Task 23 Final Post, Just the Beginning

Though this is the final task I think it is just the beginning for me. Yesterday as I was doing 22 I set up a blog on Teacher lingo and was pleasantly surprised to find someone not only read my blog but took time to respond. It was easy to read the comment because it was sent to my email. It felt so good that someone out there was hearing me. That some stranger had words that I needed to hear. That the stranger took a minute to respond. Awesome! I'm not sure I'll blog there often but when I have a funny or weighty experience I have a place to go.

About this program. I want to thank my sister for incouraging me to start. I have learned so much and it was great to have her help me, talk to me, respond to me and fix my blog a few times. The program overall pushed into places I didn't know existed. Luckily it was in the summer which gave me extra time to really dig in. I never felt it was a burden, just pleasurable, sometimes challenging work.

Things I will use:
Rollyo! I will use my owned defined search to quickly find videos and activitis that I will use in science. I will not waste time wading through search responses from places I won't use. I am so excited to share this with friends at work.

News feedsL I set up a couple of news feeds to alert me by email when earthshaking stuff is happening such as quakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, mudslides...What I have discovered is that I get alerts almost everyday. Statewide, Earth science is the lowest score area on the 5th grade TAKS and we are always looking for ways to bring that up. I'm think just talking about what is really happening out there on a daily basis might help.

Nings will stay part of my routine. We have set up a faimly ning and I joined Teacherlingo as I mentioned earlier.

Image creators. I can hardly do a post without creating some little cartoon to go with it. It will drive my students crazy but I envision these showing up on agendas, notices, tests, studyguides..Perhaps it will replace my singing. No, I don't think so.

Flickr Creative Commons. As a science teacher I am always looking for images. This will supplement videos, textbook images, and posters and will be helpful for ELL kids who just need a concrete image to go with a term.

Yahoo Avatars...Fun, fun, fun.

Mashup sites. I think these will be great places for student projects. I hope I don't forget to use them.

These are the things that just pop in my mind without even peeking back. I think that means that these things I will actually use, not that learning about the ohter things wasn't valueable.

I couldn't get my survey to submit and I'll come back to that. Is that how you know we have completed the tasks? I suppose.