increase vocabulary incrementally. I fell in love with the Just another Book! podcast, because the participants' love of children's literature really resonated with me. I know I will use some of their reviews to help me plan language literature units for my students. I am looking forward to summer, when I can research other relevant podcasts in more depth!

#16

LibraryThing is so cool! I love all the groups of people on the website that have gravitated to certain genres of writing. It really does make so much sense, and it's very easy to use. I'm looking forward to using it at a personal level to get additional book suggestions to read for pleasure. I hope to discover some new authors, as well. From a classroom perspective, it seems like it could be used to find additional books about a particular topic, for example with a class project assignment. I really love the social aspect of bringing people with similar reading interests together. I also am impressed with the local activity and event feature of the site. This site is a book-lover's dream come true!

Thing #15

I love the Delicious website! I am very excited to use the websites I bookmarked to vary my lesson plans and get fresh ideas for helping my students in therapy sessions. The field of speech pathology has changed so much since I start 10 years ago! It's nice that so many resources are available on the web, for free. I have also enjoyed all of the free and inexpensive continuing education opportunities available in the DFW area, and in MISD. I found some wonderful indexes of SLP websites that I plan to review over the summer, as I think about my caseload, plan therapy approaches, and select new additions to my therapy library. This is my favorite tool that we have discussed from the course so far. To see the sites I have bookmarked in Delicious, go to http://www.delicious.com/rkubala.

Thing 7a

It was a joy to revisit my google reader and find so many interesting articles with useful information. I want to briefly reference two interesting posts in my RSS aggregator: one about chore charts which helped me rethink my incentive plan/schedule, and a wonderful blog from David Warlick reflecting on possible solutions for the high school drop out problem. For some reason this year, I have been struggling with managing my incentive system. I didn't want to betray student confidentiality with a sticker chart, but now I think I will use student initials, store the chart in a cabinet, award stickers on the chart (with dates recorded somehow) and I will then have an incentive tracker as well as my attendance, all on one chart. I also like the applications for family use, with chores management, while adding an incentive. I loved the information about preventing dropouts. It is definitely a multifaceted problem that requires us to work together with a variety of solutions. It takes a village (of people and ideas)!

Thing #14

I really had a lot of fun with this activity. I am a list-maker, so I tried my hand with TaDa lists and 30 boxes. It's important that they have the social sharing feature, to help families keep in touch and coordinate activities and schedules. I already use Google calendar, and didn't see the advantage of 30 boxes over Google. I have used Writeboard earlier in the course, I think, and found it useful. I loved the possibilities of Mix Book for customizing grade appropriate texts for some of my self-contained students. I also think Polldaddy looks like a great tool with lots of possibilities for data collection and interactive assignments. Wordle looks like an interesting, engaging way to introduce new vocabulary, information, and ideas. The possibilities are endless!

Thing #13

This was such an interesting activity! I had so much fun looking at the Flickr Color Pickr, Comic Strip Generator, and the Custom Sign Generator. The image to the right is from the Comic Strip Generator, which I found easiest to use. I simply searched for a familiar, old favorite cartoon character, then selected my favorite frame from the samples listed, scrolled down and changed settings to customize the strip. It was a very straight forward experience. I really enjoyed looking at the Flickr Color Pickr, and spent some time wondering how the creator of the site managed to organize that task as computer code.

There are multiple educational implications for the sites I looked at. Certainly it helps a student be much more organized and creative in their classwork. Students can use these tools in their school projects, for everything from creating an fictional advertizing brochure, to adding interesting images to presentations. All of the activities I tried today were motivating, engaging, and fun, which also aids in the learning process.