I'm done!!!

But not really. This of course is just the beginning.

I have been pleasantly surprised at how I have taken to many of the tools that have been presented. Massively surprised at how useful the Google suite is - now to get Google docs unblocked for kiddie use!!!!

So nice to be encouraged to look at particular sites (mostly very useful!) and being nudged all the way was essential (as was the automatic extension of time!). And I am feeling reasonably confident of having a better idea of how teenagers communicate, study and research - possibly one of my main aims of the course in the first place.......

Thank you for the ride.

#22 eBooks and #23 audio books

I like this idea. I have a great old Douglas Adams one on tape which I used to love listening to in the car when travelling heaps of distance. So I am slightly used to "reading" a book in an unconvential manner.

The audtio books should be great for me - the radio is no good during the week anymore (finally getting too old for triple J, but too young for Nova and I hate commercials!!) so this would be a great time to "read" a book (something I haven't had time to do for ages).

Whilst I love the "feel" of a book, imagine the environmental saving in paper, manufacture, delivery and storage.

#21 Youtube and Teacher Tube

Well, I have been using the former for finding heaps of excellent maths resources (right up to extension level) which I have pinned to moodle. Whilst the kids can't view from school (but I can now, yippee!!), they can from home. I haven't made as much use of Teachertube yet, mainly due to a lack of time. But will be - in fact it has just reminded me to look for work on complex numbers, and I found heaps. Our maths association also gives frequent links to good online stuff. Lots of useful info out there if you think to look for it........

#20 Podcasts

Now this is one that I had made some use of in the past. I had downloaded Happyfish to "catch" my podcasts but I found the auto download when on a quite limiting plan was a problem!! And also finding time to actually listen to them!

Having said that I have gone in and added an RSS feed to iGoogle for ABC Grandstand sport. Also jumped to JJJ for Dr Karl. Informative stuff that I'm wondering when I'll listen to (just did!! Found some great stuff about Eratosthenes working out the circumference of the earth with stick)...... but a great asset.

#19 Rollyo

Okay, getting the idea after playing for a bit. The hard part is the inspiration for what I regularly search for!!!

I've added a search roll for complex numbers (a new topic for my kids, and one where there are limited electronic resources at school) and have added sites with some nifty explanations (including a complex number calculator! How cool).

Sticking this one in delicious too.......

#18 Wikis

Well, a word that I first really heard at a SDD earlier this year, but had no idea what it was. Now I have a much better idea!

I guess it's more like a conversation board, with the 21st century twist of not actually needing to talk to anyone! But we can garner opinions of others, or put ours out to the world.

I have just added a wiki via moodle for my new extension 2 class. Let's see what we can make of it. I am hopeful that they will make good use of it to collate group summaries and encourage significant interaction (and I can be there to ensure the accuracy of the content). This is a very hard course that they will more likely survive with copious assistance from a variety of viewpoints - I can't provide that all the time, so having access to their own classmates understanding will I expect be most helpful (much better than what I had to do at Uni!!! Leaving copious phone messages for a lecturer was not fun or good use of my time!).

#17 Delicious

I LOVE this and have cheated and been using it since almost the beginning of this course. I was tipped off at a development day and am so happy that I jumped to it early.

How cool. No more cataloging of favourites and still having to hunt for a site when you want it. Now I just tag with a range of useful workds and list a tag when I'm looking for a site - no need to even remember the exact name!!! Brilliant.

I haven't made a great deal of use of it remotely yet, mainly on the home PC. But I know the functionality is there.

I have not yet investigated looking at others with similar bookmarks. On my to do list.......

# 16 RSS feeds and staying informed

Cool, finally I can see some of these that work!

I like the cartoons and I have subscribed to some education ones. And in desperation went through my old favourites file to find sites that I must like with links!!!! Best Cruises is one..... And Australian Geographic. Now how often I really want to hear from these sites is another issue altogether!!

I like the way that it simply prompted me to open my existing Google reader account and added it super easy. No cutting and pasting for me (like indicated in the video), very happy about that!!!

#15 RSS

Right, now I know what that means and I'm not scared any more!!!

But perhaps because it is late I can't think of what I want to look for!! The sites I go to often don't have an RSS feed (right, put that on my things to do - how do you add one to a website?).

I have added one, looking forward to what happens tomorrow when I go into google reader again!!!

#14 Facebook update

Okay, it just took a little time for me to realise that this could be useful......

I've chosen to focus on Facebook rather than MySpace as it seems the more "adult" one. And I found some friends here (although that was difficult).

