Cuddling Down Into the Sleeping Bag: Thing 5

As I am writing this, I have been on Facebook. It is the tool I used to keep in touch with my love ones and friends. It has been an awesome tool to reconnect with them while I am able to continue on with my everyday life. I can do the dishes, post, mop the floor, post, and feed the kids. I can keep in touch with my mom and my favorite band (who actually writes me back) while I am able to keep living! I'm on it so much that I do not dare share the number of ...hours per days.
Twitter, to me, is pretty useless. I have not yet met a person who likes it. It also seems pointless. If you are celebraty chaser, then Twitter is for you.

Roasting Marshmallows for Dessert: Thing 4

The advantages of having www.youtube.com available to students are the easy access to other students' book reviews. I have seen students make reccommendations and book reviews on books that we are reading. Other students also make reinactments of books with an interesting twist. Atherton by Patrick Carman has excellent videos.

Making Dinner over the Fire: Thing #3

I downloaded Skype with no problemjust held the control button down most of the time. I tried it and called my mom in California. I was so thrilled! But I realized that I was leaning into the monitor talking to the screen. Microphone, not there! Why I was doing that? Not sure. However, I went to call Texas Techie and then they wanted me to buy Skype Credit. No thanks. I guess it would be great for me to keep in contact with my friends and family from around the world.
Students could use this as a video chat session with other classroom who might be learning the same or similar concepts.

Setting Up Your Campfire: Thing #2

I have used Wordle for Poetry. It allows the students work to be a piece of art as well. I have used Animoto for a start of an unit to capture the students attention and interest in the new concept. Students could use the Animoto for Texas Hero project or even cause and effect. Bookr is a neat little device because students do not have to search, save, and upload pics. Flickr provides that for you.

My son says the Voki is strange and looks like a confused woman. Thanks, Son.

Start by Pitching Up Your Tent: Thing #1

Online learning and multi media learning is incredible because the learning is self-directed. If you want to learn more you can and share that knowledge with others. It motivates you to go more in depth with your own personal learning. Students will be the expert of a topic in class whether it is a part of the Water Cycle or Texas Hero. Teachers can always go back to the student throughout the year and refer back to their "Resident James Bowie Expert." I guess that is the one of the benefits of jigsawing a topic and online learning takes it a step further by sharing their research and knowledge with the world through blogs, podcasts, and wikis.