I've set up a page for my husband's business, a great simple way to upload photos (much more difficult on our website). And I've had a live chat with someone OS that was short and fun!!

Yes, I might stick with this one. Happy to see that when I searched for some of my students I found their content was blocked - good, they are getting the message about not putting info out there for everyone to see.

Come Play!

I was wondering what would happen when I chose to add this to my blog from the other site... Now I know, it goes in the blog spot.

Have a look at this - our add to attempt to win the rights to host the soccer World Cup.

Come Play!

Posted using ShareThis

# 14 Facebook extras!!

I didn't mention that I have watched Twitter occasionally, but for purely unprofessional reasons!! I followed Lance Armstrong and some other cyclists through the Tour and it was somewhat fascinating to hear their short accounts of the day, and being able to "trust" the account since it hadn't been spun by the media. I cannot possibly think of anyone that would be vaguely interested in my posts though.

And Ning! Perhaps I am just being attracted to something listed as more professional. But I typed in engineers and got a page of credible sounding groups. And then of course dozens of cool (well I think so, perhaps you would call them nerdy) maths teacher groups.

# 13 & #14 Myspace and Facebook

Oh boring...... I have been dreading this one, but without a rational reason. I just seem to generally avoid the mainstream, and these are just oh too popular!!! Which is what has been good about this course so far, it has made me look into things that I usually would not go near.

A great success story - the Google stuff that I have gotten into.

A great loss - Myspace and Facebook! I just can't get into it. I've mucked around for half an hour and not found friends that I'm pretty sure would be on one or the other. I can be forced to understand their great appeal from teens (and therefore the very clever "marketing" by companies etc and the clever inclusion by libraries (that could otherwise not be cool enough for teens), but far out these kids need to get outside more. What was it that Billy Connolly said?: "why are they on the internet - because you wouldn't talk to them in a %#$^@ pub". Touche.

Voicethread

Oooo yeah. This was an add-on to the Flickr stuff and at first glance it is absolutely magic.

My first thoughts are that I can get my just-3 year old to talk to her picture. I then have a record of how she speaks (it's so cool right now) without needing to get the video camera out (and then have the issues of quick access years down the track).

Then the other kids can have a go and far out - what a place for my aging parents. Let Dad tell his stories to the computer and they are stored forever. And we can share them with family so easily. I thought photo books were turning into a good Christmas present, but this one tops that.

Yes, will be having a much better look at this on in daylight. Take a few minutes yourself, looks like great potential.

Update on Google books

How cool, I went to a course today and got advised to find a book - put it in Google books and there it was. Then went to Fishpond (heard about that!) and found it for a great price and in stock.

So forget going to particular websites and searching for a book, 3 minutes and it's done. Damn good work that.

There's got to be one more fish in here!

There's got to be one more fish in here!
Originally uploaded by ucumari

Two of my favourite things - a polar bear and the colour green.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

#12 Flickr

There I was thinking that I would get to bed at a reasonable time, but I thought I'd spend a minute starting this activity....

So now of course I've set up a yahoo account, and flickr, added a photo, emailed the link to myself and gotten slightly excited about how easy it will be to share photos and video with family in other bits of the world. No more huge emails (or deleted ones) and the time spent being very selective in what I send to limit the upload sizes.

I'll finish this one properly soon (i.e. look at all the supporting info) but for now, this one is rating as a winner.

#11 Library thingy

Oooo, back to something that seems academic and sophisticated - so I'm going to say this is a great site even though I haven't had a great play yet!!

One tiny issue, possibly - many of my very favourite books that I have entered have been printed many times, so they're all not "one book". I wonder if that is a search issue later (when looking for other related books that I might like), but I doubt it will be a problem. I just love how you can type in an author (such as Douglas Adams) and expect to see a few books, but there are heaps!! And one's I hadn't known existed - I take it that that is when a site like this becomes really cool. And stops you going to bed when you are knackered.

A first play here indicates that Google Books would work very nicely together with this site. Still nice to search by keyword in GB.

Nevertheless I like this one, will be sticking a widget on my blog (whatever the hell a widget is, I expect we learn that later???).

#10

Aahhhh! All that time creating a Lego character and I can't save the damn thing (or rather have given up trying). Yes, fun, waste of time, but fun.

The baby one was a bit of a worry. Uploaded a photo of my husband and I and the kiddie doesn't look like any of ours. A bit disturbed that I could encourage kids to virtually sleep with a celebrity to sus out babies!!!!

Hey, I found one I like!!! Creating jigsaws from your own photos, sounds like a cheap birthday present...... But then Jigzone has hundreds of them ready to go.

And someone else in this course (so I've nicked the idea) has used http://simpsonizeme.com/# to create a Simpsons character of yourself!! That's quick and cool. Well perhaps not that quick, but this one actually interested me!

All these sites are really for people with nothing to do!! Get me back to the practical stuff that is going to save me time!! (I know, not the point, I'm supposed to be learning about what turns kids on).

#9

Riiight.... A 5 minute look at this one indicates that it's going to be for when I have heaps of play time - which I hardly ever have!! At first glance it's not looking like a great learning-assistance tool, and I do wonder if the kids actually even know about it.

But might be a blast for the kids who are trying to avoid their maths homework so I'll get in and try and understand it better sometime soon, but right now it's in the non-essential basket (I'm still hooked on developing Google docs right now, and hoping that it won't be blocked when I try it in the computer room tomorrow....).

Oh - tried to watch the YouTube video of Intro to Second Life but it said it was private. Suits me.

And oh boy, the more I'm looking into these virtual worlds (and I'm into WoW now) I'm getting even more disinterested!! This stuff must appeal to someone, but it's not me.... do I really need to know about it!!????

Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored.....

#8 iGoogle

Okay, at first I thought "nyeh", not a big fan of this one. But after a bit of a play I've found some really useful stuff to put on this page. Such as a link to this blog, and to google docs (my greatest find throughout this course so far).

I note that I can make up my own gadget, so expect I can add my own weblinks. But that seems a bit unnecessary since I have cheated and started using del.icio.us!! There's all my favourites nicely portable, thank you.

So not too sure if I'll make great use of this one. Not a social butterfly so not into all this personalisation as yet. But possibly more useful than my usual homepage (which I am also encouraged to personalise!!).

Videos of google were nice, don't like the idea of putting on weight but most certainly appreciate the massive benefit of feeding your staff!!! There's significant time saved each day by not needing to prepare lunch, or not needing to leave the building to go get it - very clever, I assume there is no reason for anyone to leave the site. I wonder if anyone sleeps there??

Enough raving, kids to put to bed still!!!!!

I've changed the time!

Yes, I have found the place to alter the time.

So now we are in real Aussie time. Good one.

# 6

Google maps! Great idea for advertising - I've had a go at putting my husband's business on the map and am now hoping that it will load okay (I assume it's being verified by "someone").

Nice idea, I wonder how widespread they are known (just because I didn't know about them doesn't mean the rest of the world doesn't).

# 5

And there I was avoiding Google since it seems so mainstream!

I've had a quick look at the many features and am downloading Sketchup now (that's the engineer in me). I like the sound of Notebook but it wouldn't come up so I'll try that again later - I'm hearing people rave about Onenote (which I don't have either) so would really like to hear from people out there who have experience in either, or preferably both.

I've also looked blankly at the screen of Google docs (which of course is what I'm supposed to be looking at) but can't get inspired to sus that out right now. Would be nice to see a short bit of video on that one!!

Okay, after a short break I did get enthused enough to try a document. Not bad, posted my comments into the document but now I can't get the damn thing to share!! Says I need to verify my account, but of course I've done that already!! Too hard basket, at least I can see it........

I had trouble with reading the articles until I got to the straight-to-the-point one Marketing 2.0. Simply ideas, reinforcing that Web 2.0 is about 2-way communication (unlike a webpage that I might edit which is predominantly my ideas and without the provision for ease of comment).

Interesting how Web 2.0 is characterised not by software updates but rather by constant evolution.

Education 2.0 (which I skimmed through - so wordy late at night!) worries me slightly with potential students having possible issues with ensuring the validity of their educational institution. Online it can be from "anywhere". I welcome comments from those that read this article thoroughly to correct me on this point.

I'm up to 13 of my 43 things.....

There are oodles of useful links here, but they are one giant web!! I can't help feeling that I am going to go off on a tangent (maths teacher, remember?!) following a useful thread and then forget what I was doing in the first place.

So for now I have several windows open and I am adding text like this is several places. Like an online to do list. Very useful and I won't recycle it by mistake.....

Hey hey!!! Now I know where the word "blog" comes from!!

I always thought this was a very unattractive word and that has certainly discouraged me from looking into it - but now that I find it is short for "weblog" and now it sounds much more organised!!!

Hello all, Alison here and I have successfully commenced my blog from at home!!

Either I did something daft at school or the DET did, as I did not appear to be able to do this from school. So now I have homework!!

I hope you all have made a good start and are not worrying about the marking that you have not done on the weekend (like me).

Let's enjoy the journey........